- Page 36.
There's absolutely no mention of a confirmed source of funding that they would implement to replace the 0.5% PST. There is a mention that reductions should be considered, but I'd hardly call that a guarantee.
The original poster said "Surrey is too big to not have a car". Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster combined are bigger than Surrey and you don't need to have a car. This is because, as you say, they're more well-developed in regards to transit. Well, why not improve Surrey's transit so it can catch up to the cities north of the Fraser? That's exactly what this plan is trying to do.
No it's not. It'll improve Transit in regards to getting in to Vancouver from Surrey. This in no way improves Transit enough to get around Surrey itself that you would no longer need a car. Those 3 cities combined are NOT larger than surrey.
Vancouver + Burnaby + New Westminster = 221.21 km2
Surrey = 316.41 km2
And the STM only covers a small portion of Montreal's transit, so Montreal actually has four CEOs that cost $855k. And there are 10 CEOs for the various transit companies in Toronto, costing $2.1m. And Seattle has numerous transit companies and numerous CEOs. Same with NYC. Yet Metro Vancouver has one transit company and one (okay, two, but that's temporary) CEO. Go read this[2] .
Yeah, the author sure likes to cherry pick a lot of his points without giving any explanation as to the reasoning behind it. And considering most of those are subsidiaries, you'd have to also say Vancouver has 3 (Translink, BlueBus, Coast Mountain Bus Company).
Vancouver - 114.97 km2
Montreal - 431.50 km2
Toronto - 630.21 km2
Vancouver Metro - 2,878.52 km2
Montreal Metro - 4,258.31 km2
Toronto Metro - 5,905.71 km2
Translink Daily Ridership - 1.3 Mil.
STM - 2.1 (Not including subsidiary)
TTC - 2.6 (Not including subsidiary. Third most heavily used Urban Mass Transit system in N.A. The TTC also gets 70% of its revenue from fares)
The author also fails to mention that the majority of the other Transit companies are actually just bus routes that handle a daily ridership from a few thousand to about 100,000 a day. Not much different than our own BlueBus and Coast Mountain Bus Company (President and GM - Haydn Acheson - $329,130). Is it surprising that the two most populous Metros in our Country have bus service that extends to the Suburbs that are operated by their own CEO? And their area extends well beyond ours. Mississauga alone has a population larger than our own Vancouver.
No, it's called "actually answering the question on the ballot". If you vote 'no', you're answering the question "do you want this tax?" Pretending that you're actually sending another message is just that: pretending.
Pretending that this tax is our only option is just that: pretending. This ballot is a false dichotomy.
Because they have differing opinions. I don't think Burnaby or West Vancouver are spending any money on this campaign, so they're being consistent, at least. But the mayors that do support it, why shouldn't they spend a little money to try to improve their cities?
I never mentioned anything about money. My point is that not all mayors agree with a 'Yes' vote.