The taxpayer doesn’t know the full cost of the SkyTrain metro system, nor does the taxpayer know how much of that subsidy is going towards operating costs on the SkyTrain system.

It was due to this Canadian SkyTrain financing, that the proposed Seattle monorail project came to grief; they tried to hide the total cost of the project, a la Vancouver. Seattle’s taxpayers smelled a rat and voted accordingly.

Also please note: The Vancouver or regional taxpayer have never been allowed to vote on a SkyTrain project, with all three metro lines forced on the taxpayer.

Rail for the Valley doesn’t confuse operating subsidies with debt financing, we just can’t get the correct numbers; TransLink doesn’t even know how many customers use SkyTrain, as its ridership numbers are guesstimates.

If ridership numbers are guesstimates so are revenue calculations. There are no turnstiles on the metro and 80%of SkyTrain’s customers first take a bus to the metro. Revenue calculation is an alchemists delight, which TransLink will not explain.

It is no coincidence the the British Columbia auditor General has been forbidden by the government (by denying funding) to audit the SkyTrain metro system and the last independent audit in 1993, found a host of ‘deficiencies”!

As it stands, SkyTrain is heavily subsidized by the taxpayer, by over $230 million annually.

Be sure you double check anything from railforthevalley. It is often not the most reliable source.

For instance, in the post http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/dublins-luas-lrt-a-streetcar-without-subsidy-a-template-for-the-broadway-lrt/
the claim was made that the subsidy for the system was a fraction of that of SkyTrain when in fact, the subsidy per km is similar. The post also confuses operating subsidies with debt financing. Fortunately, this error is explained in the comment section.

If they do not include light rail in the final EIS you can be assured that the Kamehameha will win in court and force them to study it later.