While Abbotsford came out this week favouring a two-cents-per-litre gas tax for transit and transportation improvements, Chilliwack is nowhere near that stage yet.

“A lot of work has to be done before Chilliwack could even consider something like this,” Chilliwack Mayor Sharon Gaetz told The Progress.

Only “informal” discussions between some Fraser Valley mayors have touched on the controversial topic so far, she said.

“I said I would talk to council about it, but we have not yet had a chance to do so,” said Gaetz. “I also asked staff to do some background checking first on the numbers, and until we get that report, we won’t be ready to make an informed decision.”

That being said, the community of Chilliwack, like the growing cities of Abbotsford and Mission, have “gotten to the place where we have grown considerably and the transit services are not keeping up with the needs of people,” said Gaetz.

“What we often hear is that people want more transit services and they want them more often.”

The Chilliwack mayor said is eagerly awaiting the results of the $400,000 transportation study expected soon from FVRD consultants.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to get some direction from the results of that study to plan for the future. The fact is there are a lot of competing interests and agendas for the transportation dollar. We have to focus on what’s best for our citizens.”

The idea of a gas tax may be a hard-sell for the citizens of Chilliwack, who will get a chance to weigh in during public consultation sessions, she said.

“My initial impression is that people don’t like additional taxes, whatever it is. But at the same time they want more services. So our challenge is to balance that,” Gaetz said.

Chilliwack’s transit system, in partnership with BC Transit, has buses arriving on the hour, making it difficult for some workers to get around town in a timely fashion, she conceded.

“We would eventually like to go to half-hour service and hopefully increase our ridership,” the mayor said. “We’ll be saving for that, and we’re working toward it.”

A new levy on fuel would first require formal approval from both city council and the province.

A two-cents-per-litre tax at the pumps in Abbotsford, would generate an estimated $6 million a year that could be spent on transit and roads, Abbotsford Mayor George Peary told Black Press this week.

Chilliwack would be welcome in future discussions about making the gas tax idea regional, rather than merely city-specific, he said.

“If Chilliwack eventually says yes, we could potentially go in on this together as a region, the way they have in Metro Vancouver.”

The Abbotsford mayor would like to see a gas tax in place by early next year, and a business plan is in the works.

For Gaetz, trying to get folks to get out of their cars and use transit is a bit of a double-edged sword, especially when you throw the idea of a gas tax into the mix.

“Ironically it’s the people who are using their cars who will be paying the tax at the pumps to help other people get around. Although there are some who would say that exactly the way it should be.”

Council “deliberately” held the line on taxes and budget items this year with one of the lowest tax rate increases in the Lower Mainland, at 3.95 per cent, Gaetz underlined.

They also earmarked $2 million for road improvements. But the fact remains that every $470,000 that council wants to spend, raises taxes by half a percentage point.

Before she was a city councillor, and later mayor, she used to think “there were huge pots of money just sitting around” in city coffers available for various projects.

“Now I realize just how tight our budget is. Everything in the future has to be weighed against that reality.”

jfeinberg@theprogress.com