Representatives from TransLink got what they came for from Langley City council, but they didn’t walk away from the meeting entirely unscathed.

In a 6-1 vote, with Councillor Dave Hall opposed, council upheld the mayor’s recommendation that the City support TransLink’s $130 million “funding stabilization” option, when it goes forward with its 10-year plan.

It was the same option, of the four presented, that TransLink had urged council to support.

The proposal allows for no expansion of transit service or hours. It also calls for increased fuel and parking taxes (how next year’s HST implementation will affect the latter remains to be seen) and transit fare increases above the rate of inflation.

At the same time, it doesn’t include any new tax measures that don’t exist in current legislation.

What it does, said Mayor Peter Fassbender, is buy TransLink time to come up with better, long-term funding solutions and to try to bring the federal and provincial governments to the table.

With a representative from TransLink in the room, council wasn’t about to let Langley’s lack of transit service for dollars spent, go unremarked.

Councillor Rudy Storteboom “congratulated” the transit authority on managing to exist for 10 years with no stable source of funding.

“This is a business model that’s not working. You keep coming to ask for more money, and we’re not getting any service,” Storteboom chastised Ian Jarvis, TransLink’s vice-president of finance and corporate services.

And nothing the councillor learned from the evening’s presentation changed his mind, he added.

“Your Power Point is generic. Langley City wants to be at the table. We’re only an afterthought, even in a presentation like this.

“Are you taking the bus home tonight?” Storteboom asked the TransLink reps.

“No,” replied Jarvis.

“No. It doesn’t work here,” said Storteboom.

Councillor Hall noted that aspects of the proposal seemed to be in direct conflict with TransLink’s overall goal of increasing ridership.

“The general sentiment is that we want to move people from their cars to transit,” he said, adding that it is “punitive to raise transit fares above the rate of inflation.”

The option supported by council proposes to raise fare rates by two per cent annually, with additional hikes of five to seven per cent implemented on April 1, 2010 and again on Jan. 1, 2013.

“Why promote activities that are counterproductive to getting people out of their cars?” wondered Hall.

Regardless of what it costs to take transit, South Fraser residents continue to be underserved by TransLink, he said.

“How will you revisit the $130 million and have it come south of the Fraser River, versus what looks like more transit north of the river?” Hall asked.

“I would argue that Langley is part of the Metro Vancouver economic region,” responded Jarvis. “An effective transit system across the region does benefit Langley.”

While Jarvis agreed that Langley, parts of Surrey and South Surrey don’t enjoy the same service levels as Vancouver, he said that’s because the population density levels don’t warrant it.

When the West Coast Express was built years ago, it didn’t have the population density or the ridership to support it, Hall said.

“It was seen as visionary. What we’re being told now, is you have to have the density first.

“Why is it not our time now, like it was their time then?”

“If we look at the density achieved around that, we’re under performing,” replied Jarvis.

“I don’t think (the density) excuse washes,” said Councillor Gayle Martin.

When the Expo line of SkyTrain was built in the mid-1980s, Vancouver and Burnaby had virtually the same populations that Surrey and Langley, respectively, have today, she said.

“We’re not going to take that excuse any more.”

Another of the options presented, but not recommended by either TransLink or Fassbender, would see funding left as it is, at a base level. Such inaction would take Metro Vancouver transit back to 1970s levels, Jarvis warned.

“It’s kind of appealing to say ‘let’s cut down to that level, because (Langley’s) not losing a lot,’” said Hall.

“That would be the dumbest thing we could do,” argued Fassbender.

“We can’t afford to go backward. That will hurt our residents even more.”

This is the first time in Fassbender’s recollection, he said, that all 21 mayors in Metro Vancouver have vowed to put their collective foot down over the transportation issue, and Langley City must continue to work co-operatively with them, he said.

“I’m hearing mayors from all over, including Vancouver, saying we must work together to serve the whole region, said Fassbender.

It’s also crucial to bring provincial and federal governments to the table, he added.

Rather than have projects announced by the province and feds, and then downloaded onto the municipalities to operate, both higher levels of government need to support public transportation over the long term, he insisted.

The federal government, while it collects gas taxes, currently only provides capital funding, and the province currently has a policy not to allow the tolling of existing roads and bridges as a source of revenue, he said.

“We need time to work with the federal and provincial governments to find long-term solutions,” said Fassbender.

In speaking to his motion, the mayor acknowledged the money will come from the same taxpayers, regardless of how it is collected.

“People are sick of being nickeled and dimed every few years . . . we can’t plan to build, without the stability to operate.

“Unless we have time to make long-term changes, we’re going to be hooped.”

“I have discomfort with it for a lot of reasons,” said Councillor Teri James, before voting in support of the motion.

“But the mayors working together is the only thing that makes it work.”

“I’m supporting it because it’s the first time the mayors are agreeing, and that gives me some hope,” said Councillor Jack Arnold.

“The $130 million will get us by,” said Martin.

“I don’t disagree that we probably need $650 million to get us where we need to be, but that’s not realistic.”

The mayor will take council’s decision to the next meeting of the Metro Vancouver Mayors Council, which takes place Friday.