It was quite a bombshell when TransLink’s recently arrived CEO Tom Prendergast started telling people Wednesday that he was going to New York.
Here’s what people had to say.
TransLink CEO leaves. Next up, TransLink review
November 6th, 2009 · 6 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
6 responses so far ↓
1 zweisystem // Nov 6, 2009 at 9:24 am
No surprise here at all. Prendergast is no fool and he is a heavy-rail/metro man and well knows that if you keep building metro (SkyTrain & RAV/Canada line) on routes that do not have the ridership to sustain a metro (400,000 passengers a day plus), then large subsidies must be paid.
Large subsidies translates into road/bridge tolls, higher property taxes, etc.
SkyTrain, not including the RAV/Canada line is subsidized by over $230 million annually, then add on the bus routes.
The key factor in Translink’s failure is that despite all the money thrown at it, there has been no modal shift from car to transit!
Gordo, is the great transit Czar and his penchant for more expensive metro lines (UBC subway) means that TransLink will not change at all.
TransLink is a failure and Prendergast saw it for what it was and bailed!
http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/prendergast-says-adios-to-translink-and-bails-could-it-be-translink-is-sinking-faster-than-the-titanic-are-the-rats-leaving-a-doomed-ship/
2 Chris Keam // Nov 6, 2009 at 9:43 am
Prendergast only has to answer to one (newly re-elected) mayor (with a proven commitment to $pending on $ustainable tran$p), an ally in colleague NYC DOT commish Janette Sadik-Khan, and a populace that’s on-board with mass transit… why spend yr career hitting sacrifice flies at the Nat, when you can rack up the dingers at Yankee Stadium?
3 Chris // Nov 6, 2009 at 11:32 am
The problem is simple: Translink needs larger, guaranteed revenue sources, and we need politicians with the vision ensure it happens.
4 Frothingham // Nov 6, 2009 at 11:55 am
I first heard it on twitter.. from new york before 7AM YVR time.
5 Otis Krayola // Nov 6, 2009 at 1:55 pm
@ Frothingham,
And??????????
6 MB // Nov 13, 2009 at 8:14 am
The funding problem with TransLink has very little to do with building transit of any kind. It has everything to do with the province, as the parent of TransLink, prioritizing a freeway building binge over everything else.
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