Dear Editor:
Before proceeding further with mobility pricing, answers to a critical question must be supplied to the public. The critical question is “what major factors have led to this state of gridlock?” Knowing these factors will lead to cost effective solutions that will be supported by taxpayers. Any other efforts will only lead to the status quo and thus a waste of scarce resources.
In search of possible answers, I started with the history of TransLink: public transport has gone from the private BC Electric to BC Hydro (1961) to TransLink (1982). Since 1961 there has been one or more layers of politicians, namely, provincial and municipal, involved in determining the future of Metro’s transportation. This seems to me as a major problem. Municipal politicians are by nature parochial. This group argues a lot and seldom agrees on anything. When they do agree, the provincial politicians, who have all the power, do not support their municipal counterparts, example: in 2000 the NDP turned down a vehicle levy; from 2009 on the Liberals refused support for demands for funding sources and I need not detail the ill conceived, executed and failed “non-binding plebiscite.”
I come up with the two major problems that have gotten us to the present gridlock, namely a revolving horde of politicians who cannot agree on a secure and enduring source of funding, and a transparent, non-political organization to effectively plan and run this economic engine called TransLink. Fixing these will go a long way to fixing gridlock. May I also suggest the creation of a B.C. Utilities Commission-like organization to justify the cost effectiveness of all, no exceptions, major works. Only then can we, the taxpayers, be assured that politicians do not stick us with unjustified legacy projects (convention centre expansion, Site C dam, fast ferries …).
By not fixing the transportation problem for good, our economy, health and the healthy future of our children will suffer.
John Consiglio
North Vancouver
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