Mayors from across Metro Vancouver gathered at a busy rapid transit station in Vancouver today (Tuesday) to demand stable, secure transit funding for all municipalities in Canada.
With over one million new residents coming to the region over the next 20 years, members of the Mayor's Council on Regional Transportation are launching the Cure Congestion campaign in advance of the upcoming federal election, noting an explosion in new ridership has outpacing planned expansion.
“If you look at the areas that are not as well served by public transit, it's the areas that are absorbing some of the highest amounts of population growth,” said Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, pointing to places like the Tri-Cities, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows.
Overcrowding already clogs the Metro Vancouver's buses and SkyTrain, said the council. That’s in a region that has seen an 18% increase in new bus services since 2016, including in neighbourhoods like Burke Mountain. Last year, 52 bus routes had sustained overcrowding for an hour or more — 14 routes more than 2016.
In response, the Mayor's Council is asking every federal political party to commit to the Congestion Relief Fund, a predictable, annual funding formula that would earmark $375 million a year beginning in 2028.
Council chairperson and New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Cote said a large part of the council's 10-year transportation plan has federal backing for projects across the region, but those funds will expire in a few years.
The time to promote the campaign is now, said Cote, as political parties hammer out platforms for the Oct. 21 federal election.
Statistics show Metro Vancouver leads Canada and the United States in per capita transit ridership, which Cote said is impressive and the result of the investments made in transit.
But project-to-project funding has made it hard to sketch out long-term transportation plans for the Metro area, and that’s left the growing suburbs in a bind, said Mayor West.
“The government at every level is telling people, ‘You need to get out of your car.’ The message I hear from PoCo residents is, ‘Absolutely, and on to what?'” said West. “If government is serious about wanting to tackle climate change, having people shift away from vehicles and on to public transit, then you have to give people the options.”
— with files from The Canadian Press
