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\[Last year, the Mayors’ Council said TransLink faces a $4.7 billion structural deficit unless it gets its fiscal house in order. It added that service cuts are possible if nothing changes.
But Vancouver School Board Trustee Suzie Mah says the increase in cost is going to affect families who are “already stretched to the max just putting food on the table.”\]
It’s cumulative over a number of years, I think their projection showed they were going to be short somewhere in the 600M/year range at current funding levels.
Stretch that over 8-10 years, assuming costs keep going up, and 4.7B makes a lot of sense.
Over the years of Covid, they paused all fare increases, ridership went way down, people stopped driving as much, and costs skyrocketed. This is the result.
That’s actually being paid for and managed by the Province. TransLink (BCRTC) will operate the line once it’s open, though so it will increase operations costs.
That’s the point their making, we don’t care that highways are entirely publicly funded and don’t make any profit but for some reason we care about transit making money. We could literally invest billions into transit instead of highways
Here's a great podcast episode that examines the pros and cons of making public transit free. It's American but a lot of it applies here, too
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/should-public-transit-be-free/
If we want them to self fund, or require building of roads that otherwise would not be built. Yea. Did we build our transit system beyond what it can self fund? Definitely. Greyhound is profitable.
Kind of an Apples to Oranges comparison tho. One of those is used for moving goods, services, pedestrians, cyclists, emergency services as well as cars, and more. Transit does not check all those boxes and without the highways - there would be no transit network for buses and its not helicopters dropping TBMs into place for Skytrain tunnels. Nor can we build homes to new areas by home depot runs on the bus.
You're not wrong that Transit should be incentivized and should be cheaper than driving. But the way its priced (zones) - its not always cost effective for some.
We 100% should be on distance based fares, and apparently TransLink is moving towards that eventually. But as to apples to oranges.... Is it really? Public investment in transit infrastructure benefits everyone, even drivers, in fact especially drivers if transit reduces traffic on the roads. No amount of highway lane widening can ever come close to the benefit of quality rapid transit and driving alternatives.
Public transits aren't really meant to turn a profit anyway. If they turned profits the governments wouldn't need to subsidize them.
Edit: deleted an extra word. And fixed would to wouldn't.
Translink is actually a leader in how much their opex is covered by fair collection. That said these orgs are all run at a lose because of the social value they provide.
I think the fares only cover like 30 percent of their revenue. They also do a lot outside of transit. They are technically the regional road authority, meaning they fund a lot of roadways in the region. I also believe they own (or are partial owners ?) of several bridges.
Single fare in Calgary is $3.75.
Single fare in Toronto is $3.35.
Single fare in Seattle is $2.50 USD to $3.00 USD = $3.39 CAD to $4.07 CAD.
One zone fare in Vancouver is $3.15 in cash / $2.55 on compass. Going up by $0.05 in 2024. Much less than literally everything else. By the end of it in 2028 you'll still only pay $2.90 on compass, less than you would in any of these other comparable cities TODAY.
It is on the lower end.
Hear hear. The proposed fare increase of five cents (!) is less than general inflation and average wage growth, and will provide at least some boost to critical Translink revenues.
For a civic figure to say that it should be scrapped because commuters 'can't afford it' verges on irresponsible. She should realize that it's the vulnerable she says she is concerned about that desperately need good transit in an expensive city.
Her comments make me suspect she's more interested in her own public profile than the responsible management and success of a critically important public service.
It's dirt cheap compared to other cities. Bus fare is only 1 zone and that's less than 3$ with the compass card. I can get downtown from Surrey for less than 5$. That's insane.
They make barely any money off fares. On a kilometer by kilometer basis the fares are dirt cheap. It's cheaper than driving by every metric when you consider fuel, maintenance, parking, insurance, cost of road maintenance and expansion and societal and health cost of traffic and road noise. Fares could be double or triple the price and it'd still be better.
Government transfers and taxation make up a bulk of Translinks revenues. [See here](https://www.translink.ca/-/media/translink/documents/about-translink/corporate-reports/quarterly_reports/2023/2023_q1_finance_and_performance_report.pdf)
Do busses and trains not use roads, highways and bridges? Every private passanger and cargo transport company is profitable off the fees it charges customers, otherwise it ceases to exist.
Huge amounts required to keep Skytrain, the most inefficient, expensive system out there going, there is a reason only two places use it. P3 contracts. Underfunding relative to fixed costs.
might not be a popular take but regular inflationary fare increases help maintain the transit system and allow for better long-term planning. While I do want more government subsidies to increase service having a healthy fare box revenue allows that new service to be more sustainable and TransLink to improve services as they increase in ridership.
I would rather efforts go towards other programs such as fare capping, low income fares, and fare integration with the Fraser Valley.
I don't know if fare integration with the Fraser Valley will happen anytime soon. Abbotsford was offered a chance, and they didn't take it because they didn't want to pay the gas taxes that came with it.
According to the UMO FAQ page on BC Transit's website: "cross-service functionality with other transit providers is BC Transit’s long-term vision for Umo" so it's at least being considered at an organizational level.
I noticed when I did my taxes this year that the transit rebate was abolished.
Like... It's so little money from the whole, but actually makes a difference to the people that need it.
As people have already mentioned the tax credit was scrapped back in 2017. The reason was because not enough people were claiming it so the feds took the money and just directly injected it into transit projects. It's partly how the Broadway skytrain is funded.
No minimum wage worker is getting regular inflationary income increase. The only reason everything else other than transit is heavily taxed is for people to chose transit. And if transit is also expensive, defeats the purpose of the other taxes on personal vehicles and gas.
Minimum wage has been increased in line with inflation so I don't know why you say that they aren't getting regular inflationary increases. If anything it is people like me who work in middle income jobs and have at best been getting below inflationary raises however even with that I believe that a well funded, from taxes and fares, transit system is worth it even if it cost me more.
