In Vancouver, which posted the worst showing in the Toronto Board of Trade’s transportation rankings, major new projects have been few and far between, despite the recent Olympic Games. The SkyTrain debuted for Expo 86. The proposed Evergreen Line – a $1.4-billion SkyTrain extension that would link Coquitlam to Vancouver – has been on the drawing board since the 1990s but has stalled repeatedly over money problems. South of the Fraser River, cities like Surrey, Delta and Langley are forecast to have some of the biggest population increases in the region over the next 30 years, but haven’t seen an increased share of transit cash, or service.
Last year, the mayors’ council for TransLink, the regional transit authority, turned down a plan that would have relied on property tax increases to fund several major projects, including the Evergreen Line.
Provincial and federal dollars for the project have been lined up, but TransLink still needs to come up with its $400-million share of the tab, and funding for the project has been an issue for more than a decade.
“It hasn’t gone away, it has gotten worse,” Port Moody Mayor Joe Trasolini said. “Business suffers when you don’t have efficient transportation systems and you have things left in the air without any certainty.”
Calgary, too, is having trouble keeping up. The city received a D ranking from the Board of Trade largely because 76.8 per cent of its population drive to work, the highest of any Canadian city.
Still, about 270,000 commuters pile onto Calgary’s 30-year-old C-Train light-rail system each day, and it’s at the limit.
The city is building a West LRT extension, a six-station line to be completed next year at a cost of $1-billion, adding to the two-line, 38-station system currently in place.
In Toronto, congestion has reached epic proportion and large-scale projects by the regional transit authority Metrolinx (the Big Move plan) have been thrown into jeopardy by the election of Mayor Rob Ford, who is firmly opposed to expanding light rail.
Neil McMonagle, a Washington-based transit consultant who has been working with Metrolinx, argues that a transit plan needs to exist outside the realm of politics.
“The Big Move, conceptually is a really good document, but it seems to have been knocked off course because of the politics,” he said. “You need an agency that takes a longer-term view, simply because these projects themselves are going to span multiple terms of office and multiple governments.”
Of all the Canadian cities ranked by the Board of Trade, Montreal did best when it came to transit, due mostly to more affordable fares and heavier usage of its commuter rail system.
But many Montreal commuters are more likely to point out the city is still only graded a mediocre C.
Philip Morgan, a transit commuter and self-described “transportation freak,” says Montreal’s is plagued by basic equipment problems, such as unheated switches that become jammed by ice and snow. But he said transit systems in Toronto and Montreal both lack the corporate culture he’s seen overseas where it’s unacceptable for trains and buses to run late.
And the commuter rail system – Montreal’s main supposed advantage over Toronto – has become a running joke and is even the subject of a class-action lawsuit for being late.
“It’s fine to compare to Toronto,” he said. “How about comparing to cities in Asia and Europe where transit truly works?”
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