ronthecivil Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Yet other people are willing to pay a toll to use them and hence fund them and along with them...TRANSIT. Who's paying the toll to pay for a UBC line? Without a carrot for the majority public you have no incentive for funding it. Plain and simple. I honestly don't know how you don't grasp this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Yet other people are willing to pay a toll to use them and hence fund them and along with them...TRANSIT. Who's paying the toll to pay for a UBC line? Without a carrot for the majority public you have no incentive for funding it. Plain and simple. I honestly don't know how you don't grasp this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 It's operation ignore everything that doesn't fit the adjenda. I mean, come on, he honestly asked why we don't just put a ten dollar toll (and it could be on anything) right now to fund transit. He's either dangerously stupid or doesn't want to deal with reality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 I don't know how you don't get that tolling is not the norm. The SFPR, highway 1 widening, etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 I guess you couldn't see that I was mocking that other guys suggestion... The reality is, if we don't change the way we're doing things, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 But as evidence from the new Port Mann and Golden Ears bridge if you do put in a major upgrade that has a clear boundary you can put a toll in and if done the right way you could get the extra money going towards transit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buggernut Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Why not just do that right now then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Common sense Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 All that happens then is that they chase you out of office and replace you with the guy campaigning to reverse those taxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancaster Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Easiest way to fund transit, privatize it. JR lines in Japan are private, MTR for Hong Kong is private, the London Underground is P3, Korea is P3 (I think), New York subway is a quasi-corporation, and even the Beijing subway is P3 (partnered with MTR). I don't see why Translink can't be privatized in one form or another. If they want to sell bonds to finance an expansion to UBC, let them. They want to service more of the Surrey in exchange for land they can later develop? Start planning it now. One problem is that people automatically assume government has all the money and can fund anything. Taxes are counter-intuitive and whenever there's a massive public project by the government, every special interest group wants a piece of the action.... basically ripping the citizens off by sprouting mantras of "providing local jobs", "promoting Canadian industries", when all they're doing is just milking the system for all it's worth. In actuality, it's the people that has the vast majority of the resources and people will be more than willing to invest in a project with tangible returns, not just some pie-in-the-sky hypothetical of helping the environment, less traffic, better karma or whatever. Have a private, financially prudent and respectable company offer bonds with yields of 5-7%+ and we'll be seeing a transit system connecting UBC with Abbotsford and Tsawwassen with Lonsdale within 15 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Easiest way to fund transit, privatize it. JR lines in Japan are private, MTR for Hong Kong is private, the London Underground is P3, Korea is P3 (I think), New York subway is a quasi-corporation, and even the Beijing subway is P3 (partnered with MTR). I don't see why Translink can't be privatized in one form or another. If they want to sell bonds to finance an expansion to UBC, let them. They want to service more of the Surrey in exchange for land they can later develop? Start planning it now. One problem is that people automatically assume government has all the money and can fund anything. Taxes are counter-intuitive and whenever there's a massive public project by the government, every special interest group wants a piece of the action.... basically ripping the citizens off by sprouting mantras of "providing local jobs", "promoting Canadian industries", when all they're doing is just milking the system for all it's worth. In actuality, it's the people that has the vast majority of the resources and people will be more than willing to invest in a project with tangible returns, not just some pie-in-the-sky hypothetical of helping the environment, less traffic, better karma or whatever. Have a private, financially prudent and respectable company offer bonds with yields of 5-7%+ and we'll be seeing a transit system connecting UBC with Abbotsford and Tsawwassen with Lonsdale within 15 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Sure but you can't just ignore all the road projects that aren't tolled... Everyone always asks where money for transit will come from, well where did all the money for those projects come from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 The government of course. Drivers will say that the gas taxes they pay more than covers all the provincial roads. Municipal governments have no choice but to cover the cost of their own road maintenance and construction. Translink on the other hand requires subsidies in the forms of gas taxes, property taxes, and a host of other things just to keep the status quo. Expansion, even if you get money from the heavens for capital costs, requires greater amounts of subsidy. In fact over the years the provincial and federal goverment have stept in several times with billions of dollars to build the Canada line, the Millenium line, and the soon to exist Evergreen line. But the thing is that every time they put in an expansion you need more subsidies to keep things going. Ergo the never stopping requests for a greater and greater share of the tax pie. Right or wrong, people aren't going to take any arguments to further that adgenda, no matter how much you reason, belittle, shout it out, cry, plead, bargain, nothing will do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Well they would be wrong. You need subsidies for our road network as well, so what's your point? You completely ignore the fact that we subsidize driving like mad, to a far greater number than transit. But you're right, we end up paying for all of this in the end. So whether it comes from x, y or z, it's all coming from us. I just don't know why we don't allocate more to transit, given the obvious benefits. Building more roads is such an irrational action if you look at cost benefit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pouria Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Yeah I'd use a UBC line once every maybe 5 years....lol Wowee! What a benefit to me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 I never use the Canada Line. Maybe they should get rid of it. Because I never use it. Who the hell cares if you use it or not when 30,000 other people will be using it daily to go to UBC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 If you think the people know anything about how taxation works then I simply refer you to the HST referendum, the record levels of debt to income in this country, the abysmal savings rate of the population, and a host of other examples I could drone on about. As I like to put it, it's "less taxes, more service, and balanced budgets!" is the general frame of mind. And as the great Todd Bertuzzi said, "It is what it is". So I would recommend working within the framework available. But you do have a question as to why we don't put more towards transit.... Here's a thought experiments. Yes I know it's not real it's just for numbers analysis. Let's say BC next year signed a deal in conjunction with the feds to open up the largest off shore oil project in the world off the BC coast. In the deal we get 100 billion dollars as a one time fund. After paying off the debt to try to rectify the PR with the environmentalists they dedicate 10 billion of that to putting transit in the lower mainland. The evergreen line, the line to UBC, a skytrain extension to Langley, and a light rail line down King George Highway. All the vehicles and stations covered. With all that extra infrastructure, I have to wonder.... A) Would they have enough money to operate all that stuff.. If they did have enough money to operate it all, and it was so successful that they were jam full and buses couldn't carry enough people to operate it, would they make enough money to cover natural growth in the system? I would suggest that the widely held reason people object to more money to translink is that the more successful it is the more money it takes to operate it. It's like a negative investment. A busy road will have all kinds of users idling away tax income for the goverment.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 More evidence: http://www.apta.com/mediacenter/pressreleases/2013/Pages/130205_TTI-Report.aspx I patiently yet pointlessly await yours Ron.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 How is that different than anything? You build a bigger house, it costs more to maintain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 More evidence: http://www.apta.com/...TTI-Report.aspx I patiently yet pointlessly await yours Ron.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Except that the taxpayers can't afford a bigger house. Especially with a massively expanding healthcare budget looming. In a world of rising taxes and deteriorating service do you really thing the majority is going to support expanding a transit system they won't be using especially knowing that the more successful it is the more it's going to cost them to support it? Unless you can come up with a model for transit that doesn't require increasing subsidies the more it's used then it will always result in a negative feedback loop that stops it's expansion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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