Canadian Taxpayers Federation not impressed by TransLink TVs
Posted June 5, 2012 12:49 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is accusing TransLink of wasteful spending. They’re particularly perturbed about a $500,000 investment on 13 TVs.
Jordan Bateman with the Federation says he went to all the stations and found that only one of them has a screen that works.
“Scott Road [station] suffered damage, there was fuse problems at another station, so they’ve taken those down,” he says. “At $40,000 a pop, they would have worked these problems out beforehand. You’d be hardpressed to spend that kind of money on a TV screen as a normal person but TransLink seemed to find a way. “
The TVs aren’t the ones you see when waiting on the platform full of News1130 stories.
These are ones at the entry ways of 10 stations that you rarely see because they only appear when the gates are closed.
Bateman thinks the sandwich boards previously used were just as effective and did not come with the hefty price tag.
TransLink says it only spent about $130,000 on the screens because the rest of the money came from the federal government. It adds two screens are being fixed and another two aren’t being used temporarily because of vandalism concerns.
