Commentary

Stephanie Ryan: Stop punishing Surrey with gas tax, tolls, and poor transit

by Stephanie Ryan on August 30th, 2011 at 4:51 PM
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      Mayor Dianne Watts recently wrote a full-page op-ed in the Surrey Now newspaper advocating the two-cent-per-litre gas tax increase recently approved by mayors in Metro Vancouver.

      Within a week of its announcement, this gas tax was a popular topic among people I spoke with in the community.

      Here are the facts.

      TransLink charges a 15-cent-per-litre gas tax in Metro Vancouver, while the province charges a 6.03-cent-per-litre carbon tax, which will increase to 7.24 cents per litre on July 1, 2012.

      Surrey drivers crossing the Golden Ears Bridge pay $3.45 each way without a transponder. And Surrey transit riders pay some of the highest per-kilometre fares in all of Canada (it costs $3.75 to SkyTrain from Scott Road Station to Columbia Station—one stop away—during peak hours).

      And Surrey commuters are going to be hit even harder in the next five to 10 years. Significant tolls are being proposed for the Port Mann and Pattullo bridges when they’re rebuilt.

      I get it. The Evergreen Line is some 20 years overdue, it’s the next capital project in line for TransLink, and the people of the Tri-Cities have been waiting long enough (they did get pre-empted by the Canada Line to Richmond). It’s not their fault the province has neglected to cough up money to get the project moving.

      Don’t get me wrong. I’m a strong proponent of improved public transit service, sustainable development, and responsible growth management.

      But it feels like Surrey commuters are being taxed to death, and getting little in return.

      For anyone who actually believes the level of transit service south of the Fraser is acceptable, I challenge them to try and catch a bus on Fraser Highway during rush hour, or on any other route outside of peak hours.

      Here’s what I propose.

      Put more buses on Surrey roads immediately. A significant boost in service hours south of the Fraser will help ease the pain for those who have little choice right now but to drive to work. Re-establish the #351 bus from South Surrey to downtown Vancouver, and accelerate a route from Surrey to Coquitlam via the Port Mann Bridge.

      Stick with the new two-cent tax in Metro Vancouver with some sort of guarantee that all monies collected will actually be used for transit and further guarantee that the Evergreen Line will finally get built. In addition, redirect all current carbon tax revenue into boosting transit service across the province, especially south of the Fraser.

      But read my lips—no more tolls.

      North Surrey drivers will soon pay significant tolls for leaving the city via the Golden Ears, Port Mann, and Pattullo bridges. Meanwhile, no one else in the province pays tolls. Not Coquihalla drivers. Not drivers crossing the Bill Bennett Bridge in Kelowna. Not those who drive the Sea-to-Sky.

      People in Surrey will not stand to be unilaterally punished with ever-increasing taxes, the only three tolled crossings in the entire province, and no reasonable transportation alternatives.

      If we are going to swallow the bitter pill that is another two-cent gas tax, it should be on the condition that there be no more tolls in Surrey before there is world-class transit service south of the Fraser—and everyone else in the province pays their share of tolls too.

      Stephanie Ryan is a city council candidate with the Surrey Civic Coalition.

      Comments

      32 Comments

      Sheep

      Aug 30, 2011 at 5:07pm

      errr I would just move to West Van or Downtown instead of driving back and forth, get rid of the Car, save both time and money :)

      If you can't afford it move to the valley Langley etc :)

      Morty

      Aug 30, 2011 at 5:38pm

      So you want more transit, but don't want tolls, meaning you also want to make it easier for people to drive, which undermines the call for more transit? And you want everyone else to pay for it? Would you like some cake with that, too?

      It may feel like Surrey commuters are being taxed to death, but they're not. They're simply paying their share of the infrastructure they use.

      LostMyGlasses

      Aug 30, 2011 at 8:23pm

      I am a firm believer that the one thing that will save Surrey's fundamental and intrinsic transit problems is light rail.

      Cheap, effective and efficient.

      And if I lived on the other side of the River I'd probably pretty choked about the toll, too.

