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Metro Vancouver’s half-per cent transit tax having been thumpingly rejected in referendum results announced Thursday — 62 per cent said no — many transit-boosters are suggesting a plebiscite was the wrong way to go about it in the first place. You wouldn’t hold a referendum on hospital funding or other social essentials; why hold one on transit?

Others have suggested Vancouverites were simply underinformed. In a statement, the pro-transit group Move GTHA stressed the need for “more public education about the value of transit and active transportation … to secure support for dedicated revenue tools. This has also been the case in many American cities that voted ‘yes’ in … referendums.”

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Maybe. But most people know what it’s like to be stuck in traffic, and most people know what it’s like to whiz past or underneath it. Other cities have approved such measures, as Move GTHA noted: in 2008, a supermajority of Los Angeles County voters approved a half-per cent transit tax for 30 years.