Psychology of ‘no': Vancouver transit vote shows why good decisions are hard
news.nationalpost.com
news.nationalpost.com
Maybe the "no" voters see it differently? They're probably dubious that "the mayor’s plan will shorten commute times on Vancouver’s most congested roads by 20-30 minutes per day, while transit riders will save up to half an hour."
> A report by HDR Consulting found that, even after the sales tax, the average family can expect to save about $360/year.
I'm going to bet that HDR Consulting was smart enough to provide the answer their client was looking for.
I know I sound cynical here, but this article takes campaign-style promises at face value, then cries, "Why can't they just see what's better for them??"
That's because it is a good plan. Every single mayor and a vast majority of councillors are voting YES. http://transit-vote.thetyee.ca/
Almost every single organization, left and right of centre, has endorsed the plan: http://i.imgur.com/guVFQDa.jpg
It's a good plan. That's why the piece pre-supposes that point.
Any plan that can unite that many wildly disparate organizations behind it is likely to be a very good plan.
The war in Syria is also uniting "many wildly disparate organizations"...
The simple fact that the very voters whom the plan supposedly benefits seem poised on the brink of rejecting it should be a good hint that maybe the plan is flawed.
A yes or no vote will not change the plan, it will merely change the way that Translink makes money.
My problem is with the article's attempt to present their side as a fact; that the existence of opposition must be due to some defect in humanity itself, rather than a reasoned stance. It's very patronizing and doesn't help to convince those that need convincing.
When people have a general distrust of the handling of their tax dollars, they often have experience that informs that distrust. One should not summarily discount and ignore that sentiment if they're looking to raise funds.
The fact that local micro politics have a real chance of influencing the outcome of the referendum more than the quality of the plan is exactly why such a referendum is not a good idea.
Besides, what if the No vote wins? They will probably still do most of the things in the plan, but somewhat slower and with less fanfare.
If I had voting rights in Vancouver I would just vote No in protest against the referendum itself.
Apparently if people vote "no" on the sales tax increase, they will be increasing property taxes instead:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/clark-w...
Voting no to "punish" the people putting it to a vote sounds like an incredibly ineffective way of protesting. Nobody would know it was a protest except you. If you live here, why don't you actually protest instead? You don't even need voting rights for that.
I'm still unsure whether to vote yes or no. I think we need the transit improvements and the money has to come from somewhere. OTOH property tax seems like it would be less regressive than sales tax, and I'm not in favor of regressive taxes in general. So if we're really voting on sales tax vs property tax, a "no" vote would make sense, except I feel like the property tax route would be more fraught with further political drama and other difficulties and we might not actually get the needed funding.
The group(s) that have been promoting the No vote seem to be using big numbers and mostly baseless arguments. Statements like "Translink spent $30,000 on a statue of a poodle", "The last CEO made $500,000 a year", "Voting Yes tells Translink you are happy with their service" are among their key points.
It's unfortunate that the general public struggles to think in relative terms, or to be forward thinking. $500k/year is a pretty low CEO salary for that size of organization; $30,000 on public art for an organization with an annual budget of almost $1.5 billion is all of a sudden not so outrageous.
"Voting Yes tells Translink you are happy with their service" is the ultimate irony in it all. The reason this plebiscite exists is because the population is _unhappy_ with the service and they want to make it better.
Of all of the large Canadian transit systems I've used - Calgary, Vancouver, Montréal, Toronto - Vancouver's is without a doubt the best and most efficient of them all, and Translink has developed a very good plan for what they would do if the Yes side prevailed.
Oh well.
(the proposed transit plan given a successful Yes vote: http://mayorscouncil.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Mayors-Co...)
The more troubling thing about Translink is their apparent inability to execute even the simplest of projects. Remember the Compass cards? Still not in effect. Similarly, turnstiles in the skytrain still don't work, so many people don't pay.