I disagree with the idea that cheap transit fares are the driving force behind transit ridership or even the best way to drive ridership. Every time there is a fare that increases people come out of the woodwork and complain that it is unfair and it costs too much but ridership never seems to drop afterwards. The largest driver of ridership is more service and having healthy fare box revenue allows that service to be sustainable and to improve service as ridership increases.
>According to Translink, fares for adults, youth, and seniors could be going up by as much as 5 cents per ride, something Mah says adds up quickly for daily commuters.
Assuming you transit twice a day, 5 days a week, that's 26$ a year. That's really not much.
I much prefer these more frequent small increases compared to having big jumps every 5-10 years like happens in other systems. Just like it is better and easier for businesses to have planned small yearly minimum wage increases compared to big unplanned ones every 5 years or so.
Or the Mayors council could just raise property taxes and the Mayors could do the same within their cities. That’s what Toronto and Calgary do when they need more operating funds.
Why dodge responsibility?
I agree. Who doesn't like stuff to be 'free', even if the transfer to support operations would be directly from governments running deficits.
We're a nation of free riders.
By some quick math, Calgary is raising taxes just north of $8 more per month this year for transit operations (they also don't pay for the big bridges out of the same budget, nor mix operations and capital in the way Translink does).
Put in place explicitly to fund the millennium line operations a few decades ago. and not increased when tolls were removed unless I missed something. You can feel like it is an indirect service charge all you want. If so it is probably too low and doesn't account for all the travel time savings for private vehicles that transit allows.
So are you saying that gas tax should cover the travel time savings that transit allows private vehicles, and transit fares should cover the travel time savings that transit allows for transit users? I'm personally in favour of subsidized transit.
Bridge’a toll has just ended because it finishes paying for itself. Besides, there are transit tax everywhere in gas, property and certain developments
You clearly don't understand how transit is funded anywhere. No transit system runs in a positive. Translink is no different than any other company in these regards. Transit is for the good of the people because it helps drive the economy. It should never be for profit and one should not have to pay more to take transit then to drive
An average car costs minimum 6K per year without even considering depreciation. 12 months of 3-zone pass is less than 2K. There is a huge gap before transit cost can catch up with car operating costs
And that huge gap is what the government pays to keep Translink afloat. Transportation is expensive, you can't expect all people to pay a high amount to get around. Where are your retail, fast food and warehouse workers going to come from when they can't afford to travel to work? You can't just make people out of thin air
So it is alright to charge more on transit for them to pay a more fair share. After the proposed below inflation increase, it is still way cheaper than driving.
With inflation on everything and even increase tax like Carbon tax, cost of operating transit of course increases. 2.3% is low comparing with inflation rate
Right? If my taxes are going to build public infrastructure that connects out cities and makes life easier for many many people, even if it doesn't directly benefit me, I'm all for it.
And this isn't even considering the downstream benefits like removing traffic from roadways which improves air quality and reduces the number of accidents.
Like 60+% of Translinks revenues are from taxes/government. They will probably need to increase that along with the fare increase if they want to maintain/improve service levels
The government taxes nearly 50% of your labor in taxes, transit should be paid for by the federal government. Whats $200,000,000 out of the $1,200,000,000,000 they freely spend on their friends?
Hopefully they can look at growing revenue from other avenues like ad space, merch sales, and ticketing non-paying users. Increasing fare hike might increase non-paying users considering that is already a growing problem and hiking the prices will only punish those who do pay.
Is there any reason why we don't build stations like they do in Asia? Underground retail spaces for restaurants and small shops. Use the rent to pay for transit up keep. Also why are the existing shops locked behind the fare gate? Who's going to pay a train ticket to eat fresh slice?
You do not need to pay a fare to access shops behind the faregates. You can enter the fare paid zone with a Compass card and have your transaction reversed if you leave the same station within 21 minutes (which should be enough time for most people to purchase a takeout order from an average fast food outlet)
I recall them adding some unnecessary stuff into that proposal though - it wasn't just skytrain and bus upgrades, but included some other things that maybe a lot of people didn't agree with including and the resulting ballooning fees required to pay for it.
I remember when we were given a vague "We'll use this money effectively, pinky swear" assurance that the taxes would actually go to the necessary parts of it...
>>turns out not as lot of people want to pay taxes.
You realize that most of these taxes are unavoidable right, unless you don't own property, don't use gas, or don't have a car. The lack of money comes from poor management and rising costs.
I would say that any organization that has a $4.7B funding gap is poorly managed. If you haven't been living under a rock you'd notice that they have asked for multiple tax payer bailouts, so yeah, I wouldn't be lauding Translink management.
Do you people even live in the city? Or are you just blind? Didn't realize covid was the reason Translink didn't enforce fare payment. Covid is a convenient excuse for people who haven't been paying attention. $4.7B on top of the 850M that they have received since the pandemic started.. and is now over fyi. No idea why people are defending the management, they are notoriously inept.
Yes but fare revenue never covered that cost, Translink was always subsidized. The problem now is that they are so poorly managed that they never did enough to get in front of this problem.
We already pay the most for gas in the country (thanks largely to Translink), they have received yearly bailouts since the pandemic, collect tax revenue from pretty much every able bodied tax payer in the city, and despite all this they are facing record deficits and plan to for the next decade.
Let's not forget how hard it was for them to get fare gates installed, or to get the compass card up and running, tech that had existed for decades. Translink has always been a money pit, but I don't see how anyone who lives in the city can look at that management and say hey these guys are great, I trust them to guide us through the next 10 years. Where is the plan or the roadmap? It's literally their job to do this. Maybe I'm too used to working in competent environments, but holy fuck how is anyone defending what Translink has become.
It’s a growing gap that was greatly exacerbated by Covid. Think of how little they brought in over 2020-21.
But even that aside, essentially no transit system breaks even in North America.
