METRO VANCOUVER – TransLink will have until spring to find ways to pay for transit projects such as the long-awaited Evergreen Line.
Transportation Minister Shirley Bond has agreed to give TransLink a few more months to consider other funding options, averting a “showdown” with regional mayors who are balking at increasing property taxes for transit projects, according to Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender, who chairs the regional mayors’ council on transportation.
TransLink has proposed raising property taxes at least $36 per average household to raise its $400-million share of the $1.4-billion SkyTrain Line, which will link Burnaby, Port Moody and Coquitlam.
Most Metro Vancouver mayors, who were set to vote on the plan on Dec. 9, have consistently opposed a property tax-based funding plan, saying TransLink should look at other options such as road-pricing, a vehicle levy or using the carbon tax, to pay for transit. The vote has now been delayed.
“We’ve forestalled a showdown on the ninth of December,” Fassbender said. “We now have some breathing room until spring. All that mayors have said to me consistently is, “˜Why do we have to do this so fast?’”
The mayors had been told they had to come up with a plan by the end of the year to move ahead with the Evergreen Line plan. Fassbender said the extension will allow TransLink and the mayors to come up with other funding options that aren’t available to TransLink.
The provincial government earlier this year signed a memorandum of understanding with the mayors to look at allowing them other options – besides raising property taxes – to pay for transit.
The TransLink funding is to be debated today [Note] fri [/NOTE] at Metro Vancouver’s board meeting, where a staff report recommended it reject TransLink’s property-tax-based funding plan. The report also calls for the board to direct TransLink to prepare a new plan that will be funded by motor vehicle fees or “transportation emissions-based sources” such as the carbon tax.
Meanwhile, NDP leader Carole James and MLA Harry Bains are expected to visit Vancouver this morning [Note] fri [/NOTE] to offer some proposals on addressing the transit deadlock.
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