The Hong Kong Question

Or, Why the Beijing Proposal is More Practical

Let me say, first of all, that in principle, I am in favour of holding general elections for the Chief Executive.

Let me also say, however, that I am NOT in favour of achieving this by means of Occupy Central, or boycotting school, or striking. Before you bring out the pitchforks, allow me to expound.

The current atmosphere of politics in Hong Kong is best described as fractious. If Beijing allowed open nominations, everybody and his uncle are going to run for office. The result of that will be a campaign of so many contrasting platforms, of such chaos, mudslinging, and extremes that the reputation of any candidate is going to be irreparably tarnished.

At this point, even the eventual winner will be so damaged that he will have lost his mandate to govern before he even takes office. Open nominations for the top job in a city-state is a recipe for perpetual lame duck Chief Executives. Each one will have no political capital to push the often necessary but bitter pills through for the betterment of Hong Kong. What the citizens want and what the citizens need are not always the same things.

What follows is a vicious cycle of incompetency and "quick fix" candidates; winners by virtue of being against the government, and not their own solid plan for the future. Hong Kong will descend into a death spiral, at the end of which lies the cesspool of the failed state.

Occupy Central will not convince Beijing that this will not happen. In fact, it will only strengthen this view, and Beijing's resolve to prevent this fate. If Hong Kong grinds to a halt in protest, it alone will suffer. Its economy will stall, the markets will fall, the entire city will be poorer, and Occupiers will be no closer to their goal.

If they hope to bring Beijing down with them, they are misguided. Hong Kong is but a drop in the bucket to Beijing. They will not be affected, they will not have to back down, and they will not back down, especially with much of the populace also against Occupying. Not only will Occupy Central be ineffective, it will ultimately be self-defeating.

On the topic of police brutality, there were likely faults on both sides. When protestors continue to attempt rushing government buildings and police barriers after repeated warnings, the police are going to react. Do I believe the protestors were mostly peaceful? Yes. But not all of them were, and unfortunately, violence begets violence. It only takes one spark.

At the end of the day, the police are only there to do their jobs. However, they are the easiest to vilify with media, especially social media, for perceived brutality. Were they slightly heavy-handed? Probably. But a violent suppression of the completely innocent? It was not.

Political reform is a complex issue requiring mutual compromise. You wanted the right to choose your own Chief Executive. You were afforded this right. You don't need 5, 6, or 10 candidates. Even the Americans usually only have 2 choices.

Let it not be said that Beijing chooses incompetent people. They may be corrupt, but even democracy is not without corruption. They may be friendlier to Beijing than you like, but do you really think a Chief Executive openly hostile to Beijing can get anything done?

If you grab a handful of cookies, your hand might get caught at the neck of the jar. If you let go of a couple, you might just find you can have your cookie and eat it too.

Hi, I'm a Vancouverite, and my bus is 20 minutes late.

Statistics Canada just released their commute report Wednesday, and one interesting tidbit was the difference in commute time between transit users and drivers in the three major metropolitan areas.

In Toronto, drivers take on average 29 minutes to get to work, and transit users 49. That's a gap of 69% (calculated with driving as the base). Seems reasonable.

In Montreal, drivers take 30 minutes and transit users just 39. That is an astounding difference of only 30%.

In Vancouver, drivers take 25 minutes and transit users 48. The difference is nearly a double, at 92%. That is ridiculous.

Greater Toronto is a very large city; larger than Metro Vancouver in both population and area. Yet, there still exists a large variation in Toronto's favour. Some may argue that Vancouver is merely experiencing "growing pains" due to a large influx of immigrants, but Toronto and Montreal also see respectable rates of immigration, so this can't explain very much. Off the top of my head I can think of two reasons for this ludicrous variation between Montreal and Vancouver:

1. Montreal transit operators are haphazard and drive recklessly, or
2. Translink service is terribly inadequate.

Since Montreal transit fatalities do not frequent the front pages of the Montreal Gazette on a daily basis, we are able to rule out option one. This leaves us to ponder option two: that Translink service is inadequate.

