Key
Objectives
- Increase transit ridership
across the province to over 400 million trips a year.
- Reduce greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions and other air contaminants from cars by 4.7 million tonnes
cumulatively by 2020.
- Support increased population
and employment densities near transit hubs and along transit corridors,
changing urban forms, which will further decrease GHG emissions.
- For Metro Vancouver, the
transit market share will grow from 12 per cent during weekdays today to
17 per cent by 2020 and to 22 per cent by 2030.
- For the Victoria Regional
Transit System, the transit market share will grow from today’s seven per
cent to 9.5 per cent by 2020 and 12 per cent by 2030.
- For other regions of the
province, the transit market share will grow from today’s three per cent
to four per cent in 2020 and five per cent in 2030.
- Ease traffic congestion and
make all our communities healthier places to live and easier places to get
around.
- Provide transit riders with
access to more buses, more often.
- Upgrade our provincial bus
fleet with 1,500 new, clean energy buses and related maintenance
infrastructure,
- Increase the hours of
service.
- Create long-term partnerships
to maximize taxpayer investments and meet specific needs of specific
communities in cost-effective, energy efficient ways.
- Improve transit rider safety
and comfort with improved security on and around transit, particularly
rapid transit, and increase fare compliance.
- Increase seniors’ mobility
options and improve services for those with mobility challenges.
Costs for Major Transit Improvements
- $1.6 billion for 1,500 new,
clean technology buses to add nearly 60 per cent more buses to the
provincial fleet and provide communities in British Columbia more frequent
service to meet transit users’ specific needs.
- $10.3 billion for four new
and expanded rapid transit lines serving communities across Metro
Vancouver – the Evergreen Line, the UBC Line, the upgraded Expo Line, and
the Canada Line (previously committed funding totalling $2 billion for
which B.C. is providing $435 million).
- $1.2 billion for new RapidBus
BC lines – energy efficient, high capacity buses on nine major routes in
the high growth urban centres of Kelowna, Victoria and Metro Vancouver,
providing frequent, fast, reliable service that looks and feels like rapid
transit and operates on dedicated lane-ways in some cases.
Other
Benefits
- Increased security measures
such as installing electronic gates and closed-circuit cameras at rapid
transit stations and using a smart-card system for rapid transit and buses
that users can reload at vending machines or on the Internet.
- New, customized solutions for
individual communities across the province, including more HandyDART,
community shuttles, conventional buses and other technologies.
Financial Requirements
- $11.1 billion in new funding
is required from all partners.
- The estimated provincial
share of funding – over 40 per cent of new funding – is $4.75 billion by
2020.
- Over the life of the plan
from now until 2020, the Province is calling on the federal government for
investments of $3.1 billion, TransLink for investments of $2.75 billion,
and local governments for investments of $500 million along with
supportive land use.
- In total, $14 billion in
funding is required through 2020.
-30-
