NDP questions gov’t handling of funding Metro Vancouver transit improvements

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The official provincial opposition is questioning how the government is handling the issue of funding transit improvements across Metro Vancouver.

This comes after the Mayors’ Council unveiled its plan to pay for a decade of improvements and it would include road pricing and an increase in property taxes by about $3. But this back and forth between the two sides has the NDP thinking time is being wasted.

TransLink Critic David Eby says the 10-year plan to upgrade the system is never going to get moving unless something is agreed upon and fast.

“It’s no wonder to me that the mayors must be incredibly frustrated. We’re going backwards, not forward when the federal government is standing at the border of British Columbia with a bag of infrastructure money and the province can’t get its act together to negotiate a fair deal with the mayors.”

“The province has got to figure out that they can’t keep doing photo-op style re-announcements of the same deal over and over and pretend that we’re making progress. I really hope the minister does sincerely roll up his sleeves because we’ve lost another month that he had the mayors’ proposal and took no apparent action,” adds Eby.

The Minister responsible for TransLink Peter Fassbender says he will sit down with the Mayors’ Council to figure how to spend the $246 million the province is offering up, but he won’t give a timeline — saying only the money will be spent over the next three years.

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