Building new rail service and adding more bus routes seems orders of magnitude more complex than implementing a check in/check out card system or enabling turnstiles in the skytrain stations. If they fail to execute simple tasks at the cost of hundreds of millions, why would they be able to execute complex tasks at the cost of billions?
This in addition to the fact that sales taxes are the most regressive taxes you can have. Why not property tax? Only extremely wealthy people can afford property in Vancouver. Seems like a better place to start...
Like I said, I have no skin in this game. Just trying to shed some light on some of the more salient points from the No side.
The Compass card project is undoubtably a failure, and Translink chose the wrong contractor (the same company is responsible for another failed project in Chicago). Software is hard, and I would say to a certain extent this is a transportation company diving a little too deeply in a field for which they have no expertise.
To the property tax argument - in general, the people that own property in Vancouver probably also own cars. The largest users of public transit are obviously those who do not have cars, so then raising property taxes would largely affect people who do not directly benefit from a successful vote, no?
Sounds like a good upgrade to current system...
More broadly speaking, giving more votes to rich people would never fly. Even if you could scientifically show that it would improve everyone's lives. Entire civilizations have revolted over less.
I'm guessing you don't live in the suburbs or attend UBC (or, God forbid, both at the same time). While I agree that transit functions very well in the core part of the city, lack of rapid transit out to the University is a conspicuous weakness -- the 15-km commute from East Van takes over an hour by transit. With a tram or SkyTrain line it could be a third of that. Also, much of Surrey (whose population will exceed Vancouver's within a decade) is very far from any SkyTrain station. To be fair, Burnaby and New West at least are well-served by fast transit.
I think Toronto's Go Train serves commuters better than anything in Vancouver. Montreal has a similar light-rail system which I've used a few times.
In general, though, I agree with you. Vancouver has a solid transit system that could be even better with more funding, and a $500k CEO salary is neither excessive nor relevant to the argument. I'll be voting yes.
Go Transit has a good system but it's comes at a cost. For example - Langley to UBC is the same distance as Hamilton to Toronto. If you're a student, doing that roundtrip on Translink is $35 a month (U-Pass), whereas the Go Bus is $300 (PRESTO card). (If you're not a student it's $200 / $400).
1) Sales tax is a regressive way to tax people.
2) Translink, the company in charge of transit in Vancouver, is widely seen as somewhere between incompetent and corrupt. (Corrupt by Canadian standards, which is a pretty low bar).
If this was done as an increase in property and gas taxes, I suspect it'd be a different story.
Aren't there numerous sales tax exemptions that make it less regressive? No sales tax on groceries, school supplies, etc?
Source: http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/topic.page?id=78521DE3BD5D46C9A3B1...
Firstly, giving more money to Translink is like giving a credit card to a reckless teenager. Or the keys to a powerful sports car to Justin Bieber. Secondly, transit should support itself from the fares it collects: how about that! I already pay a "regional transit levy" ... in my electricity bill, WTF? Where is the connection between me running a fridge, computer and lights, and someone else taking the bus?
I don't give a rat's ass about transit. I bike to work!
Okay, so there are bike lanes in this deal for me? Nope; I don't care about those, and they won't build them where I commute. I will fend for myself, thanks.
I also don't care about expanding the road infrastructure for motorists. Roads should get slower and more congested, as an incentive for people to get out of their cars.
My commute is already short and consistently so. I can beat transit by 100% and even the average car trip time. I've made the 12 km trip to work in as few as 22 minutes; whereas my best car time was around 15, and plenty of times when traffic made that 45 minutes or more.
I don't care about a new bridge over the Fraser; just more ways for the violent criminals from there to attack Vancouver homes, businesses and individuals, and then make a faster getaway back over the Fraser, out of law's reach. It's bad enough that a stray bullet can reach across the Fraser.
Hey, that last paragraph is a joke, no offense intended! :)
If I don't have kids in school, I have not found an alternative way to achieve the same thing as someone who does have kids in school (an alternative that is cheaper, more efficient and easier on the environment).
