Some of you may recall that, back in January, I waxed sarcastic about the British Columbian provincial government’s plan to double public transit ridership by 2020, via the simple expedient of spending fourteen billion dollars on, uh, stuff.  At the time, I assumed that the province had a cunning plan to come up with that fourteen billion dollars — probably involving taking it out of my pocket (and everyone else’s) in the form of municipal, provincial, and federal taxes.

I was wrong.

(Hey, it happens sometimes.)

Turns out that our fearless leader, Premier Gordon Campbell, simply expects fourteen billion dollars magically to appear out of thin air.  Or perhaps he’s banking on the profitability of a provincial government side project, which evidently involves refining pixie dust into unicorn giggles.

• B.C.’s transit plan faces funding shortfall (CBC.ca)

Doubling transit ridership by 2020 is an important part of the B.C. Climate Action Plan, the provincial roadmap to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent from 2007 levels by 2020.

In Metro Vancouver, TransLink’s ridership would have to grow by about five per cent each year in order to reach 550 million riders by 2020.  TransLink is projecting growth of only 2.3 per cent for the next four years.

After 2012, TransLink is projecting a deficit and plans to reduce service levels, slowing projected growth to just 1.5 per cent each year.

According to the provincial government, TransLink’s on the hook for just south of three billion dollars for this transit plan — never mind that they’re projecting a deficit four years from now.  (And if TransLink plans to reduce service while predicting continued growth, I doubt very much that they’ll be able to maintain a public transit system that people will want to use.)

So who’s expected to contribute the rest of the money?

The plan requires $11.1 billion in new money from the province, the federal government, TransLink and municipalities.

So far, Ottawa has only contributed about two per cent of what has been requested.  [...]  And another $500 million is expected to come from municipalities outside the Lower Mainland, none of which has been committed so far.

Of course: municipal, provincial, and federal taxes.

Would it be paranoid to suggest that this plan was set up to fail conveniently?  If everyone involved manages to kick in as much money as Campbell asks, he’s a hero; if not, it’s someone else’s fault.  Blame the tight-fisted Feds in Ottawa, with their Ontario-Quebec fixation and apathy towards the West; or blame the miserly municipal mayors, who can’t see beyond property tax increases to the glorious future.  Given that the provincial Liberals just cancelled the fall session of the legislature, and are setting themselves up as the “fiscally conservative” party for a February election, I rather doubt that they’ll exert themselves to find their share of the money required.

Might be fun to watch if I can get out of the province before the shit really hits the fan, though.