EDITORIAL: It's official, TransLink is all out of ideas

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• EDITORIAL: TransLink faces a mutiny if it doesn’t shape up
• LETTER: Mayors need to stand up to TransLink
• LETTER—Adieu Translink
• EDITORIAL: School district idea on target
• Bright ideas

Things are clearly getting desperate for Lower Mainland mayors if they are seriously considering a sales tax to help pay for public transportation in the region.

The proposed TransLink sales tax would add 0.5 per cent on to the GST and/or PST on goods and services sold in the Metro Vancouver area.

At five cents on every 10 dollars spent, the tax is very modest, so much so that most consumers won’t ever notice it, yet it will generate $250 million in new revenue.

The fact is, cost-efficient public transportation benefits everyone. It facilitates trade, it eases automobile traffic, reduces the need for costly freeways, and unlike roads, it is a user pay system.

In that light, the proposed tax makes a lot of sense. It’s an investment in our own economy.

But any new tax is politically poisonous, especially a sales tax. Just ask Gordon Campbell and Brian Mulroney.

So for Lower Mainland mayors to float this idea, you can be sure of one thing: They are all out of ideas.

There are many reasons for Translink’s funding woes.

One that rarely gets mentioned is that Metro Vancouver is largely a victim of its geography, and what makes it beautiful also makes it a nightmare to get around. Mountains, rivers, and ocean are pretty to look at, but designing transit infrastructure around them is very costly. And those construction costs are higher out west due to earthquake risk.

We’re also nearly 4,500 km away from Canada’s seat of power, and as such, we are an afterthought politically. This might be Metro Vancouver’s most tragic geographical shortcoming.

Of the 12 current projects listed on Transport Canada’s website as receiving federal money, seven are for projects located in the Greater Toronto Area, totaling more than $1.6 billion in funding.

For all of B.C., the feds are contributing just $500 million, the bulk of that going to construction of the Evergreen Line.

Metro Vancouver is not getting its fair share of federal transportation funding. We may have half the population of Toronto, but we’re getting one-third the funding, and our need is arguably greater.

It’s time for all levels of government to take responsibility for public transportation in the Lower Mainland.