If we don't have kids, humanity vanishes. If we have kids, but they don't go to school, everything will go to hell in a hound basket within the span of a generation.
In today's reality, most couples are expected/required to have both partners work, and we've yet to figure out how to solve that 2-body problem on a wide scale. More telecommuting would help, but many companies are still strongly resistant to it even when it's possible. The society that you live in needs the people living >10km from work to be able to get to work and I guarantee that if this wasn't possible anymore, you would feel the hit. If people could only get jobs at places within biking distance, unemployment would skyrocket, as would the number of unfillable job openings. The cascading effect of that would be huge. Have fun with that.
Surely biking to work is easier if there are fewer cars on the road?
Also, small narrow streets where cars have to go slow are better than big wide lanes.
Part of this proposal is about improving the road infrastructure which is about, doh, more cars, moving faster. Faster commute times are promised to drivers and transit riders alike.
Also, transit buses present a particular threat to me: they always pull over to the right, cutting me off so that I have to swerve left around them into traffic. Almost daily, some bus driver races ahead of me and then cuts me off, even though I'm faster on average, and if he just gave me a few seconds, I would be out of there and he'd never see me again. If I vote Yes, I'm saying I want more of these jerks out there trying to kill me.
You are under no obligation to try to convince others to agree with your perspective but if that is your goal maybe a different line of reasoning would be better.
At that time, I will pay the fare, or gasoline tax or whatever.
> a different line of reasoning would be better.
Like what? Vote in a way that is good for someone else, rather than yourself?
Here is an idea: everyone should vote in a completely myopic way based on what is immediately good for them today.
The big picture emerges from the total of the vote.
This is correct and how democracy works.
Democracy is not optimal; for that you want to remove voting and have centralized control.
If Vancouver had a referendum to get rid of bike lanes and ban bikes from streets entirely, I doubt you would be saying the same thing. There are far more drivers than cyclists. I guess in that case all the drivers should vote to get rid of bike lanes and ban cyclists?
Right, because global referenda which mainly affect a minority are examples of democracy?
Should gays be allowed to get married? Let's hold a referendum! Should some natives be given back a piece of land? Let's hold a referendum!
For the record, I currently sometimes ride where bikes are banned, namely certain sections of certain highways. So I wouldn't care. And I'm not a big supporter of bike lanes.
I'm not opposed to the idea, however, of requiring cyclists to be licensed somehow as a requirement for the use of public roads that carry motor vehicles. Don't ban; qualify.
If everyone voted for just the things that helped them and against everything else - whether in referendums, elections, whatever - minorities would pretty much always be repressed.
If someone thinks that a city council whose main focus is getting rid of bikes is the best for them, they should absolutely vote that way. The idea that I would have someone vote for what she thinks is good for me rather than him or herself is absurd.
Are you so also cavalier with your finances? Why not spend your money in a completely myopic way based on what will bring you happiness today. Next month will take care of itself.
Even from the point of pure self-interest, transit benefits you: each additional person who takes it is one less car on the road trying to run you down and put you in the hospital for the crime of riding a bike.
Anyway, I'm completely in favor.
I think cyclists should be licensed in order to be allowed to use roads, and the fees could be collected through the licensing system. The police should be able to impound bikes that are driven on roads by unlicensed riders, or bikes that are not road-worthy, such as no lights at night or nonworking brakes.
You've done a great job of making the article's point. You've fallen for the cognitive trap that the article is describing.
You have not considered more complex effects. How does this affect your family, friends, and co-workers? How does this affect the school and parks in your neighbourhood? How does this increase population density? How does this affect property prices? How does this affect pollution levels?
I am not personally of the opinion that every service should be budget neutral or budget positive, especially if they are making investments in large-scale improvements. For most transit options, charging a self-sustaining rate would severely limit service at worst, or make it impossible to expand at best. Further, with transit specifically, everyone benefits taking cars off the roads, so to me a use-tax as the only funding mechanism is not appropriate.
Beyond that, your position reads to me like "I'm fine, so it's all fine."
