Editor:
The real reason for the newest flavour of taxation policies - road pricing - to further fund a decrepit regional transit authority can be laid squarely at the feet of both the SkyTrain light metro and the B.C. Liberal government pilfering of gas/carbon tax monies for general revenue.
Despite the hype and hoopla about SkyTrain, the proprietary light-metro is just too expensive to build and operate, as evidenced by the Canada Line, which is not SkyTrain at all, but a cheaper, off-the-shelf knock-off. SkyTrain was too expensive for the Canada Line.
On Page 15 of The Cost of Transporting People in the BC Lower Mainland, a joint 1993 GVRD/Ministry of Transportation report, it was revealed the annual provincial subsidy for SkyTrain was $157.6 million; the combined subsidy for the diesel and trolley buses was just $132.4 million. With the addition of the Millennium Line, this subsidy increased to over $200 million and with the Canada line, this annual subsidy has now surpassed $300 million.
It becomes easier to see why there is no extra money for TransLink, because TransLink is already quietly getting a big chunk of transit cash from the province.
The Evergreen Line will only add to this annual subsidy, further exacerbating problems with TransLink's dubious finances.
When the Gordon Campbell Liberals gained office, they instantly reduced taxes and greatly increased user fees and levies. To maintain revenue, the B.C. Liberals diverted gas tax and carbon tax monies into general revenue, to balance the books. Tax monies earmarked for regional transportation just disappeared into the black hole of general revenue.
TransLink is deliberately hiding the real truth about its ongoing financial malaise because it has compliant regional mayors that seem to be ever so willing to destroy their political careers to force yet onerous another tax on the taxed-out local taxpayer. Does any one of them remember the HST debacle?
Road pricing is all about keeping the status-quo with the bloated bureaucrats at TransLink, who like alcoholics refusing to accept that they are addicted booze, are addicted to dated transit planning and continue to squander huge sums of tax monies on SkyTrain such as the UBC SkyTrain subway in Vancouver.
Road pricing is all about weak politicians merely being told what to do by their bureaucrat masters. Road pricing is all about once again screwing the taxpayer to pay for bureaucratic and political hubris.
Malcolm Johnston
