THE District of West Vancouver pays too much money to TransLink and Metro Vancouver for too little service, according to Mayor Michael Smith.
Its TransLink. Its a completely dysfunctional organization, he said. They have a board of directors. The provincial government controls the ultimate power. They have the mayors council that recommends, and the provincial government rejects, and they have a TransLink commissioner who costs $500,000 a year and nobody knows what he does.
Smith delivered the exasperated rebuke of TransLink and the province before heading out the door to a TransLink mayors council meeting after a West Vancouver Chamber of Commerce breakfast Wednesday.
The statement came in response from a chamber member who questioned whether it would be possible to get the bus trip from West Vancouver to downtown changed into a 1-zone fare, since it is a shorter distance than it would be from other 1-zone trips like Marpole.
TransLink is a real issue that, as citizens and as businesses, we really need to get something better, particularly on the North Shore where we dont have rapid transit but we do pay a lot.
During the meeting with local businesses, Smith pledged to use his spot on the mayors council to resist any moves by mayors to pay for transit with higher property taxes.
One of the things I can do for business is get to the TransLink meeting which starts and 9 a.m. and hopefully prevent them from passing, which theyve already passed, the property tax hike. Metro Vancouver and TransLink love West Vancouver because its the same (percentage) per $1,000 on assessed property value for all of their levies.
