I live in greater Vancouver and I take public transport almost every day. I am almost certainly going to vote NO. Translink just threw $200M down the drain on

I live in greater Vancouver and I take public transport almost every day. I am almost certainly going to vote NO. Translink just threw $200M down the drain on the Compass program ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass_Card_%28TransLink%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass_Card_%28TransLink%29 ). If/when this ever comes into effect it will increase my transit costs (vs. the 10 book tickets I can buy now). It will almost certainly increase my travel time due to lineups. My kids who home school will not be able to get a student's fare any more. Causal riders will avoid public transport because they need to give Translink $12 just for the privilege of a single bus ride (card + minimum "fill"). It will almost certainly increase Translink's expenses in maintaining this system. I'm not happy with their choices. Public transport in greater Vancouver sucks big time (perhaps except within the city proper.) I used to have a commute of 25 minutes to work by car/motorcycle. Taking public transport would have made that over 2 hours. Most transport lines go from somewhere to downtown. If you need to go "across" and are outside the center good luck. If I miss my "express" bus in the morning (because it came 10 minutes early, which happens) then I have to walk 1km and wait 20 minutes for the slow bus that takes 20 minutes longer. If I come early, well, the bus can also be 10 minutes late... I understand they have a larger/less densely populated area to cover but they do not seem to be creative enough in doing that. The SkyTrain is just about the most expensive way of doing transport per km. I'm not sure other options were considered (e.g. there are de-comissioned train tracks running through Vancouver). Public transport is also quite expensive compared to anywhere else I've taken public transport. Dropping prices would help increase ridership which might help fix some of the other issues. Fares that were raised when energy prices came up didn't come down once energy prices declined. This plan itself was made at a time when energy prices were higher and it seems they're not going back to the same levels any time soon. At the same time, Vancouver is pretty much the most expensive place in North America to get gas. Supposedly that tax money should have gone towards improving public transport. Once taxes are increased that money can go anywhere. There's no "contract". There's no accountability. There are also a lot of improvements that could be made without getting into big ticket items. Optimizing the existing system towards public transport. I view the tax increase as throwing good money after bad money something I try not do to in my personal finance and I don't want the province to engage in this in their finance.