Metro Vancouver mayors say provincial, federal governments need to pay bigger fare for transit growth

Metro Vancouver mayors are seeking a bit more than bus change when it comes to paying for transit growth in the region.

At the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference Tuesday, the TransLink Mayors Council spoke to media, highlighting what they say is insufficient transit funding to keep the region moving and growing.

Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, who chairs the committee, said Ottawa and Victoria need to kick in much more to get their ambitious transit plan, Access for Everyone, on track.

The plan comes with a $21 billion price tag over 10 years.

"It represents a significant improvement to this region, in fact, the biggest improvement Metro Vancouver has ever seen in public transit," West said.

"We need to start making progress on this plan, year over year, seeing improvements."

Many of the projects and ideas in the plan have already been called for by local leaders in recent years.

They include rapid transit to the North Shore; SkyTrain expansions, including to UBC; the SFU gondola project; Bus Rapid Transit and a doubling of bus services.

It's more than a wider reach for the network or better service, the mayors said. It's about making existing service work when overcrowding is a too-common issue.

The investment will be critical, they added, as the region continues to add more people.

"We are really, really in need of better public transit," Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke said. "It is really hampering our ability to build in our city. It is starting to hamper our ability to produce housing. We need to do that."

The mayors, in a statement, said funding needs to grow after being frozen at 2019 levels due to the pandemic. Transit ridership, on the other hand, has only grown, with boardings in the summer of 2023 up 16 per cent from a year before.

B.C. Transportation Minister Rob Fleming, who was also at the UBCM Tuesday, did not make any commitments toward the mayors' goals but said they can count on his government to work with them.

"We support the ambition," Fleming said of the 10-year plan. "We're gonna keep building transit systems with them … and look to their next list of projects."

Fleming said the province has been a good partner when it comes to funding transit, including spending over $1 billion to help TransLink absorb pandemic-related cashflow issues and picking up a larger share of the bill for the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain line.

He said his government plans to discuss funding projects in the plan as they move forward.

CBC News reached out to the federal government for comment but did not hear back by deadline.

The mayors say they need to see transit funding commitments made by June 2024 in order to match population growth and housing targets.