TransLink seeking $500 million in emergency funding to avoid service cuts

Construction of a condo tower and a passing SkyTrain in New Westminster, April 2022. (Elena_Alex_Ferns/Shutterstock)

The Mayors’ Council, the body that governs TransLink, has made a formal request to the federal government to provide additional emergency relief operating funding to avoid service cuts to Metro Vancouver’s public transit system over the coming years.

The funding request to be provided by the Government of Canada is $250 million, and it is intended to be matched by the Government of British Columbia, which would bring the total amount of new additional emergency relief operating funding to $500 million. This would cover the forecasted revenue shortfalls and operating cost escalations over the next three-year period from 2023 to 2025.

The request to the federal government was recently made before its 2023 federal budget finalization.

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“Metro Vancouver’s transit system is not keeping up with our rapidly growing population, and we risk having to cut services unless all levels of senior government commit new funding to TransLink,” said Mayors’ Council chair and Port Moody mayor Brad West during today’s press conference.

He warns that if the current service levels are maintained against growth, this will be “a recipe for a slow-moving crisis.”

“Service will become more overcrowded and less attractive, and we won’t be able to meet the needs of our residents.”

West adds that TransLink does not want to go down the path of cutting services and raising fares to preserve the status quo of its operating budget.

JUST IN… #TransLink's Mayors' Council is calling on the Government of Canada to provide $250 million in Emergency Transit Relief Funding to Metro Vancouver's public transit system.

Risk of service stagnation or even cuts without this funding for 2023-2025. #vanpoli pic.twitter.com/Te6x02WYif

— Kenneth Chan (@iamkennethchan) February 14, 2023

TransLink is still in the process of recovering from the hard-hit impacts early on in the pandemic, and this has been compounded by significant cost inflation over the past year.

Although TransLink has shown exceptionally strong ridership recovery, reaching over 80% of pre-pandemic 2019 levels as of December 2022, making it the first major public transit system in Canada and the United States to do, the continued gap in ridership is having an impact on its finances. It is expecting the ridership regrowth throughout 2023 will be slower than the significant increases seen in 2021 and 2022.

TransLink’s service levels are currently hovering at 94% of pre-pandemic 2019 levels, but fare revenues have rebound to just over 70% of pre-pandemic levels. While ridership recovery is strong, passengers are also using less expensive fare products leading to lower fare revenues.

It should also be noted that the ridership recovery has been uneven across services and sub-regions of Metro Vancouver.

“We’re seeing our transit system is overcapacity in fast-growing communities in the south of the Fraser River and in the eastern parts of the region. These are the places that provide Metro Vancouver’s most affordable housing and employment opportunities, often to new Canadians and particularly to lower and middle-income families. This overcrowding problem is not short-lived,” continued West.

“With newly increased federal immigration targets, we will see a wave of new Canadians coming to our region. The demands of our transit system are only going to increase.”

If TransLink receives an additional $500 million from senior governments — $250 million each from the federal and provincial governments — this would bring the total amount of emergency relief operating funding to $1.32 billion since the pandemic began.

TransLink received an initial $644 million from senior governments in September 2020 to cover forecasted revenue shortfalls in 2020 and 2021.

In January 2022, the senior governments provided an additional $176 million for revenue shortfalls in 2022 and 2023.

In exchange for the initial round of funding in September 2020, TransLink agreed to limit the rate of its annual fare increases through 2024.

The provincial and federal governments also previously allocated relief funding to BC Transit and BC Ferries. The federal government and other provincial governments in other provinces also set aside relief funding in a bid to avoid major service cuts, which has been a practice on many public transit systems in the United States over the past few years, resulting in lower ridership and reduced mobility.

In addition to the federal government committing $250 million to TransLink, which would trigger matching funding from the provincial government, the Mayors’ Council has also asked the federal government to accelerate its promise of creating an annual Permanent Transit Fund by two years — from the original timeline of starting in 2026/2027 to 2024/2025 to avoid delaying service expansion.

They also want the Canada Community-Building Fund, previously known as the Gas Tax Fund, to be permanently doubled, with a 3.5% annual increase to better reflect construction cost inflation.

“Reliable and efficient transit is crucial to our residents, businesses, and economy,” said Kevin Quinn, CEO of TransLink. “Metro Vancouver is expected to grow substantially in the near future, which will bring increased pressures on our public transit services. TransLink will need sustainable and dependable funding to both maintain our current levels of service and prepare for critically needed expansion.”

In late January 2023, the Mayors’ Council also reaffirmed $21 billion of service expansion and improvement projects that will be undertaken within TransLink’s Transport 2050’s 10-year priorities, including new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and RapidBus routes, the gondola serving SFU’s Burnaby Mountain campus, and the UBC SkyTrain extension. Significant funding is needed for this 10-year investment plan.

In order to achieve service expansion, TransLink needs to hire hundreds of new additional bus drivers each year, including its target for 500 drivers in 2023.

When asked during today’s press conference, Quinn confirmed TransLink would soon be entering negotiations with the union that represents TransLink subsidiary Coast Mountain Bus Company workers. Their previous contract, made in late 2019 during a heated and prolonged labour dispute, is set to expire.

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