TransLink's loss is B.C.'s bigger loss.

Tom Prendergast is leaving the regional transportation body for a plum position running the New York subway system, and no one will be able to fill his shoes.

The Chicagoan is a plain-spoken, charming and talented transportation executive. He told Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce members in September that he took this job because he couldn't resist the challenge of running a combined transit and roads authority.

However, TransLink's chronic cash shortage, coupled with a mean-spirited and unnecessary review by the provincial comptroller-general of its spending,was enough to turn his thoughts and loyalty in another direction.

Had Kevin Falcon remained transportation minister, Prendergast may have stayed. Falcon likely would have precluded the comptroller-general review, as he had just reorganized the way TransLink was structured and had a firm understanding of Lower Mainland transportation issues.

His replacement, Shirley Bond, is from Prince George and knows next to nothing about Lower Mainland transportation, and she has certainly proven she knows almost nothing about TransLink's many challenges.

While the recent decision to add $130 million in additional taxes to TransLink's coffers has proven somewhat controversial in the nether regions of the Lower Mainland, like Langley, where transit service is sketchy or non-existent, Prendergast clearly understood the need to fix those inequities over the long haul. He indicated so in an interview I had with him in June, and again at the chamber meeting in September.

Now that it has been shown that a man of his immense talent doesn't want to be stuck with operating an underfunded transportation agency, what's the next step? Will the province realize it has to either make more funds available, or take TransLink over, lock, stock and barrel? Will mayors reassess the damage and use their influence to pressure the provincial government to improve the funding? Will taxpayers understand that transportation issues are one of the biggest challenges in the Lower Mainland?

Unfortunately, what seems most likely is that most politicians and residents will ignore the implications of this resignation, and blithely assume that transportation will improve — even though TransLink hasn't got the ability to make any improvements, given its limited sources of revenue.

The net effect will be more congestion for the foreseeable future.

An addendum — On Friday morning, the comptroller-general's report was released. One recommendation is as follows: "Province consider reviewing the existing limits in the revenue streams currently available to TransLink."

Another recommendation suggests that the mayors' council, the omly part of the current TransLink structure directly accountable to taxpayers, be changed to a transit authority, with 20 per cent of its members appointed by the province.

This structure goes back to the way the NDP structured the TransLink board when it was first set up — three of the 15 members were to be MLAs. The Liberals never appointed an MLA to sit on the board as longt as that structure lasted, stating that TransLink was basically a regional body.

I have no problem with changing the mayors' council to an authority — as long as there is direct accountability, by way of elections, to taxpayers. There must be direct accountability when sums of this magnitude are being raised through property tax, gas tax and all TransLink's other revenue streams.

Nothing else is acceptable.