Overhaul needed to give B.C. municipalities a transit voice: report

VANCOUVER – An independent review of B.C. Transit agrees that municipalities’ voices have been squeezed out at the Crown agency.

The panel has made 18 recommendations for change and all of them were welcomed by Nanaimo Regional District chairman Joe Stanhope.

He says municipalities have been frustrated by decisions made by B.C. Transit without any input from them.

For example, he says the municipalities and B.C. Transit haven’t been operating on the same fiscal year, meaning the agency sometimes made decisions that boosted municipalities’ costs after municipalities had finalized their budgets.

Stanhope says the report brings much-needed hope for change and says he doesn’t want to linger on the past.

The recommendations, which must still be considered by government, include giving local governments more ability to appoint their own representatives to the transit board and for better consultation between both partners.

B.C. Transit manages public transportation for all the jurisdictions in the province outside the Greater Vancouver area.