Metro Vancouver mayors and the B.C. government are in a standoff over who’s responsible for funding transportation after the region’s voters — many in transit-deficient areas south of the Fraser — roundly rejected a half-a-percentage-point sales tax hike to help pay for a $7.5-billion 10-year plan.

Mayors warn the defeat, which saw 61.7 per cent of voters reject the tax, will mean cuts to existing service levels across the region, especially with falling fuel tax revenues and no inclination to raise property taxes or fares. There are fears higher ticket prices would reduce ridership system-wide.

“People suspect we have a Plan B, but we have said repeatedly that service levels will go down if we get a No vote,” said Greg Moore, mayor of Port Coquitlam and chairman of the mayors’ council. “I don’t think people believed that. They said, ‘You’re not going to let the system fall apart.’ We’re not going to let it fall apart, but at the same time there is no new money.”

Mayors of Metro’s two largest cities have threatened to go it alone on transit projects despite the outcome. Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner has pledged a light rail line for the fast-growing city, possibly with funding from private partners, and Vancouver has the option of funding a Broadway rapid-transit line using debt.

Vancouver voters were split on the tax, with 50.8 per cent voting against, while 65.5 per cent of Surrey voters rejected it.

The $5.8-million Yes campaign started with a sputter and never did gain momentum. Disenchanted voters flocked to the No side, which denounced TransLink’s high executive salaries, the Compass card debacle and SkyTrain breakdowns. Voter turnout was 48.6 per cent. Of the 23 municipalities that voted, all but three rejected the tax increase.

Mayors say the transportation plan was doomed from the start after Premier Christy Clark ordered in 2013 that any new funding sources would have to go to a non-binding plebiscite. Both Clark and Transportation Minister Todd Stone say they will respect the mail-in vote, which means mayors won’t be able to introduce any other funding sources until the next municipal election in 2018.

“That’s a long time to go without funding for a transit system,” Moore said.

The rejection led regional mayors Thursday to threaten to pull out of the transportation authority if the province doesn’t change TransLink’s governance structure — giving mayors more control of projects — and address its funding woes within the next six months. Mayors aired their frustration and disappointment in the vote during a lengthy private meeting Thursday.

But the province countered the mayors must find the money, noting councils have the power to raise property taxes beyond the three per cent already collected annually by TransLink.

“B.C. has committed funding one-third of the capital projects in the plan as well as the Pattullo Bridge,” Stone said Thursday. “The region has to decide how it is going to come up with the costs for major upgrades for Metro Vancouver.”

Larry Frank, a professor with the University of B.C.’s school of population and public health, said Surrey’s announcement early in the campaign that it would go it alone likely had an effect on the negative vote.

Mayors argue the ball is in the province’s court, saying it created TransLink and must come up with a better way to run it — and instil public confidence in the transportation authority. If that isn’t done in six months, mayors say they’ll re-evaluate their role in the transportation authority.

Moore noted the move wouldn’t necessarily affect TransLink’s operations in the short term because the province can appoint new board members, but noted local municipalities are required to approve any transportation plans going forward, as well as TransLink’s executive compensation. The biggest effect, he said, would be to underscore how little power Metro Vancouver has in TransLink operations and put the onus on Victoria to fund the transportation system.

“The operations would still continue and they would probably function without the mayors,” he said. “Some people think the mayors have more control of TransLink than we do.”

Frank maintains the TransLink board should be scrapped and replaced entirely by the mayors, noting without them TransLink would become a provincial entity without local accountability.

Interim TransLink CEO Doug Allen would not say Thursday whether there would be a governance change at TransLink, but said the transportation authority will look at “everything” following the crushing defeat.

“We have to review everything, it’s that simple ... we will review where efficiencies can be extracted to keep service levels as high as possible,” he said.

Allen said the situation is compounded by the fact that TransLink is seeing operating costs rise. On the horizon are labour agreements, which come up for renewal in 2016, as well as upgrades to the 30-year-old Expo SkyTrain line and stations.

But he said TransLink will stop short of cutting service altogether. “The notion of having no service is something we would look at as a last resort,” he said. “This is a big region. You don’t want to leave people in a no-service world if you can avoid that.”

Jordan Bateman, a spokesman for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which spearheaded the No campaign, agreed TransLink was top of mind for voters, arguing that if it wasn’t, the board wouldn’t have fired former CEO Ian Jarvis. He called for a core review of TransLink.

“They lost a pretty crushing defeat,” he said. “We had the people on our side.”

But Frank argues TransLink was always intended to be the scapegoat.

“TransLink has been put in a really unfortunate situation,” he said. “I believe that was the intent all along, to make TransLink the fall guy, that everyone will blame TransLink when the fault really lies with the province.”

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