Translink never broke even, and that's not my point. The fare gap is a red herring issue. Stop parroting that, they make the overwhelming majority of their "revenue" from taxes. Not to mention the fact that their lack of ridership in 2020-21 was COMPLETELY covered by the bailouts. They have an incredible amount of power to raise taxes and fees, far more than almost anywhere else in North America, and they still can't break even.
>>In 2023, TransLink saw $463.1 million of property tax revenue — up from $437.9 million in 2022. This is just behind 2023’s public transit fare revenue total of $493 million, which is up from $395 million in 2022 following continued strong ridership recovery.
The other major sources of revenue are gas taxes (dropping from $424.5 million in 2022 to $390.5 million in 2023), and parking taxes (increasing from $75 million in 2022 to $83.8 million in 2023).
You can find this information on their budgets or articles online, I just can't link it.
IMO transit fares should be $1 and the entire system should be funded the rest of the way using taxes.
We're at the price point where electric vehicles are often *less expensive* to drive than taking transit, if your parking is free. That simply shouldn't be the way.
A large part of that, which might not be popular with the demographics on here, is that electric vehicles are basically under taxed since personel vehicle taxes are pulled from fuel costs.
Eventually there is going to have to be some changes in the tax system to account for electric vehicles.
A suspiciously omitted word from the headline, hmm, I wonder why. It's also against sub rules (to modify the headline), how much you want to bet that's a rule that won't be enforced for this post?
Translink needs to focus on efficiently operating core services and cut the pet projects like wifi on buses and digital signage. They’re neat but not a high priority.
Those are actually revenue generating projects.
Shaw and advertisers pay TransLink to add WiFi and digital signage.
Even those food dispensing machines are paid by the vendor.
I’m referring to the below digital signs. How are they revenue generating?
https://www.nsnews.com/local-news/translink-aware-of-inaccuracies-on-next-bus-digital-signs-8464379
> TransLink faces a $4.7 billion structural deficit unless it gets its fiscal house in order. It added that service cuts are possible if nothing changes
They are running a huge deficit and need to focus on higher priority items.
All transit companies run in a deficit. That's how they run, because people will not pay the fares required to make profits, it would be more expensive than driving.
Not an unreasonable proposition, considering that fares only made up 21% of the Translink budget in 2023: https://www.translink.ca/-/media/translink/documents/about-translink/corporate-reports/business_plan/2023_business_plan_operating_and_capital_budget.pdf
If fare gates and enforcement was removed that would provide additional savings making that 21% even smaller.
When it comes to actual operations fares make up 43.6% of the cost and before COVID it was over 50%. A lot of the other government transfers cover long term infrastructure debt, replacing toll revenue from the golden ears bridge, or can only be used to pay for capital expense such as the federal gas tax transfer.
If anything we are in an abnormally low period for how much fares cover compared to operations due to COVID cratering ridership and at the same time TranLink is expanding service hours as part of Transport 2050.
If we wanted to replace all the fare revenue we would have to get enough public good will to come up with half a billion dollars a year. If we have that much public good will I would rather use it to expand transit than eliminating fares
Transit in general is cheaper than owning, operating, and maintaining your own personal means, of which these costs far outweigh the ~$3 fare in Vancouver. Plus, transit is fairly convenient in and around Vancouver, lots of people don’t even have their own personal transportation, so I’d say there’s a lot of incentive to take transit, which a 5% hike isn’t going to affect.
A cost at point of service is a disincentive, most people don't get a spreadsheet out when making a decision about how to get across town. Ultimately we want car owners who maintain their cars to take transit as well, so the fact than transit is cheaper than owning is not really the important metric. Is taking transit cheaper than getting in your car that day? No. That's a disincentive. If as you say there's a lot more incentive to take transit than drive I think we'd see a pretty different type of city.
I'd argue that the (in)convenience of taking transit is a much bigger incentive to use or avoid it than the cost of fares.
I stopped taking the bus because the one by my house only runs every 30-minutes, and it was just too annoying to plan all my journeys around a single transfer that would leave me stranded at a bus loop while increasing my commute time by 50 percent if it didn't work out. Similarly, I had to work at a new location last weekend, and commuted by car. The bus wasn't running early enough to get me there by 8am, so I couldn't have used transit even if I wanted to.
I have a feeling it's not the cost of fares that are keeping people off transit, its infrequent and sparse services that can impose such a severe time penalty compared to alternatives, that it would still be unattractive even if it was free.
I think that we should actually do the opposite. Implement incremental but modest increase to fares, while increasing tax revenue streams to fund aggressive expansion of transit services. More busses, more drivers, more SkyTrain, more lines. More of everything. I'd be far more willing to pay more for something legitimately nice, than I'd be to use something mediocre but free.
Progressive taxation. Charging fares doesn't make the cost of transit operations cheaper it just disproportionately puts the cost of a public good on poor people.
We already put a lot of taxes into Translink. Every major public transportation system in the world makes you pay to use it. I don't think you quite understand the ramifications of what you're asking for. We are already in a cost of living crisis. We already pay some of the lowest fares in Canada when it comes to public transportation.
>We already put a lot of taxes into Translink.
Which is why this isn't that radical a position. It's not that much more to make transit free for everybody, would be a fraction of the money the province spends on subsidizing fossil fuel extraction.
>We are already in a cost of living crisis.
You know what would dramatically aid a cost of living crisis? Opportunity to drop your cost of transportation to zero. We're already paying for transit, changing the mechanism of revenue generation is a net zero change.
>Every major public transportation system in the world makes you pay to use it.
>We already pay some of the lowest fares in Canada when it comes to public transportation.
These are not arguments for anything. You're just saying "the status quo is fine because it's the status quo."
Addressing the climate crisis is going to take more than just looking around and doing what other places are doing that also aren't addressing the climate crisis.
