Mayors call on province to act on TransLink funding

The chair of TransLink's Mayors’ Council says he's frustrated with the province's inaction on funding proposals for the public transit system.

North Vancouver District Mayor Richard Walton says the council has introduced five proposals to the province but no action has been taken so far.

Walton says the province asked council to present funding options and strategies but it hasn't acted on any of them.

"The concern we have is we've been having these discussions for a very long time and we want very specific commitments to sit down and discuss these things and some commitment from the government that we're going to address these things," he said.

"The [provincial] election is only 90 days away and at this point we've been asking for the same thing for close to two years."

On Friday, Surrey’s mayor also called for the province to address transit concerns in the Lower Mainland.

 "We are the second largest city in the province, we have half a million people ... and we only have only six kilometres of Skytrain track, which is absolutely unacceptable," Mayor Diane Watts said.

The council presented five proposals to the Minister of Transportation in late January, including a vehicle registration fee, a minor sales tax and carbon tax revenues.