While TransLink’s mayors’ council has openly disagreed with the province over a proposed transit referendum, Simon Fraser University groups are hoping to get more students out to vote for it.
At Wednesday’s council meeting, Metro Vancouver’s mayors reiterated their disagreement over a transit referendum and bounced the responsibility back on the province to word the referendum it pushed for over TransLink’s funding problems.
On Thursday, Transportation Minister Todd Stone confirmed the referendum will go through in November 2014. He said the responsibility lies with the mayors to agree on a regional plan, determine the price tag and decide how to fund it.
“It’s important we all say to the people in the region to join this discussion,” Stone said in a phone interview. “Let us know what you think, let us know what funding sources should be, tell us what level of expansion you’d like to see in the region. There remains ample time for the mayors to unite on a fully funded vision and sign off on a question.”
While the province and mayors’ council lock horns, the SFU Graduate Student Society, Simon Fraser Student Society and Sustainable SFU groups have been out canvassing students and encouraging them to vote so TransLink has the funding for more bus stops and the controversial gondola project up Burnaby Mountain.
“We have realized that students are really key stakeholders for transit, and we are aware the transit referendum is happening, but a lot of people don’t generally know about it,” Julia Lane, coordinating and external relations officer of SFU’s graduate student society, told the NOW.
Lane said despite having no information on the referendum other than its date, Nov. 15, the referendum gives the students the opportunity to be heard.
“Right now, we can’t really communicate a lot of information about the referendum, but we’re making sure we’re collecting supporters, and people who are interested,” she said. “We want to make sure students are prepared when they go out and vote, and what they’re being asked on.”
Although the three SFU groups want more funding for TransLink, Lane says they’re not trying to sway the vote, but ensure students have the information.
“We just want them to get the information, go out and vote, regardless of how they vote,” she noted. “It’s been really interesting to watch students move from feeling defeated about transit … to excited because there’s something they can get involved in.”
Chardaye Bueckert, external relations officer of Simon Fraser Student Society, said they captured 300 names in the first three days of collecting student information for the referendum.
“It’s been really, really positive,” Bueckert told the NOW. “People are frustrated by their transit experience, they want to improve it, but they don’t know how to do that.”
Bueckert said the groups are working on a website on the referendum, but in the meantime students can visit sfss.ca for more information.
