Tomorrow, Vancouver Washington voters will be asked to raise sales taxes in order to “preserve existing bus service.” Without the sales tax increase, says C-Tran, the transit agency, “C-TRAN would need to implement a system-wide service reduction of about 35 percent by early to mid 2013.”
It turns out that is a lie. An accountant named Tiffany Couch has scrutinized C-Tran’s budget and projected costs and revenues and concluded that existing taxes are sufficient to maintain bus service for many years.
So why does C-Tran say that service will decline without the tax increase? The answer, says Couch, is that C-Tran has already decided it wants to build a light-rail line connecting with Portland’s light rail. Without the tax increase, C-Tran will have to cut bus service in order to pay for the light rail.
