Transit users will be a major driver of Metro Vancouver’s $7.5-billion transportation plan, as regional mayors hope to draw more riders, and ultimately more revenue, to the transit system in the next 10 years.
A funding strategy unveiled by the mayors’ council Thursday suggests the region’s transit riders will contribute $560 million more in fare revenue over that time to the beleaguered transit authority, with more buses and increased service hours, another SeaBus and the proposed Broadway subway line in Vancouver and light rail in Surrey. The increased service, the mayors say, would mean 70 per cent of Metro Vancouver residents would live within walking distance of a a transit station or bus route.
The new Evergreen SkyTrain Line and a 2018 fare increase of two per cent, calculated at between five cents and 20 cents a trip, are also expected to bolster revenues.
“When you add these types of new services, you can significantly increase ridership,” New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Cote said. “Certainly there’s a number of different components that make the plan work. We wouldn’t be taking these on initially if we didn’t feel it would have an impact on travel behaviours.”
Without the transportation plan, TransLink estimates the system would add only about six million journeys — either through single trips or additional transfers — over the next 10 years, mainly on the Evergreen Line, which goes into operation next year. TransLink expects the 10-year plan would boost that number by another 43 million trips to a total of 286 million journeys, because of the addition of the Broadway subway and Surrey’s light rail, said Mike Buda, executive director of the mayors’ council.
Plans for mobility pricing, which could include tolling all the bridges or charging drivers a fee-per-distance travelled, is also aimed at getting more people out of their vehicles and onto transit, but that will likely take at least five years to work out.
Maple Ridge Mayor Nicole Read worries that increasing transit fares in 2018 could be a problem, especially in areas where transit service has declined.
TransLink has acknowledged that a transit fare increase discouraged ridership in 2013, which is only now starting to rebound, rising by 1.1 per cent last year. The recent boost was credited partly to TransLink’s decision to change all bus trips to a one-zone fare as part of the Compass Card rollout, but the transit authority forecast a $1.1-million decline in revenue this year as the Compass card takes full effect and the number of cash fares drops dramatically.
Buda said service hours have been on the decline since 2009 as TransLink struggled to find new funding sources to expand services, but he doesn’t expect a two-per-cent fare increase to have a huge effect on ridership because the 11-kilometre Evergreen Line and additional buses should be running before the ticket price goes up.
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Construction on the Evergreen Line rapid transit project. Pictured is the Moody Central station.
“If you increase fares without increasing service, it will have an effect at some point,” he said. “That’s why we want to increase services before we increase fares … to mute the negative impact.”
TransLink is reviewing its transit fare structure for the first time in 30 years, which could lead to replacing the three-zone system with a flat fare or a distance-based fee. A one-zone fare right now, for instance, is $2.75, while a two-zone is $4 and a three-zone fare — say from Vancouver to Surrey — is $5.50.
Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner, who is also-vice-chair of the mayors’ council, said, she believes the fare increase is small enough to have a negligible affect on ridership. “We haven’t increased fares for very long time,” she said.
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Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner: “We haven’t increased fares for very long time.”
Increasing fares is just one of the measures being considered by the mayors council to fund transportation, after the public rejected a sale tax increase in a plebiscite last year. Other proposals include raising property taxes, selling off surplus properties and slapping fees on developers in return for allowing higher density around transit lines. Surrey and Vancouver have also pledged to provide land and services to help offset the costs of the Broadway subway and light rail projects.
The mayors, who are responsible for operating TransLink, must come up with 17 per cent of first phase of the 10-year plan to cash in on $370 million in available federal funding. But it’s facing another hurdle: The provincial government, which is responsible for 33 per cent of the costs of the plan, says it will only formally commit its funding for the first phase and not the entire plan.
The province has also rejected the mayors’ request to get $50 million from the carbon tax for transportation, which means they will have to find another funding source. But Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, chairman of the mayor’s council, said the mayors should be able to fill the gap, either by increasing fuel taxes or a vehicle levy, and said he is optimistic the province will hold true to its pledge to support the entire plan.
“The mayors are waiting for a written proposal from the B.C. government that hopefully includes a full commitment to the 10-year plan,” he said.
Meanwhile, West Vancouver Mayor Mike Smith said the province should return full control of TransLink to the mayors so they can “get on with it.”
“It’s too important to play games,” he said.
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