Opinion: Vancouver's public transit is in trouble, and it's not the only one

Late last month, the head of TransLink, the organization that manages Metro Vancouver's transit system, let the public in on a poorly kept secret: There is nowhere near enough money in the coffers to maintain ongoing operations.

Without additional government funding – either from BC and/or Ottawa – the only option was massive benefit cuts that would affect hundreds of thousands of people.

And TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn wasn't bluffing.

“Unfortunately, this is a window into our reality if a solution to our outdated funding model is not implemented,” Mr Quinn said.

TransLink's annual operating deficit is estimated at about $600 million. How could this happen? Well, the answer is at least partially understandable. The organization generates part of its revenue from fuel taxes. But the trend toward hybrid and electric vehicles has dried up this source of funding.

During the pandemic, a planned fare increase was cancelled. In subsequent years, those increases were kept at levels below inflation. (TransLink could not raise its fares to cover annual inflation increases, which reached 6.8 per cent in 2022, because people could not afford it, the company argued. Moreover, the British Columbia government almost certainly would not have allowed huge fare increases.)

Meanwhile, TransLink's costs for things like construction, labor, fuel, maintenance and new vehicles have risen astronomically.

All in all, the government of British Columbia is facing disaster.

And we haven't even talked about the costs of transportation-related initiatives like the expansion of the light rail system. It was recently announced that the planned cost of the expansion of the SkyTrain system has already been exceeded by two billion dollars, so the final bill is now expected to be around six billion dollars. Other transportation-related projects are also under similarly enormous cost pressures.

I wish this were a story unique to British Columbia that could be blamed solely on government incompetence and bureaucracy, but it is not. This is a nationwide phenomenon that highlights the insane challenges governments face when it comes to funding transportation systems.

This was underscored in a report released in May by Leading Mobility Canada, which warned that the country's largest cities were struggling to keep their transit systems running. Without a solid and sustainable funding plan for the future, the report said, these transit systems would enter a rapid downward spiral that would take years to reverse.

It's not hard to imagine how this could have happened.

If British Columbia's transit system is not rescued soon, the massive service cuts that TransLink is predicting will actually happen. When that happens, people won't even know what hit them. There will likely be a massive ridership revolt. The provincial government will have to step in, perhaps with help from Ottawa. But this is only a temporary measure. A sustainable funding model must be established soon, because what exists now in British Columbia and certainly elsewhere in the country is not working.

Cities themselves do not have the taxing power to raise the money needed to run modern transit services. Property taxes are the main source of revenue (after fares) for cities to fund public transit. But in today's environment, where cost pressures are greater than ever, raising property taxes to fund public transit is not really a viable option. Meanwhile, provincial governments are reluctant to approve other options such as congestion or road taxes because they are politically unpopular.

This puts organizations like TransLink in an untenable position.

It is difficult to remember a time in recent memory when governments have been under greater pressure to manage costs. The cost of adequately funding a transit system such as that in Greater Vancouver will add hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and that does not include the many billions needed to expand mass transit.

Then you think about the crumbling infrastructure across the country, leading to water main bursts and the like. This is another ticking bomb that is about to go off in spectacular fashion. In fact, we've already seen the first detonations. (Hello Calgary and Montreal). A 2020 report from Canada's Core Public Infrastructure Survey found that nearly one in five kilometres of water, sewer and stormwater pipes had reached the end of their useful life.

Add to that the health crisis in Canada and the huge investments needed to address it, and the sums add up to unimaginable sums. It is difficult to imagine how governments will address these challenges without having to make some difficult decisions.

This means that people will have to get used to governments not funding things that they might have funded in the past. I don't think they will really have a choice. In the meantime, fellow Vancouverites, please use public transit.