I absolutely do not hold such an illogical position. Rather, I'm fine and don't care about the rest.
> Further, with transit specifically, everyone benefits taking cars off the roads,
I'm an example of taking a car off the road, without transit. Since you believe that people should pay some levy for the sake cars being taken off roads, it follows that a tax should be collected and some of it transferred to my personal bank account.
You're able to bike on the roads, it seems. What bike tax are you paying for those roads? And you're right, you as a biker don't benefit at all from reduced auto traffic. Not one bit. No, you're an entirely independent entity in an otherwise highly interconnected traffic and transit network, it seems. The environmental pollution, sound pollution, increased pedestrian/biker/driver safety, and reduced infrastructure damage are benefits for everyone else.
But in fairness, in isolation I would support a tax credit for individuals who drive less than X miles per year.
Yes, and my vote represents myself. The fact that other people have other needs is represented by the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of other votes.
The idea that Peter should vote for what is good for Paul rather than Peter is absurd.
> What bike tax are you paying for those roads?
None, currently! Bring it on. Calculate the wear caused by cyclists and send me my share of the maintenance bill.
> And you're right, you as a biker don't benefit at all from reduced auto traffic. Not one bit.
No, I don't. Less traffic means cars going faster. The safest is no cars at all, or cars in bumper-to-bumper traffic slugging along in 15 km/h bursts.
This proposal promises reduced commute times to drivers. There is supposed to be a new bridge and more roads and so on. Of course that will get more people into cars. The commute times will then eventually drop to the original values, just with more cars. More noise, more pollution.
Vancouver has never been about this. That is why we do not have a nasty network of raised highways routed through the city, like other cities in the world. You can't get from one side of Vancouver to the other without crossing a crapload of intersections. That's the character of this town.
Douglas Copeland writes about this at length in the introduction to the book _Vancouver Stories_.
I do not care about myself only, but also about preserving the character of this town. I do not support the "Los Angelization" of Vancouver.
So what would you recommend? Do nothing, ever? I suppose that does have a cool, nihilistic ring to it...
If we vote no it's just a matter of whether or not Translink can learn to manage the money that they have now. They have historically been horrible at this.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
It would be great if we get the transit improvements either way. If that belief is false, though, it's a very dangerous idea to be spreading.
I recall when the Canada line was being built for the Olympics there was an outcry because it would push the plans for the rail to Langley(UBC? My memory is not 100%) back by years as they were putting it on hold to make way for rail to Richmond.
From 2014: http://www.bcbusiness.ca/manufacturing-transport/an-expo-lin... From 2013: http://www.surreyleader.com/news/195701621.html From 2012: http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/7340/surrey-mayor-derails... From 2008: (When it was just talk) http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=ea3c45d3-d3b6-48fc-8b18-...
For instance, their "Compass" system, despite being pegged for deployment by 2008, STILL hasn't been fully implemented. It's been plagued by technical issues and is now running over $200 MILLION dollars, far higher than the original cost. All to stop non-paying passengers (they'll be losing more money on the compass system than missed ticket payments).
Not to mention many of the "transit police" they increasingly employ have 6 figure salaries. They're basically security guards who call the cops if anything serious happens. I've seen them maybe checking tickets 3x a year max in all my years riding Translink.
So yeah, if Translink wasn't already blowing millions of dollars when it shouldn't have, I think Vancouver would vote yes. As it stands, they're justified in saying no, in my humble opinion.
Sources: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/compass-card-...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/translink-sal...
By the way, the money-losing Golden Ears Bridge shows that Vancouverites (or "Lower-Mainland-ites", rather) are willing to drive an extra 40 minutes to avoid paying a small toll. The project didn't see that one coming, haha!
What this is a vague promise of better transit, but no real plan, no budget with accountability, etc. Also, unless I missed something the tax is forever. How often have we seen taxes meant for one thing to be diverted to another thing?
Here is a document outlining the plan and budget: http://mayorscouncil.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Mayors-Co...