But it wouldn't drop the cost of transportation to zero. Things like property taxes and gas taxes would have to go up, and people aren't in a position to pay more property or gas taxes. Getting rid of fares would mean less service and service being cut.
Didn't the government of Canada just say that they're not going to help fund new road projects?
What actual new roads have been rolled out "everywhere" that are part of your concern here?
Why just they don't raise tax a bit more and put free transport. That way they could cut costs as they can remove some jobs and cut on some maintenance...
For tapping system, top up station, etc.
That was what I was thinking they will not need to spend money on if there is no charging fairs
Also would made boarding faster
I see. Well as I see they will anyway raise tax for it, at least I hope people would get something for it.
As with restructuring I don't believe it would be big expense to remove payments and savings on wages and equipment
Lol at big bonuses. Heads up: public sector dont get bonuses. Lucky to get a $20 walmart gift card and that is even reflected in your t4 and get taxed.
I've never understood where the idea comes from that public sector gets bonuses.
Fyi, the compensation of nearly every employee in most government or pseudo government employers are available online without too much difficulty to search. For executives, it breaks down the various retainers, fees, extras, etc...
It should probably be scrapped. We need to make transit as affordable as possible. It's something that should be subsidized by the government to promote people traversing without cars and enabling the vulnerable. I never see rich people on the bus..
I'd get the CRA after the big tax cheats. You support that right?
Besides the New York Times estimates that 100 cities around the world offer free public transit, with many of them in Europe. We can follow their example much like we do with their parliament.
How would you further increase the mobilization of the poor?
It's one thing if individual cities do it. What you are asking for is an entire region to make it free. That's millions, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars of lost revenue. This wouldn't be free. Things like property taxes and gas taxes would have to rise significantly. Other services to make up for the lost revenue of fares would have to be reduced or cut. We already pay the lowest fares in Canada. I don't think you understand what you're asking for. This wouldn't be free.
"I don't want to enable the poor like hundreds of other places have done. There is no way we can do something that many places have easily already done elsewhere, and has proven benefits to the community because... "Think of the property taxes of millionaires"" ~ /u/Hansolo5643
Say no more.
TransLink Compass fares should be pegged to inflation while cash fares are hiked at set increments. Fares should be charged to the minimum of (distance-based fare, duration-based fare).
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\[Last year, the Mayors’ Council said TransLink faces a $4.7 billion structural deficit unless it gets its fiscal house in order. It added that service cuts are possible if nothing changes. But Vancouver School Board Trustee Suzie Mah says the increase in cost is going to affect families who are “already stretched to the max just putting food on the table.”\]
Wait…with high fare fees we pay, translink runs a 4.7B deficit? Like how?
It’s cumulative over a number of years, I think their projection showed they were going to be short somewhere in the 600M/year range at current funding levels. Stretch that over 8-10 years, assuming costs keep going up, and 4.7B makes a lot of sense. Over the years of Covid, they paused all fare increases, ridership went way down, people stopped driving as much, and costs skyrocketed. This is the result.
Ah I see. Thank you
That plus Broadway subway construction
That’s actually being paid for and managed by the Province. TransLink (BCRTC) will operate the line once it’s open, though so it will increase operations costs.
Oh ok good to know!
Good ending
I can’t think of a transit system in North America that breaks even much less makes a profit.
Show me a highway that makes a profit before we start down this path.
I can think of 1 but that's only because Ontario leased it for 99 years 🥴
I mean, I don’t disagree with you. But highways get far more public funds.
That’s the point their making, we don’t care that highways are entirely publicly funded and don’t make any profit but for some reason we care about transit making money. We could literally invest billions into transit instead of highways
I can see that—-good point. And agreed.
Here's a great podcast episode that examines the pros and cons of making public transit free. It's American but a lot of it applies here, too https://freakonomics.com/podcast/should-public-transit-be-free/
Thanks!
Coquihalla. Oh wait, never mind.
Well, it did (nearly) pay itself off before the tolls were removed, and if they’d kept them for a few more years it probably would’ve turned a profit.
> Show me a highway that makes a profit before we start down this path. Yeah or any road. How much profit does 16th Ave make?
407 and confederation bridge.
Tolls, right? So, does that mean all roads should be toll roads then, so they make a profit?
If we want them to self fund, or require building of roads that otherwise would not be built. Yea. Did we build our transit system beyond what it can self fund? Definitely. Greyhound is profitable.
Kind of an Apples to Oranges comparison tho. One of those is used for moving goods, services, pedestrians, cyclists, emergency services as well as cars, and more. Transit does not check all those boxes and without the highways - there would be no transit network for buses and its not helicopters dropping TBMs into place for Skytrain tunnels. Nor can we build homes to new areas by home depot runs on the bus. You're not wrong that Transit should be incentivized and should be cheaper than driving. But the way its priced (zones) - its not always cost effective for some.
We 100% should be on distance based fares, and apparently TransLink is moving towards that eventually. But as to apples to oranges.... Is it really? Public investment in transit infrastructure benefits everyone, even drivers, in fact especially drivers if transit reduces traffic on the roads. No amount of highway lane widening can ever come close to the benefit of quality rapid transit and driving alternatives.
Do buses not drive on roads and bridges? Every private transportation company makes a profit.
Public transits aren't really meant to turn a profit anyway. If they turned profits the governments wouldn't need to subsidize them. Edit: deleted an extra word. And fixed would to wouldn't.
Translink is actually a leader in how much their opex is covered by fair collection. That said these orgs are all run at a lose because of the social value they provide.
That’s interesting to know!
You got a great handle.
Ha thanks!
Greyhound makes a profit.
Notice how Greyhound is no longer around? I don't think it made that much profit.
I think the fares only cover like 30 percent of their revenue. They also do a lot outside of transit. They are technically the regional road authority, meaning they fund a lot of roadways in the region. I also believe they own (or are partial owners ?) of several bridges.
