194 million for a compass system that doesn't work

That's really a reason to not give Victoria more money, rather than Translink. I know it's a broken record, but compass was foisted upon translink by the BC Liberals. Translink has been saying for years that fare gates would not be worth the cost

Common, that money could've gone to updating the skytrains that are from the 80's. Or better yet, updating/fixing their skytrain lines.

They are That's why main street station had limited service for all those months. They've been lengthening the platform to handle longer trains. It's been at the root of some of the service shut downs last year as they've been rooting around in electrical systems to replace worn parts and allow for more trains. They've been cycling the mark-1 cars through their midlife refurbishment. They've been replacing many miles of third rails and pusher plates. They will be doing substantial renovations at Metrotown soon to better handle the high levels of traffic at the system's busiest platform. They've been doing very thorough upgrades to the Expo Line to ensure that it continues to be able to handle the system's ever increasing demands

If they really wanted more money, they should have their bus drivers actually check fares.

That would unfortunately degrade service quality. The fare boxes actually make a fairly significant impact on the amount of time a bus spends waiting at the curb, and lengthens everyone's travel time. Since bus operating costs are somewhere in the vicinity of $100/hour, this also increases translink's costs.

Proof-of-payment has long been the most cost-effective means of fare enforcement, and it doesn't cause delays. While one can complain about the frequency of fare inspections, it's still much cheaper than to pay someone to check every single ticket, and much faster than to have that same person then also drive the bus.

This is part of the reason why translink was so resistant to the fare gates for many years - because just operating the gates will cost more than they are losing in fare evasion, but there's a popular attitude that fare-cheats must cost some huge amount of money. That impels politicians to demand that Translink do something about it, so we end up with the $200 million compass card. It would be much cheaper and much faster to simply beef up the fine and have more frequent random sweeps.

I'd ask you to reconsider your support. It's important to remember that complete fare enforcement costs a lot of money, much more than fare evasion ever will. On the important matters, translink delivers an absolutely enormous amount of transit service across the region, and compared to other cities in North America does a pretty bang-up job. Revenue from the tax will be annually audited and directed to the very specific projects that the Mayor's Plan proposes, and will enhance service for the entire region.