In Oregon we recently had a transit proposal to build a new bridge over the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington. About 30 years ago we spent $170 million for a very fine bridge.[1] Now we were being asked to spend $2800 million[2] for a replacement for a parallel bridge (revised down from $3500 million but surely overruns were guaranteed). I know we had some inflation in the intervening years. But nowhere near that much!
According to the govt CPI calculator, $170 in 1982 dollars is $412 in 2015 dollars. But our Oregon "leaders" wanted to spend $2800. Fortunately the Washington legislature killed it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_L._Jackson_Memorial_Brid...
The Oregon <--> Washington bridge that they wanted to replace is heavily used. It is for I-5, which is the primary North <--> South highway for the west coast.
I don't understand this quote. The BC sales tax is a percent, right? 7%? How do you add "half a penny"? Is that an extra 0.005%?
The total sales tax (provincial + federal) would go from 12% to 12.5%, so you could call it a 4% increase rather than 10%... there's lots of ways to spin numbers :)
By most metrics (trips per capita, on time performance, farebox recovery) Vancouver has one of the top transit systems in North America.
Your summary is technically correct. But you're implying that it's a petty insult, when he's tackling a real systematic problem in votes about public services. Just because the preaching gets annoying doesn't make him wrong.
Really, it's a fixed tax on every transaction. That alone is enough to destroy some markets, and it grows exponentially with goods transformations at the "service" sector, where companies pay those taxes.
Every single Metro Vancouver mayor, every newspaper (right and left of centre), every organization that matters has endorsed the plan. http://i.imgur.com/guVFQDa.jpg
It's a good plan. It's so obviously a good plan. However, voters are polling that they will vote No. Against their own best interests.
I agree with the sentiment though.
Translink just threw $200M down the drain on the Compass program ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass_Card_%28TransLink%29 ). If/when this ever comes into effect it will increase my transit costs (vs. the 10 book tickets I can buy now). It will almost certainly increase my travel time due to lineups. My kids who home school will not be able to get a student's fare any more. Causal riders will avoid public transport because they need to give Translink $12 just for the privilege of a single bus ride (card + minimum "fill"). It will almost certainly increase Translink's expenses in maintaining this system. I'm not happy with their choices.
Public transport in greater Vancouver sucks big time (perhaps except within the city proper.) I used to have a commute of 25 minutes to work by car/motorcycle. Taking public transport would have made that over 2 hours. Most transport lines go from somewhere to downtown. If you need to go "across" and are outside the center good luck. If I miss my "express" bus in the morning (because it came 10 minutes early, which happens) then I have to walk 1km and wait 20 minutes for the slow bus that takes 20 minutes longer. If I come early, well, the bus can also be 10 minutes late... I understand they have a larger/less densely populated area to cover but they do not seem to be creative enough in doing that. The SkyTrain is just about the most expensive way of doing transport per km. I'm not sure other options were considered (e.g. there are de-comissioned train tracks running through Vancouver). Public transport is also quite expensive compared to anywhere else I've taken public transport. Dropping prices would help increase ridership which might help fix some of the other issues.
Fares that were raised when energy prices came up didn't come down once energy prices declined. This plan itself was made at a time when energy prices were higher and it seems they're not going back to the same levels any time soon. At the same time, Vancouver is pretty much the most expensive place in North America to get gas. Supposedly that tax money should have gone towards improving public transport.
Once taxes are increased that money can go anywhere. There's no "contract". There's no accountability. There are also a lot of improvements that could be made without getting into big ticket items. Optimizing the existing system towards public transport. I view the tax increase as throwing good money after bad money something I try not do to in my personal finance and I don't want the province to engage in this in their finance.
EDIT: I knew the answer but just to be sure I double checked. The cost of the 3 zone monthly pass would be equal to 21 days of travel a week on the 1/3 zone book combo. Since I work a few days from home it's not worth my while. Compass will not change this. I see it as another example of inflexibility since in theory Compass could automatically give me a better rate for this much travel.