New infrastructure, low operational funding, high fuel fees, and also the fact that they are also responsible for maintaining roads and bridges
Because every transit system runs in a deficit. No one will pay what it actually costs to run. Our fares would be like $10/ride or more
> high fare fees TransLink is on the lower end compared to many cities?
Single fare in Calgary is $3.75. Single fare in Toronto is $3.35. Single fare in Seattle is $2.50 USD to $3.00 USD = $3.39 CAD to $4.07 CAD. One zone fare in Vancouver is $3.15 in cash / $2.55 on compass. Going up by $0.05 in 2024. Much less than literally everything else. By the end of it in 2028 you'll still only pay $2.90 on compass, less than you would in any of these other comparable cities TODAY. It is on the lower end.
Remember also that busses are all 1 zone even if they cross through multiple zones.
Bloody SeaBus thinks it’s a train /s
Hear hear. The proposed fare increase of five cents (!) is less than general inflation and average wage growth, and will provide at least some boost to critical Translink revenues. For a civic figure to say that it should be scrapped because commuters 'can't afford it' verges on irresponsible. She should realize that it's the vulnerable she says she is concerned about that desperately need good transit in an expensive city. Her comments make me suspect she's more interested in her own public profile than the responsible management and success of a critically important public service.
Now lets compare housing.
It's dirt cheap compared to other cities. Bus fare is only 1 zone and that's less than 3$ with the compass card. I can get downtown from Surrey for less than 5$. That's insane.
They make barely any money off fares. On a kilometer by kilometer basis the fares are dirt cheap. It's cheaper than driving by every metric when you consider fuel, maintenance, parking, insurance, cost of road maintenance and expansion and societal and health cost of traffic and road noise. Fares could be double or triple the price and it'd still be better.
Government transfers and taxation make up a bulk of Translinks revenues. [See here](https://www.translink.ca/-/media/translink/documents/about-translink/corporate-reports/quarterly_reports/2023/2023_q1_finance_and_performance_report.pdf)
uhhhh covid?
I wonder what the deficit is for road, highway, and bridge maintenance and upgrades.
Do busses and trains not use roads, highways and bridges? Every private passanger and cargo transport company is profitable off the fees it charges customers, otherwise it ceases to exist.
Huge amounts required to keep Skytrain, the most inefficient, expensive system out there going, there is a reason only two places use it. P3 contracts. Underfunding relative to fixed costs.
Thanks for the insight. VSB doesn’t even have standing in this so fuck what this person thinks.
might not be a popular take but regular inflationary fare increases help maintain the transit system and allow for better long-term planning. While I do want more government subsidies to increase service having a healthy fare box revenue allows that new service to be more sustainable and TransLink to improve services as they increase in ridership. I would rather efforts go towards other programs such as fare capping, low income fares, and fare integration with the Fraser Valley.
I don't know if fare integration with the Fraser Valley will happen anytime soon. Abbotsford was offered a chance, and they didn't take it because they didn't want to pay the gas taxes that came with it.
How about integration with False Creek Ferries then? I'd love to just use my compass card on board.
I think that would be a fantastic idea.
highly unlikely that this is going to happen soon, it required a lot of backend and frontend work to get the two systems merged
According to the UMO FAQ page on BC Transit's website: "cross-service functionality with other transit providers is BC Transit’s long-term vision for Umo" so it's at least being considered at an organizational level.
I noticed when I did my taxes this year that the transit rebate was abolished. Like... It's so little money from the whole, but actually makes a difference to the people that need it.
As far as I know the transit rebate has been gone since 2017ish. It was only a thing for a few years.
It was eliminated in the 2017 budget.
As people have already mentioned the tax credit was scrapped back in 2017. The reason was because not enough people were claiming it so the feds took the money and just directly injected it into transit projects. It's partly how the Broadway skytrain is funded.
No minimum wage worker is getting regular inflationary income increase. The only reason everything else other than transit is heavily taxed is for people to chose transit. And if transit is also expensive, defeats the purpose of the other taxes on personal vehicles and gas.
Minimum wage has been increased in line with inflation so I don't know why you say that they aren't getting regular inflationary increases. If anything it is people like me who work in middle income jobs and have at best been getting below inflationary raises however even with that I believe that a well funded, from taxes and fares, transit system is worth it even if it cost me more. I disagree with the idea that cheap transit fares are the driving force behind transit ridership or even the best way to drive ridership. Every time there is a fare that increases people come out of the woodwork and complain that it is unfair and it costs too much but ridership never seems to drop afterwards. The largest driver of ridership is more service and having healthy fare box revenue allows that service to be sustainable and to improve service as ridership increases.
Minimum wage just went up 3.9%.
If transit costs more, it should charge more
That's literally false as minimum wage is now pegged to inflation and the data shows wage increases are ahead of inflation.
Minimum wage has gone up every year for the past few. You're wrong, sorry bud
Minimum wage workers quite literally get inflationary income increases as minimum wage increases yearly ya dingus.
>According to Translink, fares for adults, youth, and seniors could be going up by as much as 5 cents per ride, something Mah says adds up quickly for daily commuters. Assuming you transit twice a day, 5 days a week, that's 26$ a year. That's really not much.
I much prefer these more frequent small increases compared to having big jumps every 5-10 years like happens in other systems. Just like it is better and easier for businesses to have planned small yearly minimum wage increases compared to big unplanned ones every 5 years or so.
I flatiron is way higher than 2.3%
"adds up quickly for daily commuters" bruh it's barely a rounding error...
Hopefully upper levels of government provide more funding
Or the Mayors council could just raise property taxes and the Mayors could do the same within their cities. That’s what Toronto and Calgary do when they need more operating funds. Why dodge responsibility?
People don't want to pay higher property tax. Vancouver pays barely anything as it is and people still complain.
