Lower Mainland Mayors Critical of Translink

From CBC.ca

Some Metro Vancouver mayors are calling on TransLink to get its finances in order after figures released this week show the public transportation provider will be short $300 million per year by 2012.

"This is a plan for absolute disaster in my mind," Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie said Friday. "Metro Vancouver continues to have a very real reason to be concerned about TransLink finances because we are on the hook for it."

Speaking at the Metro Vancouver Board's meeting, Brodie said TransLink seems to be oblivious to the urgency of the situation.

The figures released Tuesday show TransLink will use up much of its $400-million reserve over the next four years, despite bringing in millions of dollars in surplus revenue in 2007.

By 2012, TransLink will need $150 million each year just to fund existing services, plus an additional $150 million for planned expansions.

"To spend $400 million of accumulated surplus in three years is not a viable plan. It is no plan at all," Brodie said.

His frustration was echoed by Pitt Meadows Mayor Don MacLean, who expressed concerns that TransLink's financial shortfall would translate into higher property taxes for residents.

"One day we're going to wake up and we're going to realize that there is no more room out there, and no ability for the public to pay," he said.

TransLink said its newly formed real estate division would make up for some of the shortfall, but not all of it.

The transportation authority did not indicate where the rest of the funds could come from.

The Metro Vancouver Board is asking for more transportation funding from the provincial and federal governments.