In the past three years, biking has increased 26%, bus trips 17%, and car use only 4% with a population increase of 6%. At first glance these numbers seem like they would be good news to TransLink, Vancouver’s public transportation company. However, this is quite the opposite. Oddly enough, the increase in public transportation users is creating a problem for TransLink. They are funded by fuel taxes, so a decline in car use means a decline in revenue from fuel tax for TransLink. As the demand for public transportation rises, the reveue from fuel tax drops.

It seems a little ironic that when more people stop driving and start taking public transportation, TransLink has a decline in revenue. TransLink has been having financial trouble recently and it looks like they are going to have to start looking for other ways to raise funds besides from the fuel tax. Some of their options include an incremental carbon tax or vehicle levy. More information on that can be found here. A vehicle levy was proposed in the 1990s but it did not go over very well with drivers then, so I don’t know how it will go over now, but if I was a Vancouver driver I don’t think I would want to pay more money to support the public transportation.

An interesting article from CBC on this topic can be found here.