Mayors' Council approves first phase of TransLink's expansion plan

TransLink's R4 41st Avenue RapidBus in Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

After much consultation and debate regionally and amongst individual municipalities this year, TransLink’s Mayors’ Council has approved the first phase of its “Access for Everyone” plan, based on the 10-year priorities for expansion and improvements between 2025 and 2035.

The public transit authority is hoping to see federal funding support towards covering a sizeable portion of the estimated $2 billion cost of the first phase of projects. This request is being made ahead of the 2024 federal budget finalization.

The first phase project costs include $375 million for bus fleet expansion to grow overall services and help launch the first new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) routes, $1.4 billion for expanded bus depots to handle improved bus services and the new BRT routes, $70 million for cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, and $120 million for the “Golden Ears Way BRT-readiness and goods-movement project,” which would support one of the first three priority BRT projects.

This does not include other costs of BRT, with each individual BRT project pegged at roughly $300 million. TransLink is now in the process of creating a finer cost estimate.

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The SFU Burnaby Mountain gondola, which carries an estimated cost of over $200 million, was not included in this initial federal funding ask. TransLink is hoping to build the gondola later this decade.

“Today the Mayors’ Council has agreed on a plan for the new and expanded transit services we will need to accommodate population growth and put affordable housing within reach for everyone in our communities,” said Mayor Brad West, chair of the Mayors’ Council, in a statement.

“Transit-oriented development is a key component of the province’s and region’s plan to respond to the housing affordability crisis, but without federal financial support and a sustainable funding model to help deliver additional transit into the future, we won’t be successful.”

To help achieve these initial projects, TransLink is asking the federal government to confirm new funding by mid-2024 from its promised federal Permanent Transit Fund (PTF).

In the submission, it is also asking for a PTF formula that increases by 5% annually to account for inflation and growing demand for improved services, and for the federal government to join the provincial government and TransLink in identifying a new funding model for public transit that is less reliant on demand-driven revenue sources, such as fares and fuel taxes, along with expanded fare discounts for low-income residents.

According to TransLink, overall public transit service levels in Metro Vancouver are frozen at 2019 levels, and this is expected to continue through late 2024 despite seeing major population and economic growth. As of earlier this fall, ridership recovery has exceeded 90% of pre-pandemic volumes, with some areas of the region seeing 100% or more in recovery.

“Time is running out. For TransLink to reduce overcrowding as soon as possible, and enable the substantial service expansion we need in the coming years, we must have both federal and provincial funding commitments for this first phase of Access for Everyone, no later than mid-2024,” continued West.

“Provincial and federal governments are calling on municipalities to accelerate the approval of new housing to address the affordability crisis, but we need additional transit infrastructure to serve residents moving into new housing developments.”

Today’s federal funding request follows last week’s announcement on the first BRT projects that will be pursued over the coming years, which entail Langley to Maple Ridge via 200th Avenue, Golden Ears Bridge, and Lougheed Highway, and Surrey to White Rock via King George Boulevard. The third corridor will serve the North Shore from Park Royal to Brentwood and Metrotown via the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, but this service will initially begin in the near term as a route extension of the existing R2 RapidBus — which currently ends at Phibbs exchange — while BRT and rail-based rapid transit are contemplated.

Last week, Metro Vancouver Regional District made a formal request for $3.5 billion in federal funding over the coming decades, with $200 million going towards affordable housing projects and $3.3 billion going towards the new Iona Island sewage treatment plant. Over the interim, the regional district wants to see $250 million in federal funding to cover 33% of the first phase cost of $750 million for the new Iona facility.

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