Some of the best work on the issues surrounding the TransLink plebiscite have come from bloggers with the time and expertise to do deeper analysis.

Today, I thought one such blogger deserved mention.

Daryl Dela Cruz is a Surrey resident, who is on a university exchange program in Japan where he is studying local transit. He took a look at the subject of executive salaries at TransLink, the hot button issue which, if my email is any indication, makes avowed No voters spit with rage.

Cruz, who started and led the Better Surrey Rapid Transit campaign, challenged the No side’s claim that TransLink executive salaries are much greater than other transit systems in Canada and the U.S.

His take?

The comparisons the No side are using are intentionally misleading and meant to cause anger.

For example, on the No side website, it’s stated that TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis’s 2013 remuneration of $468,015 (a figure which includes bonuses) is $267,000 more than that of the CEO of Seattle Sound Transit.

But the context of the comparison, Dela Cruz maintains, is an invalid one that distorts the real picture for shock value. It’s comparing an apple to, well, a slice of apple.

“Sound Transit operates numerous express buses and some rail lines, but it’s not the largest transit operator in the Puget Sound nor by any means the one carrying the most ridership. That would be King County Metro, which operates Seattle’s inner-city buses and carries four times the daily ridership that Sound Transit does.”

And while TransLink is Metro Vancouver’s sole transit server, there are 10 different transit operators serving the Puget Sound area, all of them with their own CEOs.

“TransLink still operates a wider variety of services over a larger service area, and our system carries more than twice as many daily weekday riders as both (King County Metro and Seattle Sound Transit) put together (1.2 million on TransLink vs. 496,000 between both King County Metro and Sound Transit).”

Dela Cruz found the No side applied the same distortion technique in its comparison of Toronto and Vancouver executive salaries.

In that comparison, the No side states that Jarvis was paid $150,000 more than the Toronto Transit Commission boss Andy Byford.

But that, too, Dela Cruz writes, was an intentionally misleading comparison designed to shock.

“(What) the CTF doesn’t tell you is that Andy Byford isn’t the only CEO of a transit authority in Greater Toronto. He’s actually one of nine CEOs.

“Every other city in Greater Toronto operates its own transit agency — i.e. Mississauga (MiWay), the York Region (YRT), Burlington (Burlington Transit), Brampton (Brampton Transit) — and they each require a separate CEO and administration team.

“(The) leaders behind the ‘No TransLink Tax’ effort have decided to tell us one thing and not tell us the other. They’re trying to convince us that TransLink is even comparable to Toronto’s TTC ... when that is simply not the case. They’re outright lying to us, and we don’t even know it because the concept of TransLink as a unique, single, region-wide entity — and advantageous because of it — has not been established with the voter base.”

Dela Cruz doesn’t stop there. The No side charges that an “excessive” number of staff at TransLink make over $100,000 — about 430 in all.

“By comparison, Toronto’s TTC alone has nearly 1,400 employees making salaries of over $100,000 — and there are more such employees at GO Transit, Metrolinx, and Greater Toronto’s other transit operators.”

His conclusion?

“I’m honestly not sure, considering how much leverage the ‘TransLink is wasteful’ message has on the public, how many people would be tempted to believe it if I were to say that TransLink is actually the most cost-efficient transit agency in all of Canada ... (But) even when interim CEO Doug Allen’s pay is also counted, residents of Metro Vancouver are paying less per capita for their top-in-charge than residents of Canada’s other large cities.”

Dela Cruz’s website can be found at: https://darylvsworld.wordpress.com

It’s worth a read, if just to get a better, and decidedly more accurate, sense of context in this game.

pmcmartin@vancouversun.com