By the numbers: Vancouver’s worsening transit woes

Increase in Metro Vancouver’s transit ridership between 2004 and 2014

320,000
Estimated daily ridership of a proposed underground Broadway transit line by 2041

500,000
Number of times each year a person is left standing by full buses on the Broadway corridor

The Lower Mainland’s population has increased by 38,000 in the year since the mayors released their plan one year ago for relieving an already-choked transit system

With that funding killed in 2015’s referendum, many hope the resulting “no Plan B” deadlock will be shifted by PM Trudeau’s promised $5-billion infrastructure spend in the upcoming federal budget.

But even that only echoes the previous government’s Building Canada funding, and with an authority chain that prevents the feds from dealing directly with cities, Trudeau is unlikely to “ride in on a white horse and solve all Vancouver’s transit problems,” says David Moscrop, a political science researcher at UBC.

“The cities belong to the province, and the province gets testy if they think the federal government is overstepping constitutional boundaries.” But, says Moscrop, Trudeau’s early reputation as an honest broker may at least bring city and province back to the table. “Tone matters, and political capital matters. It’s a huge opportunity to get stuff done.”