Perhaps there is never a good time to propose a vehicle levy but this latest reincarnation of the dreaded car tax comes at a bad time for Tri-City residents.
For one thing, the prospect of paying on average $122 per car, depending on the size of the vehicle, on top of new tolls, higher gas prices and AirCare fees is daunting given that incomes aren't rising as fast as all the other bills. When the fee was originally proposed in the 1990s, it was only $75 and was soundly trashed.
Now, it's even bigger, and although it's scaled to the size of vehicles to give the appearance of being green, most people will just see it as a tax and won't like it any better.
The problem is a transit tax is hard to justify in the suburbs, where transit is minimal and most families still need two cars. At the same time, road and transit projects that could create some relief - the Evergreen Line, the United Boulevard Extension and the Murray-Clarke connector - are either on hold or history.
It's true TransLink needs the cash to put it on more sustainable footing so it can pay for these large infrastructure projects but there is a such a gap in public trust that people aren't likely to believe they'll see any benefit from the fee.
They wonder, for example, why they still have to pay for AirCare when their car and most others never fail. They wonder why TransLink carried over a $16-million surplus and why the Evergreen Line is still stalled.
Meanwhile, transit in single-family neighbourhoods will never be as good as it is in denser areas of the region, so this transit tax doesn't have any initial benefit for those who could be forced to pay it.
To sell this tax will require a lot of creative thinking. One idea would be to attach a sunset clause so that it dies after some of the big-ticket transit items have been paid off.
Former premier Gordon Campbell got some mileage from taking down the toll booths on the Coquihalla and we think that's an idea worth emulating.
