Congratulations on your stunning win. Now, with a secure mandate for the next four years, it's time to stop campaigning and get on with the business of running the government.
The first order of your new mandate should be to stop dickering with TransLink over funding options and come up with a realistic method of financing roads, bridges and transit in the Lower Mainland. You are far enough away from the next election to be able to take some leadership on this file, and you have an able helmsman in MLA-elect Peter Fassbender, the former vice-chair of the TransLink mayor's council to help you through this political morass.
What we don't want to see is a referendum on TransLink financing. That might have been a good sound bite during an election campaign but it doesn't make any sense. For one thing, voter turnout in civic elections is even worse than in provincial elections, and it would be unfair to enable the motivated few - say, folks in urban, transit-rich Vancouver - to vote against new initiatives, thereby eliminating any chances for better transit in more distant 'burbs - such as Surrey and the Tri-Cities.
Road pricing, tolls, fares, the sharing of the carbon tax - any number of these ideas should be open and on the table, with you leading the discussion.
TransLink has already looked under the couch for change and has found millions of dollars worth of efficiencies. Could more be found? Possibly, but there needs to be some willingness by the provincial government to share the burden and to work with the federal government on more equitable infrastructure sharing agreements, possibly through an enhancement of the gas tax fund.
While you are looking into the TransLink funding gap, it might also be time to overhaul the way decisions are made. TransLink's structure - an appointed board of directors in control of all decisions except major revenue increases - is an anomaly worldwide; most other cities have democratically elected representatives who answer directly to their constituents.
If you're going to take credit for the wins (the Evergreen Line, for example), you have to be prepared to get in the mud and continue the hard work.