      James G

      Aug 30, 2011 at 9:30pm

      Good on you for standing up to the relatively new phenomena of toll-booth parties springing up and asking far too much of people with far too little!

      Seriously

      Aug 30, 2011 at 10:39pm

      Come on. Time for a history lesson.

      Surrey got the first rapid transit line in the region way back in 1990 or so. It is a bit rich to complain especially when Coquitlam is still waiting over 20 years later. The problem is that Surrey has only started now to build serious density around the SkyTrain line. If instead, Surrey had been building density near the line, a lot more people would be using transit and I expect expansion might of already happened.

      And don't say Surrey hasn't gotten any transportation improvements The tolls are only covering about half of cost of the Golden Ears Bridge which means taxpayers are subsidizing users of the Bridge.

      Also, the reason why transit expansion has not happened already in Surrey and the rest of the region is that 10 years ago, the then Mayor of Surrey lobbied against the vehicle levy. If that would have past, I expect that rapid transit expansion would already be underway now in Surrey.

      Sure, we need better transit all over the reason but quite frankly, Surrey has been a victim of its own bad decisions. Transit is costly but the investment is really worth it. Time for everyone to realize that and stop the complaining about having to pay for it.

      anarchist

      Aug 30, 2011 at 10:40pm

      blame Carole Taylor for dumping the BC Bank Tax. translink would have 50+million per year extra in funds.

      blame the extremely low corporate tax rate, thus making you pay for everything.

      blame whoever privatized translink, turning it into a profit seeking corporation.

      protip: carbon tax 'credits' are all a scam. they just go into general revenue, and the hugest polluters simply trade with each other and maintain their current levels of pollution. the only people making money from the carbon tax are the brokers and traders, plus whatever corporate hacks we give it to in order to build more conference centers and stadiums.

      scathie

      Aug 31, 2011 at 12:49am

      "It’s not their fault the province has neglected to cough up money to get the project moving."

      So you're saying that the taxpayers of British Columbia should fund transportation for the citizens of Surrey? If anything, Surrey residents should pay more tax for living in a bedroom community (read: tax haven) and soaking up the resources of Vancouver without having to pay for them.

      Second Nation

      Aug 31, 2011 at 6:44am

      Tea Party North?

      Out of curiosity, do you take the bus?

      Aug 31, 2011 at 8:42am

      Maybe surrey city councillors can also help by not encouraging sprawl as development.

      http://www.civicsurrey.com/2010/10/04/despite-the-rhetoric-surrey-contin...

      or

      http://www.translinkcommission.org/CommissReport2010TenYearPlan.pdf

      <i> Achievement, however, of land use goals has been mixed, particularly with regards to the siting of employment. TransLink cannot significantly change these patterns by offering major expansions of service in low density areas but must rely on the region and its municipalities to do so using the more the effective and focused tools in their arsenals. </i>

      Evil Eye

      Aug 31, 2011 at 8:49am

      Stephanie, TransLink's transit woes can be placed squarely on SkyTrain. to date the taxpayer has spent over $8 billion on three SkyTrain Lines (Oops two SkyTrain lines and one truncated metro line know as the Canada Line), yet TransLink has failed to attract the motorist from the car.

      80% of SkyTrain's ridership, first use a bus and buses are notoriously poor in attracting the motorist. As an aside, BRT suffers from the same problem.

      Despite the hype and hoopla about the Canada line, it just continues to drive up the cost of transit, without providing any benefit. TransLink's financial fiasco was predicted 30 years ago by experts of the day, who commented on the region building with SkyTrain.

      Building more SkyTrain will only exacerbate the financial fiasco and Surrey will continually left with second prize; paying more taxes and receiving little in new transit.

      Just for the record, if the region had built with LRT instead, we could have had easily 9 - NINE, LRT lines versus just three metro lines; we could have had a transit system that would have given a faster doorstep to doorstep service than SkyTrain and a transit system with a potentially higher capacity than SkyTrain, with costs starting as low as $5 million/km. (TramTrain) to build

      Want affordable transit? Ditch SkyTrain.