VANCOUVER -- Last week’s Insights West poll shows No-side support firming up and growing momentum.

So, let’s say the No side prevails. Yay! Now what? Recall the mayors and abolish TransLink? Sack its board of directors? Ruthlessly downsize management?

Yeah, well, let me know how those proposals work out for you.

In the meantime, an additional million people are inbound for Metro. They will use transit infrastructure that’s already bumping up against capacity. Sure, demanding that bureaucrats do more with less is satisfying — until the consequences come knocking on one’s own door, of course.

And come they will. Traffic congestion already costs Metro residents at least $1 billion a year in lost time and extra fuel, among other things. Those figures don’t include drawdowns on the quality of life through smog, respiratory illness, polluted street run-off and road rage. But they are corroborated in at least three independent studies by transportation experts — including the federal transport ministry and a think-tank outside Metro, neither of which have any skin in this game.

OK, start by cutting management fat. The administrative budget for TransLink amounts to about two per cent of spending. I’m not saying management couldn’t or shouldn’t be trimmed, but even if you fired every second manager, you’d only reduce spending by one per cent.

Put a ban on buying any new rolling stock, then. But that’s only a book saving because it’s a foregone cost, not an actual cut in existing spending. It might even inflate other costs because old rolling stock is less fuel efficient and requires more maintenance.

Nope, if we want to really chop costs at TransLink, we have to start axing bus drivers, transit cops, dispatchers, mechanics and cleaning staff because wages and fuel are the two biggest cost centres.

Wait, though. TransLink already reduced service staff through efficiencies achieved by shifting service from low use to high use routes. Oops. Further trimming means cutting service on higher use routes.

Boy, waiting in the rain as full buses roll past is going to be popular. Not that gridlocked drivers will care — another 700,000 vehicles could be on Metro roads by 2041 — perhaps because, as the Wall Street Journal has reported, alarming research shows that simply breathing exhaust fumes for 30 minutes impairs cognitive ability, emotional stability, intelligence test scores, memory and is associated with increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and acceleration of symptoms for Parkinson’s disease. Eek! Let me on that SkyTrain!

Over the next decade, it’s estimated that TransLink must service millions of additional trips annually — maybe 100,000 extra trips per day. Last year, trips on SkyTrain peaked at 365,000 a day. Now, consider the near riot when there were two — yep, two — lengthy delays last summer for SkyTrain commuters due to mechanical system malfunctions. And then there was the ranting over closure of a couple of busy escalators for repairs. Cutting back on maintenance staff comes with a downside, too.

Complainers target TransLink’s inefficiency. Compared to what? Edmonton Transit? It serves a population base similar to Vancouver Island’s on a footprint one-third the area of Metro. Calgary? About the same as Edmonton — and even Calgary is having problems rolling out its smart card fare system. Toronto Transit? Moves the same size population as Metro, but services an area smaller than Edmonton’s.