No gas tax increase puts Victoria transit plans on hold

The Victoria Regional Transit Commission didn't get the two-cent-per-litre increase to the gas tax itwasexpecting in Tuesday's provincial budget.

Now, officials are warning expansion plans for the system will be put on hold and riders could even see service cuts.

VRTC chair Susan Brice says she was surprised the increase wasn't included in the budget.

"The last six months, I've been working closely with the minister of finance and the minister of transportation and infrastructure, ensuring we had all the letters of support from all the municipalities in our area, all of the evidence that they wanted that the community would support this gas tax increase."

• Victoria Regional Transit Commission wants higher gas tax to pay for more transit

The VRTChad been pushing for the increase for years and was making plans for the expansion of the transit system based on the commitment from the province.

"We were putting in 24,000 extra hours.We were ordering tenmore buses," said Brice. "This was really going to be a big push towards improving transit in Victoria. We will put all of those plans on hold."

Greater Victoria has a different transit arrangement than the rest of the province. While other communities split their costs 50/50with the province, Victoria picks up two-thirds of the cost of running its system.

It's split three ways between revenue from the fare box, property taxes and the gas tax. Of the three revenue options available, the gas tax portion has been frozen for eight years.

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure didn't have anyone available for comment, but they did provide a statement.

It says itacknowledges the VRTC's request to increase thefuel tax to pay for the municipalities' share of planned transit service expansions and it remains committed to working with B.C. Transit and the VRTC to ensure there areresources in place to move forward with planned service expansions.

The VRTC will be meeting again, Feb.28.