The chief executive officer of TransLink did his best to stay out of the provincial election campaign Tuesday but was clear the construction of a subway along the Broadway corridor is not a done deal, despite a $2.2 billion promise from the recently dissolved provincial government to spend on major transit projects in the region.
Kevin Desmond said the full cost of a subway and whether the provincial government will allow municipalities to impose charges against developers to raise the region’s share of project costs still has to be finalized.
“I’m confident that whatever government is elected, they will match — at some level — the federal government commitment [of $2.2 billion],” Desmond told reporters after giving Vancouver city council an update on the region’s mayors’ 10-year transit and transportation plan. “But there will be a gap that the region still has to fill. We won’t know that full gap until the business cases [of each project] are completed in the fall.”
To fill that gap, the mayors have called for the provincial government to introduce legislation that would allow municipalities to charge developers a fee when constructing developments near transit hubs. Such a funding tool could raise millions of dollars and be applied across the region.
The ruling B.C. Liberals have said that any new funding source proposal would have to go to a vote in a referendum. Desmond said he didn’t know if the scheme to bring in a region-wide development cost charge would trigger a referendum.
“That’s to be determined,” he said, noting TransLink was in discussions with the Clark government about the development charges before the election campaign began. “That’s one of the things that’s top of our agenda with whatever new government is formed, so we can proceed with what we hope would be legislation from the province that would allow the cities to move forward with the development cost charge.”
The mayors’ 10-year, $7.5-billion plan calls for a subway along the Broadway corridor, a light-rail system in Surrey, a new Pattullo Bridge, more buses and SkyTrain cars, improved HandyDart service and upgrades to transit stations.
The provincial government committed $246 million for the first phase of the plan and matched the federal government’s $2.2 billion for the second phase. Peter Fassbender, the minister responsible for TransLink, told the Courier last month that allowing municipalities to charge fees to developers for transit-oriented development was an option, although he didn’t commit his party to implementing legislation.
Vision Vancouver Coun. Geoff Meggs said he remains hopeful that major projects such as the subway will not be delayed because of funding problems. But Meggs said an independent committee examining funding tools such as mobility pricing – where drivers are charged for distance driven — is a necessary discussion to have considering the growth and congestion on roads.
“When we see the fuel tax declining and two political parties saying the tolling system is too broken to fix, clearly that committee has got its work cut out for them,” he said. “But that’s a discussion that other cities are having, and we’re going to have it, too.”
