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Transit capital funding includes $34M to construct new SeaBus

Funding deal announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also includes upgrades to North Vancouver bus exchanges

A $740 million in transit funding announced Thursday by the federal and provincial governments and Metro Vancouver’s TransLink authority will allow construction of a new SeaBus, paving the way for a third vessel to eventually go into regular service on the Burrard Inlet crossing.

The funding also includes money for upgrades to both the Phibbs and Lonsdale bus exchanges in North Vancouver.

But money to actually put a third SeaBus into service, and for additional bus service on the North Shore, won’t be in place until the province and Lower Mainland mayors can reach a deal on how operating costs of service expansions should be funded.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the funding announcement about capital projects for the Lower Mainland at TransLink’s operations centre in Burnaby Thursday.

The funding includes $370 million from the federal government’s public transit infrastructure fund, $246 million from the province and $125 million from TransLink. Money for TransLink’s portion of the funding will come from sale of the former Oakridge Transit Centre land in Vancouver.

Capital projects that will be funded by the money include construction of a $34 million new SeaBus, $41 million towards Lonsdale and Phibbs bus exchange upgrades, upgrades to SkyTrain stations, 28 new rail cars for the Expo and Millennium SkyTrain lines, 22 new cars for the Canada Line, as well as design and planning for rapid transit south of the Fraser and the Broadway subway line in Vancouver.

The projects announced Thursday are part of an “early roll-out plan” of the mayors’ council for TransLink improvements.

The funding announced this week will “kick start some critical projects,” said District of North Vancouver Mayor Richard Walton, and is welcome news for the North Shore.

Construction of a new SeaBus is expected to take about two years.

But Walton warned the money announced Thursday only provides capital funding – with no money to operate transit improvements, including a third SeaBus.

“We don’t have the operational capacity to run three right now,” he said.

TransLink currently has four SeaBuses – including two original vessels that are 40 years old and nearing the end of their operational life. The transit authority is upgrading one of those vessels, the Burrard Beaver, and plans to retire the other vessel, the Burrard Otter, when that project is complete. A third SeaBus, Pacific Burrard Breeze, was put into service just before the Olympics in 2010. A fourth vessel, Burrard Otter II, was commissioned in 2014.

Construction of a new vessel would allow TransLink to put the three newer vessels into service, allowing 10-minute service during peak periods, while keeping the oldest vessel as a spare. TransLink is also working on a plan to increase frequency of off-peak SeaBus service, using existing vessels.

But those plans – along with increases to regular bus service for the North Shore - are dependent on the province and Lower Mainland mayors working out a deal on how to fund operational costs for an expanded service, said Walton – an issue currently at an impasse.

In April the mayors’ council wrote to the province suggesting ways to pay for transit expansion in the Lower Mainland including fare box increases, reallocation of provincial carbon tax revenue, an increase in property taxes being collected by TransLink, collection of fees from developments near transit lines and a new vehicle levy.

But Walton said so far there’s been no response from the province.