New Westminster residents are motoring to the top of the transit referendum response rates.
As of May 20, Elections B.C. had screened 20,681 ballots from registered voters in New Westminster, which is 44.9 per cent of the 46,058 registered voters. Only Belcarra (52.1 per cent), Lions Bay (46.2 per cent) and Delta (45.7 per cent) had a higher response rate in terms of the percentage of registered voters.
“I am really pleased with the turnout in New Westminster,” said Mayor Jonathan Cote. “It’s great to see that the community is engaged in this important referendum.”
Each week Elections B.C. reports on the number of voters in each of the 23 voting municipalities that have returned ballot packages. The next update will be posted May 27 (after Record deadlines.)
“I know initially the results were lower. I think a big part of that is we were the last community to get the ballots,” he said. “That was a little bit misleading why we were down in the pack. We actually got our ballots two weeks after Vancouver got their ballots.”
Cote said he’s pleased New Westminster’s numbers are high, as the city has a strong vested interest in transportation issues.
Metro Vancouver residents are being asked to vote on whether or not to support the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation request for a 0.5 per cent increase to the provincial sales tax to generate funding to expand the regional transit and transportation system. Voting closes at 8 p.m. on Friday, May 29.
As the May 29 voting deadline approaches, the rate of response seems to be slowing down. On April 15, 1,996 registered voters in New West had returned ballots, a number that grew to 6,027 on April 22, 12,822 on April 29, 16,743 by May 6 and 19,100 on May 13.
Cote said there’s been a long voting period for Metro Vancouver residents to vote on the mail-in ballot, so he’s not expecting a significant jump in the final week of voting.
“We are not expecting a significant surge,” he said. “Having said that, I think we are pretty close to the target of what we were expecting. The results are already significantly higher than the last municipal election. I think we are pretty close to where the HST referendum was too. We are in the range of what we were expecting, 40 to 50 per cent would be a good turnout and a good participation from the region.”
Cote is most surprised at the response from Surrey, where 37.4 per cent of registered voters had cast ballots as of May 20. He noted that most Metro Vancouver communities have a response rate of 40 to 50 per cent and Surrey stands to gain a “significant investment” in public transit if the mayors’ transportation plan goes forward.
Don Main, communications manager for Elections B.C., said the only real comparison in terms of turnout to the mail-in plebiscite was the referendum on the harmonized sales tax in 2011, which had a turnout of 52.66 per cent.
Only ballots returned by 8 p.m. on Friday will be counted, Main said, so if registered voters fear they may miss the deadline to get their ballot in by mail, they can return them to plebiscite service offices. The nearest office is at Lougheed Town Centre.
The “congestion tax” would be used to fund a wide range of transportation and transit initiatives, including a new Pattullo Bridge, upgrades to the major road network, increased capacity of Expo and Millennium SkyTrain lines, increased bus service, additional HandyDart services, and cycling and pedestrian improvements. Opponents of the tax have voiced concerns about TransLink’s governance and management of issues such as the compass card and executive salaries.
TransLink offered free transit service on Friday, after a shutdown on the EXPO line caused problems for thousands of commuters earlier in the day. A spark from a machine used for maintenance on the system ignited a bird’s nest, which damaged cables and interrupted transit services.
“To me it actually highlights why we do need to pay attention to making investments in our transportation system. Even the Expo line is starting to show its age,” Cote said. “If we starve the system of the funding it needs, these kind of situations, unfortunately, are potentially going to be more regular. That’s a concern to me.”
