- Poinsertias-
A ‘your. - favourite
: colours decorated

= fr $27.98.

. Monday to Saturday:
0 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.:
Friday t0.73 209 pm

re "1821. dome ks “,
oT 922-4171, 922-3968, Fax 922-9735:

© Make. an ‘impresion
with a custon. ms enmepiece

(OP EONS:

Streb Collins

Contributing Writer
THE Greater Vancouver
Regional District com-
missioned a Mr. Todd
Lipman to produce the
GVRD Regional
Transportation Cost

- “Fropical Elegance
° Share the warmth with this 5
| Astinetive arrangement.

“from $99.00 ©

West Vancouver

unjust; autos i

Report, published in
1993.

In it, he made the case that
automobile transport is subsi-
dized, and recorded as a con-
clusion that it is. His opinioa
has since become widely
accepted as fact. The idea that
cars are subsidized is now

being used by the TransLink
board to justi taxing car
owners, many of whom can-
hot make use of TransLink, to
pay a good chunk of the costs
of providing service of those
who can.

I don’t think cars are subsi-
dized at all. No member of
my family has received money
in the mail to help out with
the high cost of vehicles. 1
went to the public library and
looked up the vaunted report.
Mr. Lipman’s claim was that
Lower Mainland “Automobile
transport was subsidized by
$2.7 billion (annually).” Tne
sums identified as “subsidiz-
ing” cars in my view range
from the misapplied to the
imaginary.

They are road construc-
tion, road maintenance, road
land value, protection services,
pollution, urban sprawt, public
parking, commercial delays,
and something called “unac-
counted accident costs.”

~ Just what is meant by sub-
sidized? Mr. Lipman includes
any expense paid with tax
money. Are our public schools
subsidized? Most of us consid-
er the school taxes we more or
less willingly pay as the neces-
sary cost of educating our

~ young. We don’t “subsidize”
.. schocls: we pay for them.

Similorly, I suspect most
shopping mal: merchants con-
sider parking-lot expenses as a

marketing cost. Mr. Lipman,
. however, thought otherwise. *~

He included mal! parking cost

: in his grand total. ”
His best case is that auto-

mobile rollution subsidizes

:. Cars, Car owners are blamed

for a problem that affects us
all. But we all use cars. Those

» of us who do not drive

depend un others who drive
to meet our needs. My point
is that pollution is a nuisance
we generally tolerate for the ©
convenience of the automo-
bile. We should not identify as
a subsidy an expense which,

revitalize B.C. fisheries.

jobs i in cont

Fisheries Renewal BC { (FsRBC) i i
developing a new strategic plan for:
2001-2004: We're holding regional *.:.-
meetings : around the province to get your: 2
input on what needs io be dotte io. -_

FsRBC is a Crown corporation tha ;
invests in people, who are dedicated to °
renewing B.C.'s fish resource and the
communities thac depend on it.”

We've invested more than $37 ‘million-
over the last three years in fish habitat
restoration and ‘economic development
ptograms to create more fish, new
fisheries, and valuc-added seafood .

fanded more than: eee enon and
contributed te the creation of more than °
unities across B. (ona

t subs

most of us accept. (Pollution
is a decreasing problem, which
should eventually disappear.)

Roads. one way or another,
make up #4% of the $2.7 bil-
lion. Not so, for two reasons:
Consider a piece of raw land
with no road access. No matter
how well situated, it: won't
have much commercial value.
But put in access roads and a
network of streets, and its value
zooms. What would your
home be worth if it could not
be reached by road? Roads,
and the land they occupy, com-
prise an integral part of the
value of any piece of property.
Even in the horse and buggy
days, we needed roads.

Roads don’t serve cars. Or |

buses, or trucks, or any other
type of vehicle. Roads serve
destinations. The roads,
together with the vehicles that
run on them, constitute a
transportation system that
delivers people, goods and ser-
vices from where they are to:
where they are needed. In the
Lower Mainland, that’s several
million deliveries — every day.
If the entire population of
the Lower Mainland was for-
ever constricted to the bound-
aries uf Vancouver proper, it
would be practical to get peo-
ple out of cars and into buses.

- Vancouver would be a much

less pleasant place to live if it
were not for the suburbs. Our
lifestyle is to blame for urban.
sprawl, not cars. :
Roads are a fundamental -
democratic right. This has
nothing to de with cars.

. Roman citizens had the

absolute right to go, unchal-
fenged, on the arrow-straight
Roman roads. The ancient
and precious concept of the.
King’s Highway is still won-
derful aral utterly essential
today: the right, yours and
mine, to come and g zo without
hindrance. -.
There is some legitimacy”
to the argument that the sheer

. volume of cars makes fair the

giz

“Mp wi

taxation of car use to finance
roads. Agreed, providing the
gasoline taxes are used only
tor that purpose. The reality
tor car owners — the more
essential the car use the
tougher the reality — is that
they are cash cows. The feder-
al government found out long
ago that gasoline taxes could
be collected with impunity,
and put straight into general
revenue. The TransLink board
is about to make the same dis-
covery. The odour of empire

- building is in the air. I can see

it now. $75 in 2091, $150 by
2005, $500 in 2010, with. .
ever thicker carpets and pay
cheques for the flourishing
TransLink bureaucracy and a
union assured of negotiating
with a bottomless pit...

Bus riders should pay their
way.

If there were ever a case.
for user pay it is for trans-
portation. Providing the pub-
lic transit system is efficiently -_-
run, most users should be able.
to pay the price. Fares are a
fraction of the cost of any °°
alternative motorized trans-

tion. The effect of heavi-

ly-subsidized bus fares is to
create a stignia on riding the |
bus. Forget the transit levy
and put the fares up. ©: °~

The support for transit .
levies and/or gasoline tax is
based on the fiction that cars... .

- are subsidized and the all too

common notion that bus use. -

. is virtuous and car use is sin.

It has the support of people

- who hate cars. The sole:

advantage of this unjust pro- .. :
is that cars are easy to

“tax. What will result is sub- :

stantial resentment by car

~ owners toward TransLink.

TransLink is planning to vs
spend a jot of moncy — our”
money — that they don’t

have. The TransLink board *
~ has & budget problem. Scrap .
“the brute force transit tax and

start again. This time, come
a solution thar is fair.