As the Victoria Regional Transit Commission ponders how to spend its share of the $158 million promised by the federal and provincial governments, it should ask the public what the priorities should be for transit.
The money is certainly welcome — $90 million in federal grants and $68 million from the B.C. government — but Victoria doesn’t get it all. It must be shared with the other areas of the B.C. Transit system — Nanaimo, Prince George, Kelowna, Kamloops and Abbotsford.
While Victoria, with the largest service in the system, will get the biggest piece of the pie, it’s only enough to make tweaks and improvements, not enough to take any radical new directions. You’ll have to wait a while — probably a long time — if you were counting on light-rail transit.
And it’s a pale imitation of what Metro Vancouver is getting — a total of $740 million in federal, provincial and local funding, the first phase of a 10-year, $7.5-billion capital-projects plan, announced Thursday in Vancouver by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Christy Clark.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone said the improvements in Victoria will be major, needed to cope with “significant growth” in transit here. And the funding will cut anticipated wait times of five to 10 years for projects down to two or three years, he said.
Susan Brice, who chairs the Victoria Regional Transit Commission, said the immediate need is to expand bus service. She said the system needs 10 new buses — at a cost of $4.5 million — and a new bus depot to replace the existing garage.
Those are straightforward needs, but those who use the system should be consulted.
For example, they might favour, given the new funding, a return to the transfer system, so that people who need to take two or more buses to get to their destination don’t have to pay the $5 daily fare.
In the longer term, the input could be used to help form a 10-year plan, as Metro Vancouver has done, so improvements can be made in anticipation of need, not to catch up. It should be a plan that looks beyond the next funding announcement and considers all possibilities.
Thought should be given to separating the regional transit commission from B.C. Transit and creating a body responsible for a wider spectrum of transportation issues. While a light-rail transit system, estimated by one study to cost about $1 billion, is a long way off, it’s never too early to start thinking about it.
