Fassbender says all options open on TransLink’s future

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B.C.'s new minister in charge of TransLink is ready to look at all options for the transit agency, from having the province take it over to making changes that regional mayors suggest.

"Nothing is off the table," said Community and Sport Minister Peter Fassbender, who was the chair of the TransLink mayors' council for two years before being elected as a provincial MLA. "I'm prepared to listen and go in not believing one way or another is the best way to go. All options are open."

The future of TransLink has been a question hanging over the agency since a plebiscite asking voters to support a new sales tax for transit improvements was soundly defeated in June.

One of the main reasons people voted No, by an almost two-to-one margin, was that they didn't trust the agency to manage the extra money well.

Mr. Fassbender said TransLink has been named repeatedly as one of the best transit providers in the world and he wants to hang on to what is good. He says he's also a firm believer in integrated regional transit.

But "if we can't find the path forward, we will cross that bridge when we come to it," he said, in an interview from Vernon, B.C.

That means his ministry will consider everything from demonstrating that the province is engaged in working with the current agency to blowing it up and starting over.

TransLink was only created 16 years ago, in response to pressure from local politicians to have more control over transit planning so that it would mesh with local land-use planning.

It has struggled ever since to get new sources of funding than those originally allocated: property tax, gas tax and fares. As well, mayors, who were originally the directors of the organization, were removed from the board by the province in 2007 and replaced by an appointed board.

Before Mr. Fassbender decides on anything, he plans to fill the province's two seats on the TransLink board, look at the core review done by interim chief executive Doug Allen during the past six months, and take suggestions from mayors and others about what has to change.

Mr. Fassbender has asked the board to put a pause on its current search for a new CEO while all of this is going on.

In the meantime, he says everyone in the region, especially the mayors, need to pull together to help look for solutions that will restore public confidence and produce a way forward for transit improvements.

"The mayors need to stop accusing the board of being unelected and unaccountable," Mr. Fassbender said. "They need to roll up their sleeves and work with everybody."

The minister, a former Langley mayor, admits he didn't always see eye-to-eye with regional mayors when he was chair of the mayors' council, in part because some "haven't wanted it to work from the beginning."

Mr. Fassbender was chair from 2010 to 2012, before being elected as a provincial MLA in 2013. He says he was squeezed out of the position by people who thought he was "too willing to work with the provincial government."

Mr. Fassbender, who used to work in the advertising industry, also said the board needs to be "much more pro-active in getting the message out" about the good things that TransLink does.

He believes the public wants better transit and is willing to pay for it if it has confidence in the agency's management. But he isn't going to order an audit.

"We've done enough audits."

Mr. Fassbender said he does support using increased property taxes to pay for the regional one-third share of major projects, such as a Surrey light-rail line or Broadway subway. That's something most mayors have been adamantly opposed to.

When he was the chair of the mayors' council, Mr. Fassbender also expressed opposition to using property taxes, but he says now he was expressing the will of the group then, not his own opinion.