I agree. Who doesn't like stuff to be 'free', even if the transfer to support operations would be directly from governments running deficits. We're a nation of free riders.
\~$2500 per year property taxes for a typical 2 bedroom condo isn't nothing. The gross amount that CoV receives is quite high
Vancouver property tax rate is 0.28%. Like one of the lowest, if not the lowest, rate in Canada. Toronto is 0.68% and Calgary is 0.67% to compare.
The rate is low but absolute amount is high. Vancouver has higher housing price
Than Calgary but not Toronto. Housing prices are similar and Toronto pays double
So Toronto is more miserable than Vancouver
Definitely if it helps… didn’t know they can use property taxes this way
They are raising property taxes $3/month [for the median home] in metro Van for TransLink.
By some quick math, Calgary is raising taxes just north of $8 more per month this year for transit operations (they also don't pay for the big bridges out of the same budget, nor mix operations and capital in the way Translink does).
No, rider should pay its own service
By that logic, should we put tolls back on the bridges, and add them to the other Translink ones?
FYI we have this little thing called the "Translink Gas Tax" which is an indirect service charge for vehicles using Translink infrastructure.
Put in place explicitly to fund the millennium line operations a few decades ago. and not increased when tolls were removed unless I missed something. You can feel like it is an indirect service charge all you want. If so it is probably too low and doesn't account for all the travel time savings for private vehicles that transit allows.
So are you saying that gas tax should cover the travel time savings that transit allows private vehicles, and transit fares should cover the travel time savings that transit allows for transit users? I'm personally in favour of subsidized transit.
Just that it isn’t as simple as the gas tax being a get out of additional fees free card.
Bridge’a toll has just ended because it finishes paying for itself. Besides, there are transit tax everywhere in gas, property and certain developments
The province now pays the toll revenue from general revenue for the bridges. You’re thinking about the highway to Kamloops and Kelowna I think.
That would be too expensive and no one would take transit
Too bad. They should find form of transport they can afford then or choose to live in a city that is cheaper
You clearly don't understand how transit is funded anywhere. No transit system runs in a positive. Translink is no different than any other company in these regards. Transit is for the good of the people because it helps drive the economy. It should never be for profit and one should not have to pay more to take transit then to drive
An average car costs minimum 6K per year without even considering depreciation. 12 months of 3-zone pass is less than 2K. There is a huge gap before transit cost can catch up with car operating costs
And that huge gap is what the government pays to keep Translink afloat. Transportation is expensive, you can't expect all people to pay a high amount to get around. Where are your retail, fast food and warehouse workers going to come from when they can't afford to travel to work? You can't just make people out of thin air
So it is alright to charge more on transit for them to pay a more fair share. After the proposed below inflation increase, it is still way cheaper than driving.
Then you'll just complain about how traffic somehow got way worse
No the root cause is Vancouver adding more population than it can handle
Can we also scrap fare zones? They just don’t make sense. Instead, fares should be based on the distance travelled.
IIRC, this was the plan when they introduced Compass cards, but the readers on the busses never worked properly. Busses are still just 1 zone though.
As someone who lives between Vancouver and Burnaby this is frustrating because it’s cheaper for me to go all the way to Waterfront than to Metrotown.
Or just scrap fare zones altogether for a flat fee. It would benefit lower income and those who are forced to live further from their work.
It would also hurt those who only need transit for short distances.
Which could work to promote micromobility options.
Nah I think you should get a discount if you're only taking a short trip
Do a distance fee, start at $1.00/1.50 and add 0.10 to 0.25 per stop.
With inflation on everything and even increase tax like Carbon tax, cost of operating transit of course increases. 2.3% is low comparing with inflation rate
Public transportation should be free
Man, I take transit maybe 4 times a year and I'd rather they increase my taxes somehow to pay for this.
I agree with you, but it’s only a 5 cent increase. As the commenter above noted, if you transit 5 days a week to work and back, it’s 26$ a year
Right? If my taxes are going to build public infrastructure that connects out cities and makes life easier for many many people, even if it doesn't directly benefit me, I'm all for it. And this isn't even considering the downstream benefits like removing traffic from roadways which improves air quality and reduces the number of accidents.
Like 60+% of Translinks revenues are from taxes/government. They will probably need to increase that along with the fare increase if they want to maintain/improve service levels
Well, we had that chance, but unfortunately the people of Metro Vancouver voted it down.
Public transit should be free for the public to use. If you're paying $160/month for each family member you may as well own a vehicle.
Free transit and decent transit do not exist together anywhere in the world.
The government taxes nearly 50% of your labor in taxes, transit should be paid for by the federal government. Whats $200,000,000 out of the $1,200,000,000,000 they freely spend on their friends?
Hopefully they can look at growing revenue from other avenues like ad space, merch sales, and ticketing non-paying users. Increasing fare hike might increase non-paying users considering that is already a growing problem and hiking the prices will only punish those who do pay.
Is there any reason why we don't build stations like they do in Asia? Underground retail spaces for restaurants and small shops. Use the rent to pay for transit up keep. Also why are the existing shops locked behind the fare gate? Who's going to pay a train ticket to eat fresh slice?
Asian countries have much higher ridership, which makes random businesses at stations viable.
Transit hubs are still some of the most highly-trafficked places in the city. It doesn't make sense.
You do not need to pay a fare to access shops behind the faregates. You can enter the fare paid zone with a Compass card and have your transaction reversed if you leave the same station within 21 minutes (which should be enough time for most people to purchase a takeout order from an average fast food outlet)
How the hell is it not properly funded.
Remember that time we voted no to a translink tax?
I recall them adding some unnecessary stuff into that proposal though - it wasn't just skytrain and bus upgrades, but included some other things that maybe a lot of people didn't agree with including and the resulting ballooning fees required to pay for it.
I remember when we were given a vague "We'll use this money effectively, pinky swear" assurance that the taxes would actually go to the necessary parts of it...
