Metro mayors want home owners to pay average $3 more per year in property tax, call for 2% transit fare increase in 2018

METRO VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – What do you think about paying a little more in property tax and transit fares, while paying tolls depending on how far you drive — if it meant all of the long awaited transportation projects go ahead?

Metro Vancouver mayors have unveiled how they would fund their share of what’s needed to implement their 10-year transportation plan.

The mayors would ask home owners to pay on average $3 more per year in property tax. This is the first time they’ve gone the property tax route.

They also want a one-time two per cent transit fare increase in 2018.

The mayors are also proposing bringing in mobility pricing by 2021. That’s a scheme which would likely see lower tolls on more routes instead of tolls on select ones, like we have now.

Vancouver and Surrey would provide land for the LRT and Broadway subway for free.

The mayors also want to sell surplus TransLink properties. But they’re also asking more from the provincial government.

In addition to the agreed-upon one-third share of capital costs, they want the province to return $50 million in carbon tax money given to households outside of Metro Vancouver back to the region.

Metro mayors want on paper support from the province on the mobility pricing scheme and governance of TransLink given to the mayors.

Province confirms $246 million for transit improvements, alludes to supporting property tax hike

The provincial government says it still needs to sit down with the Mayors Council to go over their ideas but it is offering $246 million dollars to immediately improve transit across Metro Vancouver.

Minister Responsible for TransLink Peter Fassbender won’t give a timeline as to when projects will be decided on and how soon construction may begin.

Meantime, he is alluding to supporting a property tax hike. “We’ve mentioned a property lift and densification along transit corridors which we believe, even the mayors own report that

TransLink said it could be upwards of $1 billion available to fund capital infrastructure.”

The money he adds will be spent over three years for ideas proposed by the council which is all part of Phase 1. “We also need to remember Phase 2 is a long-term plan. It is not something that is going to happen next year, so we have the time to work out the path forward with the region, with the mayors and with our federal partners,” explains Fassbender.

All this money Fassbender claims, is different from last year’s plebiscite where one-third of the money promised then would have only gone to the Broadway Subway in Vancouver and LRT in Surrey.