The 2026 Vancouver budget risks imposing cuts to road safety initiatives that we simply can’t afford. With so few details being released, we call upon council to address our concerns and amend the budget to direct that essential transportation programs and staff be protected.
1. Hidden Cuts
The budget claims that Engineering will only be cut by -1% ($800,000), but this figure likely disguises steeper cuts in staffing and service delivery.
Even at face value, an $800,000 cut to the Engineering budget amounts to approximately 6-8 Full Time Equivalent staff positions.
Of course, the functional budget cut is much steeper than 1 percent, as the 2026 budget fails to acknowledge natural salary growth and inflation in existing positions. Indeed, staff have estimated that a property tax increase of 5-7 percent is necessary just to meet existing costs across the city.
2. Slower Progress
Even with current staffing levels, transportation staff are struggling to deliver urgent improvements—and staffing cuts would make these delays worse.
The City only expects to install 16 new signalized crossings over the life of the 2023–26 capital plan, resulting in years-long delays to upgrade dangerous intersections such as 16th & Willow, where a nanny was seriously injured while the community waited for a new signal to be installed.
Despite Council approving nine new bus lane corridors in 2023 and 2024, zero new kilometres of bus lane have been installed in the City due to prolonged delays and insufficient staff capacity.
Reducing staff count would slow down progress even more—the exact opposite direction that we want to go as a city.
3. Less Staff
Vital transportation projects are placed at risk by potential Engineering staffing cuts.
We’re watching closely to make sure that these teams aren’t cut, because their loss would have an outsized impact on road safety and sustainable transportation in Vancouver. Irreplaceable institutional knowledge would be lost, even if the next council reverses the cuts.
- Bus Integration Group: delivering bus priority measures for the estimated 327,000 daily transit riders who travel in Vancouver each day, including the nine bus lane corridors approved by Council
- Street Activities: delivering public plazas and creating lively, car-free public spaces on Vancouver’s commercial streets
- Transportation Planning and Transportation Design: developing and implementing active transportation improvements, including protected crossings, cycling upgrades, and the Active Mobility Plan, as well as council priorities such as Water Street, the Granville Entertainment District, the Broadway Plan Public Realm Plan, and the Portside Greenway
4. Musical Chairs
Even without a direct loss of jobs on these teams, steep staffing cuts in other departments risk causing huge disruptions to transportation progress in Vancouver.
Under the city’s collective agreement, reductions in unionized positions can result in ‘bumping’, where staff with more seniority who lose their positions can take over remaining positions held by staff with less seniority.
In effect, this would cause the more junior staff to lose their jobs and could shuffle staff in one department into a whole other department, despite having no experience working in the latter.
This process could displace expert transportation staff who are delivering vital safety and transit projects and cause widespread disruption—hindering staff’s ability to work on council transportation priorities.
Vision Zero Vancouver 