Opinion: Compass Cards should be required for new homes near SkyTrain | Daily Hive

Opinion: Compass Cards should be required for new transit-oriented housing developments near SkyTrain stations

A TransLink Compass Card user at SkyTrain's Metrotown Station. (Mitch Hutchinson/Shutterstock)

Written for Daily Hive Urbanized by North Vancouver resident Johnathan French.

We’re in the process of constructing huge transit-oriented developments, with 3,100 homes in 13 towers approved by Vancouver City Council late this past winter alone. This is great for addressing our housing crisis, but unless we create better incentives for people to use public transit in these areas, we aren’t maximizing the potential of the new high concentration of residents.

The whole point of transit-oriented developments is that people who live close to rapid transit will use it. However, there’s nothing stopping someone from buying an apartment right next to the SkyTrain, and just driving everywhere anyway.

Imagine finding a nice transit-oriented community you want to move to, yet it’s already full of people, half of whom never even use the SkyTrain. It’s frustrating, and incredibly wasteful. In fact, it’s worse than that; according to the City of Vancouver’s 2023 Transportation Snapshot, only 17 per cent of people use public transit on a regular basis.

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If we want to maximize the usefulness of transit-oriented developments, we should require TransLink monthly passes in the strata and rental agreements.

In other words, if you buy or rent a newly constructed apartment near a SkyTrain station, you would be required to have a TransLink monthly pass included in your strata fees or rental agreement.

There are some tradeoffs, but this would significantly increase fare revenue for TransLink.

For those who already take public transit, this won’t make a difference, as they would have gotten a Compass Card either way.

For those who drive and still want to live in these places, well, now they have a monthly pass in their pocket. Whereas they would have driven downtown Vancouver before, now they might hop on the SkyTrain and slowly start using public transit more and more. Either way, they would still pay for the monthly pass, helping to pay for the rapid transit amenities nearby.

This would be good for developers, as they would spend far less on construction costs. Instead of ensuring each unit has a parking stall, they could make a limited number of stalls available for those who want to pay, with the knowledge that all tenants would have a transit pass. Some recent projects already provide monthly passes to residents, but usually only for the first few years of the building upon completion as a transportation demand measure to enable fewer vehicle parking stalls that would otherwise be required under municipal policies.

It should also be noted that under the provincial government’s new transit-oriented development legislation, areas within an 800-metre radius of designated Transit-Oriented Areas do not have to follow minimum vehicle parking requirements.

TransLink could also offer a discounted rate to existing stratas to incentivize them to add this policy to their buildings. In fact, this would be similar to the existing Compass for Developments program, except with a discount to incentivize 100 per cent strata participation.

The idea of transit-oriented developments paying for nearby transit amenities is similar in concept to Capstan Station, which was funded in part by transit-oriented development surcharges; people moved to the area and happily paid extra, knowing they would get access to rapid transit.

TransLink is already getting involved in real estate, a tried-and-true method for generating revenue for transit agencies. They also trialled a temporary free transit project with PCI Developments and conducted studies on how subsidized transit fares can affect transit-oriented developments.

They found that thanks to subsidies, public transit use increased by 10 per cent during the three-month study.

If we required transit passes in new developments, public transit usage would undoubtedly be even higher. It wouldn’t just be a temporary freebie from the government; people would move to the area knowing they would pay for and use public transit.

All we need to do is require the Compass for Developments program in new construction projects that fall within the regulated transit-oriented development areas.

There are other details to be sorted out, of course; U-Pass options should obviously be made available, and exemptions should be made for those who already have a special pass, like those with a CNIB ID Compass Card.

For those who absolutely need to drive, there are plenty of units available in neighbourhoods with limited transit access. The Compass Card requirement would only be for new transit-oriented developments; existing buildings that want to maintain their car-heavy lifestyles could keep on carrying on.

If anything, drivers should be on board with this proposal; it would significantly improve traffic by taking a ton of cars off the road, without costing existing drivers any money. The only people who would be affected would be those who want to move into a new transit-oriented development.

If we want to improve TransLink’s finances, we need to think outside the box and consider approaches like this. We are going to build homes for 24,000 people in the Jericho Lands project, which will be served by an on-site station of the future SkyTrain extension to the University of British Columbia. If each of these people were required to pay for a three-zone monthly pass, that alone would add up to over $55 million per year. We could use this revenue model to help fund SkyTrain and Bus Rapid Transit line extensions, building out the rapid transit network much faster.

Taxpayers pay for the SkyTrain and its extensions, and we don’t like to see our money wasted. If we approve transit-oriented developments, it should come with the understanding that those who live there will actually use public transit, or at least help pay for it.

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