'This is not a bluff': TransLink mayors' council calls on B.C. political parties to share plans to avoid transit cuts

With the provincial election roughly one month away, Metro Vancouver mayors, business leaders and community groups made their pitch for increased public transit funding under B.C.'s next government, and asked the public to do the same.

Standing behind a podium emblazoned with the slogan "Save Transit," Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West reiterated the dire financial circumstances facing TransLink in the coming years.

Metro Vancouver's regional transit authority faces a funding gap of approximately $600 million per year beginning in 2026. 

Without new funding, maintaining current levels of service will be impossible, and significant cuts – such as stopping bus service at 8 p.m., eliminating most bus routes in Langley, Delta, Maple Ridge and on the North Shore, and reducing SkyTrain service by one-third – will be necessary.

"This is not a bluff," said West, who chairs the Mayors' Council on Regional Transportation, TransLink's governing body.

"This is not a ploy. This is not a bunch of BS designed to force the province to do something. This is reality."

West described the existing transit funding model as "broken," with gas tax revenue declining significantly as electric vehicle adoption increases. Legislation adopted last year requires all light-duty vehicles sold in the province to be emission-free by 2035. 

The Port Coquitlam mayor said the numbers showing TransLink's funding gap come from "non-political" finance staff.

"They look at numbers, not politics," he said. "They tell us that there is no more outrunning a problem that has been decades in the making and is rooted in the fundamentally flawed funding model."

West praised Premier David Eby and BC Conservative Leader John Rustad for each pledging to ensure TransLink "has the support it needs to avoid" the potential cuts it outlined back in July, but he called on the parties to be specific about what, exactly, they would do to fix the funding gap if elected.

"We need to hear how they would deliver this new funding to avoid these cuts," West said, before asking the public to join the mayors' council in making that appeal.

He said the council has set up a website that Metro Vancouver residents can use to contact provincial party leaders and urge them to invest in public transit. Residents can enter their name, postal code and email address, and a letter will be sent on their behalf to the candidates in their riding and the party leaders. 

West declined to specify how the funding model should change, noting that it's up to the province to make that decision.

He was specifically asked whether fare increases or fees for road users – sometimes called congestion pricing – could be coming in the future, and did not answer either question definitively. He said he believes the public understands that services cost money and is willing to pay that cost if shown a concrete "deliverable" in return for its investment.

For TransLink, the "deliverable" is "Access for Everyone": an ambitious expansion plan that would see the doubling of bus service over the next decade, nine new "bus rapid transit" lines and the continued expansion of the SkyTrain network, among other investments.

The mayors' council has written to provincial parties asking them to commit to not only creating the new funding model TransLink needs, but also to create "a permanent, $3.4-billion-per-year transit fund indexed to population growth and inflation."