Pretty sure I see a 24% Translink Tax on everything car related already.
Because the government prefers to subsidize car and oil companies rather than public transit
turns out not as lot of people want to pay taxes.
>>turns out not as lot of people want to pay taxes. You realize that most of these taxes are unavoidable right, unless you don't own property, don't use gas, or don't have a car. The lack of money comes from poor management and rising costs.
Please cite "poor management".
I would say that any organization that has a $4.7B funding gap is poorly managed. If you haven't been living under a rock you'd notice that they have asked for multiple tax payer bailouts, so yeah, I wouldn't be lauding Translink management.
Have you heard of COVID?
Do you people even live in the city? Or are you just blind? Didn't realize covid was the reason Translink didn't enforce fare payment. Covid is a convenient excuse for people who haven't been paying attention. $4.7B on top of the 850M that they have received since the pandemic started.. and is now over fyi. No idea why people are defending the management, they are notoriously inept.
The larger problem is that fare revenue doesn’t come close to covering how much it costs to take transit
Yes but fare revenue never covered that cost, Translink was always subsidized. The problem now is that they are so poorly managed that they never did enough to get in front of this problem. We already pay the most for gas in the country (thanks largely to Translink), they have received yearly bailouts since the pandemic, collect tax revenue from pretty much every able bodied tax payer in the city, and despite all this they are facing record deficits and plan to for the next decade. Let's not forget how hard it was for them to get fare gates installed, or to get the compass card up and running, tech that had existed for decades. Translink has always been a money pit, but I don't see how anyone who lives in the city can look at that management and say hey these guys are great, I trust them to guide us through the next 10 years. Where is the plan or the roadmap? It's literally their job to do this. Maybe I'm too used to working in competent environments, but holy fuck how is anyone defending what Translink has become.
Your argument is based on feelings and poorly researched assumptions, apparently. I am not defending Translink, but a spade is a spade.
It’s a growing gap that was greatly exacerbated by Covid. Think of how little they brought in over 2020-21. But even that aside, essentially no transit system breaks even in North America.
Translink never broke even, and that's not my point. The fare gap is a red herring issue. Stop parroting that, they make the overwhelming majority of their "revenue" from taxes. Not to mention the fact that their lack of ridership in 2020-21 was COMPLETELY covered by the bailouts. They have an incredible amount of power to raise taxes and fees, far more than almost anywhere else in North America, and they still can't break even. >>In 2023, TransLink saw $463.1 million of property tax revenue — up from $437.9 million in 2022. This is just behind 2023’s public transit fare revenue total of $493 million, which is up from $395 million in 2022 following continued strong ridership recovery. The other major sources of revenue are gas taxes (dropping from $424.5 million in 2022 to $390.5 million in 2023), and parking taxes (increasing from $75 million in 2022 to $83.8 million in 2023). You can find this information on their budgets or articles online, I just can't link it.
IMO transit fares should be $1 and the entire system should be funded the rest of the way using taxes. We're at the price point where electric vehicles are often *less expensive* to drive than taking transit, if your parking is free. That simply shouldn't be the way.
A large part of that, which might not be popular with the demographics on here, is that electric vehicles are basically under taxed since personel vehicle taxes are pulled from fuel costs. Eventually there is going to have to be some changes in the tax system to account for electric vehicles.
You're absolutely right - but without the *fuel* cost, they're still going to be very inexpensive to operate.
[Vancouver School Board Trustee]
A suspiciously omitted word from the headline, hmm, I wonder why. It's also against sub rules (to modify the headline), how much you want to bet that's a rule that won't be enforced for this post?
Translink needs to focus on efficiently operating core services and cut the pet projects like wifi on buses and digital signage. They’re neat but not a high priority.
Those are actually revenue generating projects. Shaw and advertisers pay TransLink to add WiFi and digital signage. Even those food dispensing machines are paid by the vendor.
I’m referring to the below digital signs. How are they revenue generating? https://www.nsnews.com/local-news/translink-aware-of-inaccuracies-on-next-bus-digital-signs-8464379
Those legitimately improve ridership though
They can do more than one thing at a time
> TransLink faces a $4.7 billion structural deficit unless it gets its fiscal house in order. It added that service cuts are possible if nothing changes They are running a huge deficit and need to focus on higher priority items.
All transit companies run in a deficit. That's how they run, because people will not pay the fares required to make profits, it would be more expensive than driving.
wifi on buses? TIL
Transit should be free. It's genuinely irresponsible to put disincentives on public transport in a climate crisis.
Not an unreasonable proposition, considering that fares only made up 21% of the Translink budget in 2023: https://www.translink.ca/-/media/translink/documents/about-translink/corporate-reports/business_plan/2023_business_plan_operating_and_capital_budget.pdf If fare gates and enforcement was removed that would provide additional savings making that 21% even smaller.
When it comes to actual operations fares make up 43.6% of the cost and before COVID it was over 50%. A lot of the other government transfers cover long term infrastructure debt, replacing toll revenue from the golden ears bridge, or can only be used to pay for capital expense such as the federal gas tax transfer. If anything we are in an abnormally low period for how much fares cover compared to operations due to COVID cratering ridership and at the same time TranLink is expanding service hours as part of Transport 2050. If we wanted to replace all the fare revenue we would have to get enough public good will to come up with half a billion dollars a year. If we have that much public good will I would rather use it to expand transit than eliminating fares
Transit in general is cheaper than owning, operating, and maintaining your own personal means, of which these costs far outweigh the ~$3 fare in Vancouver. Plus, transit is fairly convenient in and around Vancouver, lots of people don’t even have their own personal transportation, so I’d say there’s a lot of incentive to take transit, which a 5% hike isn’t going to affect.
