TransLink anticipates budget surplus amid slower ridership growth | Daily Hive

West Coast Express commuter rail locomotive. (TransLink)

Compared to previous years, driven by the post-pandemic recovery, Metro Vancouver’s public transit system has experienced slower ridership growth in 2025, and this trend is expected to continue into 2026.

TransLink staff note that while overall ridership is still growing, it is climbing upwards at a slower pace than originally anticipated — due to the federal government’s lower targets for immigration, international students, and foreign workers, as well as sustained economic uncertainty. Year-over-year ridership growth in 2026 will be “modest” compared to the 2025 forecast.

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New and improved services are being rolled out to address overcrowding and improve general regional accessibility. But the positive impact of such service improvements and the negative impact of higher fare increases are expected to “play a smaller role in shaping overall ridership” compared to these larger trends and macroeconomic influences.

Furthermore, TransLink reports that the number of unique weekly public transit passengers has “stabilized,” which suggests Metro Vancouver may have reached a “new normal in commuting habits, shaped by the lasting impacts of remote and hybrid work.”

The makeup of fare revenues has changed since before the pandemic, with passengers now buying more single-trip fares for the fewer trips they take to the office workplace each week, as opposed to the higher proportion of monthly passes purchased before the pandemic, which are more expensive. This partly explains TransLink’s structural revenue shortfall, in addition to overall ridership numbers still being behind pre-pandemic figures.

In 2024, the number of total boardings on the entire public transit system reached 403 million — up from the pandemic-time low of 218 million in 2020, but still below the all-time record of 451 million in 2019 and 436 million in 2018. The total boardings figure for 2024 closely resembled 2017’s number of about 407 million.

TransLink anticipates the number of boardings (each time a passenger enters a fare paid zone, including transfers) in 2026 to be 5.8 per cent lower than the 2025 forecast, while the number of journeys in 2026 will be 5.1 per cent lower than 2025. However, this excludes the anticipated increases in June and July 2026 due to the FIFA World Cup, with the public transit authority currently in the process of planning its services for the tournament’s needs.

The City of Vancouver’s FIFA World Cup budget will include a payment to TransLink to support new and improved services specifically for the tournament’s duration. This was similarly performed for the 2010 Winter Olympics, when VANOC, the local organizing committee of the Olympics, funded the public transit authority’s increased services during the Games. For the FIFA World Cup, the City is the entity acting as the local organizing committee.

Overall SkyTrain ridership in 2025 to date is lower than 2024 due to slower population growth, economic uncertainty, and fewer international students. However, the ridership on the West Coast Express commuter rail was 15 per cent higher in the third quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, which is possibly an indicator of more office workers making their way back to downtown Vancouver.

While TransLink projected a $72 million budget deficit for 2025, it is expecting a $17.3 million surplus in 2026. This is mostly driven by higher property tax revenue and higher revenue from the provincial government.

TransLink’s 2026 operating budget is expected to reach $2.775 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 10.6 per cent or $267 million due to service expansion, increases in labour rates, and inflation.

This includes $1.22 billion for bus and SeaBus operations (44.1 per cent), $527 million for the operations of SkyTrain and West Coast Express (19 per cent), $282 million for amortization (10.2 per cent), $223 million for operating and maintaining roads and bridges (8.0 per cent), $175 million for interest (6.3 per cent), $170 million for corporate operations (6.1 per cent), and $74 million for Transit Police operations (2.7 per cent). This month, TransLink’s Transit Police will mark its 20th anniversary, remaining Canada’s only police service dedicated exclusively to a public transit system.

Total operating revenues in 2026 are anticipated to be $356.4 million more than the 2025 budget. About $209 million of this increase comes from increased taxation, including a $7 million increase in gas tax revenue, a $181 million increase in property tax revenue, and a $20 million increase in parking tax revenue.

During this week’s TransLink board of directors meeting, the rates for the public transit authority’s Development Cost Charge (DCCs) — imposed on new residential, commercial, and industrial building developments across Metro Vancouver — saw an increase of 2.6 per cent based on inflation. For example, the DCC fee paid for a new single-family house increased by $86 to $3,416, a new condominium unit increased by $45 to $1,774, and retail/restaurant space went up by four cents per sq. ft. of building floor area.

Earlier this year, TransLink’s Mayors’ Council also approved higher increases to fares, the property tax, and the parking tax to fund both service expansion — including the largest increase in bus services since 2018 — and help fill about half of the structural operating revenue shortfall beginning in 2026, with the provincial government providing $312 million in final operating subsidies between 2025 and 2027 (over $100 million annually for three years) to temporarily cover the remaining half of the shortfall. Beginning in 2028, through new provincial legislation, a new major revenue source will end the practice of depending on ongoing provincial operating subsidies.

For years, TransLink’s gas tax revenue has been on a downward trend, generally due to newer vehicle models providing improved fuel economy, as well as the growing makeup of battery-electric vehicles in Metro Vancouver’s vehicle population since before the pandemic. But for 2025, gas tax revenues are slightly higher due to a recent slower adoption of battery-electric vehicles, and fewer people driving across the Canada-U.S. border to purchase gas.

There were also revenue increases due to heightened fare enforcement protocols, a growth in advertising revenues, and new cost saving measures.

According to TransLink staff, 86.2 per cent of TransLink’s expenditures in the 2026 budget are frontline/service-related, whereas 13.8 per cent is administrative/support services, which is lower than the 17 per cent to 20 per cent average for other Canadian and U.S. public transit authorities.

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