TransLink announces $90M cost-cutting plan to address funding gap
CBC
TransLink has announced cost reductions and revenue-generating measures, totalling $90 million a year, to address what the transit authority says is an imminent funding shortfall.
Metro Vancouver's transit provider says the measures will partially address an annual funding gap of more than $600 million that begins in 2026, after provincial relief funding comes to an end.
Cost-cutting measures include corporate cost reductions and reduced staffing. The plan also identifies opportunities for additional revenue and improving debt management.
It does not include cuts to transit services for customers, TransLink says, but the authority says it's looking at what reductions to service could look like in the future if long-term funding is not secured.
CEO Kevin Quinn said in a statement that TransLink had to make "tough, but necessary decisions" to deal with the shortfall.
"The urgency of solving this crisis cannot be understated as we will be forced to look at service reductions at the end of 2025, should a solution not be found for our broken funding model," Quinn said.
TransLink says key cost-cutting initiatives include eliminating 35 unfilled corporate roles. The authority will also reduce spending on third-party contractors, research grants, leadership training courses, and ridership development and community initiatives.
The authority also says it will increase fare evasion enforcement across the system.
TransLink says the new initiatives will start immediately, in an effort to deal with challenges brought on by increasing costs and ongoing expansion projects.
The transit authority also cited declining fuel tax revenue, and fare hikes that are lower than the rate of inflation, as reasons for the cost-cutting measures.
Earlier this year B.C. announced new funding for TransLink to reduce overcrowding.
The province said the money will go toward purchasing buses to increase future services, while TransLink will put remaining funds from $479 million the province provided last year toward immediate improvements.
CBC News found that overcrowding was one of the most common complaints listed in two months' worth of TransLink data obtained through a freedom of information request.
Brad West, chair of the mayors' council on regional transportation, commended TransLink for finding ways to close the funding gap — but said Metro Vancouver needs a transit system that keeps up with population growth.
Aggressive patients and lack of security are making nurses feel unsafe in a rural Western Manitoba emergency union, says the Manitoba Nurses Union.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.