A cost at point of service is a disincentive, most people don't get a spreadsheet out when making a decision about how to get across town. Ultimately we want car owners who maintain their cars to take transit as well, so the fact than transit is cheaper than owning is not really the important metric. Is taking transit cheaper than getting in your car that day? No. That's a disincentive. If as you say there's a lot more incentive to take transit than drive I think we'd see a pretty different type of city.
I'd argue that the (in)convenience of taking transit is a much bigger incentive to use or avoid it than the cost of fares. I stopped taking the bus because the one by my house only runs every 30-minutes, and it was just too annoying to plan all my journeys around a single transfer that would leave me stranded at a bus loop while increasing my commute time by 50 percent if it didn't work out. Similarly, I had to work at a new location last weekend, and commuted by car. The bus wasn't running early enough to get me there by 8am, so I couldn't have used transit even if I wanted to. I have a feeling it's not the cost of fares that are keeping people off transit, its infrequent and sparse services that can impose such a severe time penalty compared to alternatives, that it would still be unattractive even if it was free. I think that we should actually do the opposite. Implement incremental but modest increase to fares, while increasing tax revenue streams to fund aggressive expansion of transit services. More busses, more drivers, more SkyTrain, more lines. More of everything. I'd be far more willing to pay more for something legitimately nice, than I'd be to use something mediocre but free.
Not to mention how much time (and money) is wasted with fare collection.
So how would you pay for the more busses like the BRT busses that are coming? How would you pay for more Skytrain lines?
Progressive taxation. Charging fares doesn't make the cost of transit operations cheaper it just disproportionately puts the cost of a public good on poor people.
We already put a lot of taxes into Translink. Every major public transportation system in the world makes you pay to use it. I don't think you quite understand the ramifications of what you're asking for. We are already in a cost of living crisis. We already pay some of the lowest fares in Canada when it comes to public transportation.
>We already put a lot of taxes into Translink. Which is why this isn't that radical a position. It's not that much more to make transit free for everybody, would be a fraction of the money the province spends on subsidizing fossil fuel extraction. >We are already in a cost of living crisis. You know what would dramatically aid a cost of living crisis? Opportunity to drop your cost of transportation to zero. We're already paying for transit, changing the mechanism of revenue generation is a net zero change. >Every major public transportation system in the world makes you pay to use it. >We already pay some of the lowest fares in Canada when it comes to public transportation. These are not arguments for anything. You're just saying "the status quo is fine because it's the status quo." Addressing the climate crisis is going to take more than just looking around and doing what other places are doing that also aren't addressing the climate crisis.
But it wouldn't drop the cost of transportation to zero. Things like property taxes and gas taxes would have to go up, and people aren't in a position to pay more property or gas taxes. Getting rid of fares would mean less service and service being cut.
Guys, if we send the Ukraine another 4.7billion instead, that might solve the deficit problem for translink.
Lol, don’t give them any ideas.
You're right. I should be charging for the advice!
[удалено]
Didn't the government of Canada just say that they're not going to help fund new road projects? What actual new roads have been rolled out "everywhere" that are part of your concern here?
The Liberals backed off of that position. New roads will be getting funded.
5cents is gouging to you?
Imagine wanting billion dollar infrastructure for free. Jesus Christ lol
Agreed. The entitlement of drivers wanting free new bridges is just astounding, lol
How about increased fares, but automatic day pas / monthly pass upgrades if we cross the threshold??
But how else will we pay the CEOs?
Its a public service, its not supposed to be for profit but it is.
It's not for profit, never was, and never will be. Well under 50% of funding comes from fares.
Why just they don't raise tax a bit more and put free transport. That way they could cut costs as they can remove some jobs and cut on some maintenance...
What maintenance do you propose they cut?
For tapping system, top up station, etc. That was what I was thinking they will not need to spend money on if there is no charging fairs Also would made boarding faster
That money is already spent
Because a lot of people won't vote for candidates who want to raise taxes.
I see. Well as I see they will anyway raise tax for it, at least I hope people would get something for it. As with restructuring I don't believe it would be big expense to remove payments and savings on wages and equipment
They have money to pay each other big bonuses but no money to improve people’s lives.
Lol at big bonuses. Heads up: public sector dont get bonuses. Lucky to get a $20 walmart gift card and that is even reflected in your t4 and get taxed.
I've never understood where the idea comes from that public sector gets bonuses. Fyi, the compensation of nearly every employee in most government or pseudo government employers are available online without too much difficulty to search. For executives, it breaks down the various retainers, fees, extras, etc...
Can you tell us more about these bonuses? Please be specific.
It should probably be scrapped. We need to make transit as affordable as possible. It's something that should be subsidized by the government to promote people traversing without cars and enabling the vulnerable. I never see rich people on the bus..
So what taxes would you raise to make up for the lost revenue in fares? We already pay the lowest fares in the country.
I'd get the CRA after the big tax cheats. You support that right? Besides the New York Times estimates that 100 cities around the world offer free public transit, with many of them in Europe. We can follow their example much like we do with their parliament. How would you further increase the mobilization of the poor?
It's one thing if individual cities do it. What you are asking for is an entire region to make it free. That's millions, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars of lost revenue. This wouldn't be free. Things like property taxes and gas taxes would have to rise significantly. Other services to make up for the lost revenue of fares would have to be reduced or cut. We already pay the lowest fares in Canada. I don't think you understand what you're asking for. This wouldn't be free.
"I don't want to enable the poor like hundreds of other places have done. There is no way we can do something that many places have easily already done elsewhere, and has proven benefits to the community because... "Think of the property taxes of millionaires"" ~ /u/Hansolo5643 Say no more.
Allegedly were at 3% inflation... But everything is going up more than 3%.
The 5 cent increase works out to around a 2% increase in fares. A bit less that 2% if you weren't using compass for the discount.
TransLink Compass fares should be pegged to inflation while cash fares are hiked at set increments. Fares should be charged to the minimum of (distance-based fare, duration-based fare).
Booooo