Skip to content

Cheapskates keeping region behind the times

Dear Editor It is mind-boggling that Metro Vancouverites are unwilling to spend 0.5 per cent more of their tax dollars to improve our public transit system.

Dear Editor

It is mind-boggling that Metro Vancouverites are unwilling to spend 0.5 per cent more of their tax dollars to improve our public transit system. The No side voted yes to increased gridlock, yes to increased pollution and yes to higher taxes for road maintenance.

It is petty, shortsighted and self-centred on the part of drivers who hold the steering wheel with one tight fist and their wallet with the other, while gazing in their rearview mirror towards the dated 1950s nostalgia. That is not how to build a 21st-century city, and it does not bode well for altruistic citizenship in our city.

Why should non-transit drivers be given a say about the needs of transit users? If “user pay” is their point, then conversely, drivers should pay separate tolls for every kilometre of bridge and road driven as is done in more progressive Singapore. The image of Vancouverites as green and progressive is a hoax.

Plan B calls for replacing TransLink with a more competent and qualified body, managed and controlled by the GVRD, not Victoria.

Oscar Raasveldt, Port Coquitlam