Quote:
Originally Posted by zivan56
I don't see how it is expensive. Even if you make minimum wage, it would take you less than an hour to earn the days fare.
I don't agree with raising property taxes, as they are quite high already. Not to mention a large number of people who own properties don't have proper access to transit outside of Vancouver proper and surrounding areas (or if they don't use transit at all). Property taxes should be used for infrastructure that benefits everyone, transit doesn't benefit more than 5-10% of people in some areas.
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Okay. Minimum wage then. $8 an hour. 8 hours a day. 64$ a day.
Factor in food for breakfast, lunch, dinner: let's say about 8$, potentially less if it's all brought from home via Superstore.
Let's say, best case scenario, a one zone fare. $2.50. two ways. $5.
That's $13 of $64 for a day. 20% of your income going to transport and food. Almost two hours of work just for that.
Now what about those who work in Coquitlam and live in Surrey, or work in Vancouver and live in Burnaby. Far worse.
Transport goes to $3.75 one way. 7.5$. One hour of work just to pay to get there and back again!
Frankly, when the average income in Vancouver is something like $20 000, obviously there's a very big problem with the local economy.
And you also have to factor in the type of service people are getting for their money. There's a huge difference many times between transit and a car in accomplishing what people want: direct, fast, frequent, any time transport.
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My argument is just this though. The funding need to come from somewhere to expand the service. TransLink is opting to raise fares as opposed to lobbying the higher ups. I believe the provincial government should either completely pay for all capital improvements, while TransLink covers operating costs (the best solution), or the provincial government should split both the operating and capital budgets with TransLink.
What's happening right now, ever since Campbell came in, is he's refusing to pay very much at all for capital projects, leaving TransLink in a situation where either they come up with funds to share the bill or the project doesn't go forward. Not to mention, ever since TransLink came into being, the provincial government, of both Clark and Campbell, have never given anything for operating costs. That's not what you get out east or even in the rest of this province.