I know for a fact that there are perfectly urban bus routes where bus frequency is 20 minutes. On a weekday. During rush hour. We're talking about Burnaby to Burnaby, not Surrey to Fort Langley. Imagine commuting during off-peak hours or to/from suburban areas...40 minutes to up to 1 hr is not out of the question. You miss the bus, and you might as well call in sick.

Furthermore, Vancouver is a city that is large area-wise, but there are only three metro lines, which, as you can imagine, serve only narrow strips of the city. Before the Canada Line was completed in 2009, the airport terminal was actually only served by one solitary bus route. At present, while they do catch the major centres of Vancouver, Burnaby, and Richmond and Surrey, they continue to fail to connect with the two largest educational institutions. Maybe this is why we're all too stupid to do anything about this. Vicious cycle.

The existence of four express bus lines does marginally correct for this, but buses on busy roads are obviously slower than trains, and one of these lines has service that abruptly cuts off for 5 hours in the middle of the day! If you have to travel from UBC to Joyce Station between 10AM and 3PM, too bad, you're going to have to use the non-express line, which basically has a stop every 300 metres for a 10 km stretch, among others. That's 75 well-spent minutes!

Again, there are several reasons for the above:

1. Not enough drivers;
2. Not enough buses;
3. Translink is mismanaged.

I'm not fully aware of the drivers situation, but if this is the case, they could always hire more. Of course, that's a problem when Translink constantly bemoans that they don't have enough money. I'll analyze that claim later. I'm fairly certain that part of why they don't hire more is because no corporation wishes to deal with even more unionized staff than they already have.

The number of buses is something that I do have some knowledge of. Translink just purchased 300 or so in 2009, and has a fleet of over 1500, which is plenty. Every time I drive by their bus lot in South Vancouver, I see a hundred buses parked there. Doubtless it is the same with the other lots. Most definitely, some of them are being serviced. That said, you cannot possibly service a hundred buses in the same lot at the same time. I cannot for the life of me comprehend why they don't free up some of these buses and boost frequency to routes where it is badly needed.

Since Translink can't hire and has extra buses, we must now explore my third proposition. The sometimes...to put it bluntly...brain-dead actions of the Translink brass is cause for great concern. These actions also sometimes squander large sums, and are a leading cause of we-have-no-money-itis, which severely afflicts Translink. Take, for instance, fare evasion on SkyTrain. Translink frequently complains that there is a high rate of fare evasion which costs them millions. There is a very simple and common solution to this. They are called gates, and have been used in major cities all over the world since the beginning of mass transportation. It is beyond me why it took 25 years (1986-2011) for officials to recognize the need for them, and why it will take 2 more years to install them.

Q. How many Translink staff does it take to install a fare gate?
A. Seven. Six to retire and one to put in the screws.

This brings us to the amount of time it takes for things to be done. Let us study the Canada Line and the proposed Evergreen Line. The idea for the Canada Line came in 1995. A temporary bus route (98 B-Line) was proposed in 1998. The route entered service in 2001. In 2002, 10 months were taken to study whether the line could be built in time for 2010. In 2005 work finally started and the line was opened by 2009.

The Evergreen Line could be just as bad. The idea originally came with the Millenium Line, which opened in 2002. This idea was replaced with a temporary bus route (97 B-Line) implemented that year. By 2004 Translink had a plan; however, following public consultations beginning 2006, Translink changed the plans completely in 2008, then discovered they couldn't agree on the money in 2009. The expected completion date of 2014 (already 3 years delayed) was put into jeopardy with late 2015 now cited as the potential completion date.

The above analysis can be summed up in two short phrases: there are redundancies, and management can't manage. And this is why I'm a Vancouverite, and my bus is 20 minutes late.