The sustained fiscal challenges of Metro Vancouver’s public transit system are beginning to surface, as TransLink projects a $72 million operating budget deficit starting in 2025.
For the 2025 fiscal year, TransLink is projecting $2.508 million in operating expenditures against $2.436 billion in operating revenues. This follows the budget surplus of $50.5 million in 2024, when the public transit authority pegged $2.37 billion in operating expenditures against $2.421 billion of operating revenues.
In contrast to pre-pandemic 2019, TransLink had a $333 million budget surplus from $1.75 billion in operating expenditures against $2.082 million in operating revenues.
Operating revenues in 2025 will be down by $122.5 million year-over-year, primarily due to the depletion of the provincial government’s $479 million previous operating subsidies that began in early 2023 and were designed to last until 2025.
The extent of the budget shortfall in 2025 is softened by projections for major increases in other sources of revenue, especially fares.
Regular fare revenue in 2025 is estimated to reach $576 million, representing a year-over-year increase of $73 million. This exceeds the pre-pandemic regular fare revenue of $495 million in 2018 and $533 million in 2019.
As well, program fare revenue — the U-Pass for post-secondary students and the provincial government’s BC Bus Pass for low-income seniors and individuals on disability assistance — will reach $142 million in 2025, up from $140 million in 2024 and $136 million in 2023.
Altogether, total fare revenues in 2025 will reach $761 million, representing an increase from $680 million in 2024, $672 million in 2023, $685 million in 2019, and $638 million in 2018. Overall fare revenue is expected to further increase in 2025 due to the expectation of continued strong ridership growth.
TransLink previously shared that overall fare evasion losses are estimated at $40 million annually. In 2024, it began a highly visible fare enforcement blitz to catch fare evaders and boost fare payment compliance.
TransLink first implemented development cost charges (DCCs) on new building developments across Metro Vancouver in 2020. The public transit authority’s DCCs revenues will reach $69.5 million in 2025, up from $53 million in 2024 and $17.3 million in 2023.
There will also be a $38.4 million increase in TransLink property tax revenue in 2025, reaching $550 million, along with a $6.9 million increase in parking tax revenue increase to $95 million.
But TransLink’s gas taxes peaked in 2022, with this source of revenue now expected to drop with each passing year due to the growing adoption of battery-electric vehicles and further improvements to fuel economy. Gas tax revenue will decrease by $22.9 million to $366.5 million in 2025 — down from $389.5 million in 2024 and $390.5 million in 2023.
As well, there are higher operating costs in 2025 related to increasing some public transit services to help address overcrowding, as well as labour cost increases of about $64 million and inflation-related increases of about $38 million.
The 2025 operating budget also includes $34 million in expenses related to preparing its capacity, operations, and protocols for the 2027 opening of SkyTrain Millennium Line’s Broadway extension to Arbutus, including materials, supplies, and hiring and training new labour well in advance.
Some of the 2025 budget shortfall is also mitigated by $49 million in strategic expense reductions and “financial optimization measures.”
49% of TransLink’s bus fleet approaching end of lifespan
TransLink notes that it is also facing some growing maintenance costs for an aging bus fleet, with such costs expected to go up by $10 million in 2025. The public transit authority warns that 49% of its bus fleet now has less than three years of remaining useful lifespan, with many being the 262 trolley buses, which TransLink intends to replace with new models of trolley buses. TransLink has begun the bidding process of a new replacement trolley bus fleet.
Overall, TransLink has a fleet size of over 1,500 buses.
Not to be confused for operating funding, the federal government in 2024 committed $1.7 billion in capital funding to TransLink from the federal Canada Community-Building Fund (CCBF), formerly known as the federal Gas Tax Fund, between 2024 and 2034, and in January 2025 it announced $633 million in capital funding from the federal Canada Public Transit Fund (CPTF).
Both the CCBF and this initial CPTF amount can be used by TransLink to buy new replacement buses, but the public transit authority is experiencing the predicament where its transition to buying only battery-electric buses comes at a cost premium per unit.
Furthermore, the bus manufacturing industry appears to be forcing TransLink’s hand into electrification, deviating from the public transit authority’s original plans for a more gradual transition this decade; in November 2024, TransLink staff noted to the Mayors’ Council that Canada’s duopoly of domestic bus manufacturers — Manitoba-based New Flyer and Quebec-based Nova Bus — have begun eliminating the production of 40-foot-long regular and 60-foot-long articulated buses that are powered by diesel, hybrid diesel or natural gas. Both companies have already eliminated the production line of 60-foot-long articulated buses powered by hybrid diesel.
As well, battery-electric buses require very significant investments in new bus depot and charging infrastructure, with TransLink estimating it will need to spend $6.5 billion on building new, expanded, and upgraded bus depots to fulfill the needs of both electrification and service expansion. Without additional bus depot capacity, TransLink can only expand bus services by up to 15% using its existing facilities.
Government funding request
TransLink and its Mayors’ Council have been requesting new additional interim operating subsidies from the provincial and federal governments, and new permanent operating revenue sources that are more stable than the existing demand-driven sources of fares and especially the gas tax.
The operating budget shortfall in 2025 is $72 million, but it is expected to grow exponentially to up to $600 million annually starting in 2026. And this only accounts for maintaining the status quo of service levels — it does not include TransLink’s major service level expansion plans.
Without new revenue to avoid this fiscal cliff, this could force TransLink to make drastic cuts to service levels as early as late 2025, if not by 2026. The cumulative budget shortfall is $4.7 billion between 2026 and 2033.
Proposed major new and improved services such as the Burnaby Mountain Gondola to Simon Fraser University, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), and various other bus service improvements are all currently unfunded.
Since July 2024, TransLink has warned that this fiscal cliff could force it to cut 50% of bus services, 30% of SkyTrain’s Expo/Millennium lines and SeaBus services, and suspend all West Coast Express commuter rail services. There would be no service changes to SkyTrain’s Canada Line due to contractual commitments to the private operator.
But Metro Vancouver has gone through this precarious public transit rodeo before in the not so distant past.
TransLink last faced a near fiscal crisis just before the 2010 Winter Olympics when, in 2009, the public transit authority warned of a cumulative $4.6 billion budget shortfall between late 2009 and 2020.
In October 2009, the Mayors’ Council approved the TransLink Funding Stabilization Plan, which generated $130 million in additional annual revenue to maintain existing service levels without expansion. Ultimately, these service levels were sustained until the mid-2010s, when TransLink’s financial situation improved
Starting in 2010, the $130 million was raised through a combination of a 3-cent-per-litre gas tax increase, annual fare hikes through 2013 (including a 7% increase in 2010), and a parking tax hike from 7% to 21%.