British Columbia is injecting nearly $500-million into the Metro Vancouver transit system to save it from what officials say is a feared “death spiral” sparked in part by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Premier David Eby said Wednesday that the $479-million in provincial funding for TransLink will keep fares affordable, prevent service cuts and enable future transit expansion plans to continue.
TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn said losses in ridership revenue because of the pandemic and higher service costs due to inflation and supply chain issues have put unprecedented strains on the company’s finances.
“The provincial government’s $479-million funding injection is a strong vote of confidence in public transit. It will allow us to maintain current service levels and means that we can continue our operations as planned until the end of 2025,” he said.
“And this at a time when other transit agencies around the country are being forced to make massive service cuts.”
Brad West, mayor of Port Coquitlam and chair of the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation, said that without the province’s help, the system was facing service cuts and fare increases, the hallmarks of a “death spiral” facing transit in many other cities.
The council, which has representatives from 21 municipalities in the region, had asked the provincial and federal government split $500-million in funding support to avoid service cuts.
West called it “incredibly unfortunate that the federal government didn’t step up on this occasion” but said that mayors will continue to push for federal support including a call to accelerate Ottawa’s planned permanent transit funding.
He said a delegation of mayors would go to Ottawa in May to make the case for transit funding.
Eby said the province will also continue to have conversations with the federal government about a “funding partnership” but his government needed to take action right away to help TransLink.
Eby said ridership is coming back after the pandemic, but slower than expected.
“But what we definitely don’t want to do right now is have TransLink cut back services, causing people not to come back to transit because the service simply isn’t there for them, causing fewer people to choose transit, causing further cutbacks because of reduced revenue.”