Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) directors have voted 4-2 in favour of moving ahead with a transit expansion plan that will have a significant tax impact.
Heading into this week’s second round of budget meetings, the SCRD board had already approved in principle a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with BC Transit, the co-funder of the Sunshine Coast Transit system.
The MOU calls for adding six new medium-duty buses and providing hourly service between Sechelt and Langdale using Routes 1 and 5, with 30-minute service on Route 90 at peak times. That works out to around 6,400 extra service hours every year.
In 2018-19 the MOU calls for hourly service to Halfmoon Bay on Route 4 Monday through Saturday and one new light duty bus, and in 2019-20 it calls for service to Chatelech Secondary School in Sechelt via Route 2, introduction of service to Pender Harbour, and one new light duty bus.
The cost will be $155,000 this year from the SCRD and $120,000 from BC Transit, then $466,000 per year from the SCRD going forward.
The first sign transit spending would be in for a rough ride came during discussion of the report on the final deficit and surplus numbers from 2016 at the March 7 budget meeting. The transit function had a deficit of $62,060 and SCRD staff recommended the amount be covered through 2017 taxation.
Sechelt director Doug Wright said he couldn’t support that approach. “I think we should send it back to staff and look at our options, and find out if this is the most viable option. I guess I’m not convinced that it is.”
SCRD chief administrative officer Janette Loveys, however, said staff had already investigated other options and there were only two: raise the money through taxes, or cut transit services. Directors voted to use taxation, with Wright opposed.
On the transit expansion plan itself, directors had three options: full support, which would bump up the taxes on a $500,000 home by $7.21 in 2017 and $21.84 annually from 2018 onward; no change, which would trigger a $194,000 penalty on leases for buses that have already been ordered by BC Transit; and delaying the expansion plan by spreading it out over a longer time, which would risk losing provincial government support in later years and would still trigger bus lease payments starting in September.
Roberts Creek director Mark Lebbell, a vocal supporter of transit expansion, called the numbers “sobering” but said people concerned about the increases could easily recoup more than the additional hit on their taxes by leaving their cars behind and taking transit to the ferry and into Vancouver just once.
Ian Winn of West Howe Sound, on the other hand, said he favoured the third option. “That’s a lot of money, perhaps too much money for this expansion plan,” Winn said. “I’m going to be more conservative in terms of my approach to transit expansion. It’s something we need to do, but over a longer period of time … I don’t want to see reductions.”
At a couple of points during the meeting SCRD chair, and Halfmoon Bay director, Garry Nohr said he will bring forward a motion sometime after the budget is finalized to explore changes to the way transit costs are divided between the SCRD areas. He said doing it on the basis of assessments isn’t working.
“I’m prepared to vote against it if we can’t have a review of the funding,” Nohr said. “Gibsons and Roberts Creek already have more service than I do, and I pay more.”
Lebbell said he would support a review. “I see that there’s room for a good close look at realigning the funding … I hear the concerns from the other areas and I think that there’s room for a process that would look at those.”
Frank Mauro, who represents Pender Harbour, which isn’t in the transit service, said, “It certainly would have to be looked at if Area A were to be part of this function … One of the fundamental principles of a regional district is user-pay for services. It would have to be based on service levels.”
Winn also said he thought a review was a good idea, especially in light of the cost to the islands which, of course, aren’t served by transit.
Lebbell likened transit expansion to climbing a slope. “The community feels it’s a mountain worth climbing in the long run,” he said.
Winn picked up on the analogy. “Do we want to rock climb it, or do we want to switch-back our way up?”
The final vote saw directors Lebbell, Nohr, Jeremy Valeriote (Gibsons) and Lorne Lewis (Elphinstone) come out in favour of moving ahead with the original expansion plan starting this year. Directors Winn and Wright were opposed. Director Mauro does not vote on transit spending.
Directors also passed a budget proposal for new radios for the extra buses at a cost of about $4,500 and $47,000 to pay for various improvements at the SCRD’s Mason Road facility to support maintenance of the bigger fleet.
The SCRD budget will go to a final vote March 23.
