We held our 2011 annual general meeting (AGM) out at Vancouver Transit Centre on Wednesday, May 30, 2012—and we had a packed house!

Around 150 people joined us to hear about TransLink’s performance in 2011, with many coming to offer their comments on the recent TaxiSaver news that has been in the media lately. The meeting ran an hour overtime to accommodate all the discussion!

Read on for a few more photos and a summary of what happened.

Our CEO Ian Jarvis talked about the work we did in 2011. Highlights include a record high customer service rating, and moving more people even though we didn’t increase our funded service hours in 2011.

You can check out all our 2011 achievements in this press release and our 2011 annual report, but here are a few in bullet form:

• We delivered nearly 232 million rides in 2011 – 6.6 per cent more than in 2010, even with the unusual surge in usage created by the Winter Olympics.
• Transit revenue rose 5 per cent over 2010 and bus productivity increased by more than 3 per cent – the first increase in seven years.
• 98 positions were cut across the organization (including operating companies Coast Mountain Bus Company and BC Rapid Transit Company) in 2010-2011.
• TransLink also reduced the amount spent on consulting, fuel and operations, so that the cost of running the Authority has risen at less than the rate of inflation.
• Reducing operating cost per passenger by 10 percent over 2010, despite rising fuel costs;
• Improving fleet maintenance practices to keep the cost of maintenance down;
• Reducing overtime by improving scheduling;
• Cutting fuel consumption on buses in part through the “Idle-Free CMBC” policy, with fuel consumption dropping to 55.8 litres per 100 kilometres from 61.4 in 2008.
• TransLink also continued its successful bond issues and has raised a total of $500 million in 2010 and 2011 with bonds for 10-year and 30-year periods, respectively.

Many in attendance also spoke to the value of the TaxiSaver program in their lives, asking questions and making comments about its continuance. (More on the TaxiSaver issue here.)

Our meeting began with 10 minutes of questions, and the last hour of the meeting was also spent on discussion about TaxiSavers and more. We announced that we are putting the plan to eliminate the program on hold while consultations proceed with more of the stakeholders involved.

Lots of media were in attendance to cover the discussion. Here’s a few of the articles that popped up afterward: CKWX, CTV, Georgia Straight , Surrey Leader , Metro, New Westminster NewsLeader, CKNW, The Province, Langley Advance.

And we also ran a tour of the Vancouver Transit Centre afterward… I’ll have another post about that! (Here it is!)

View the webcast online

If you’d like to see the meeting, visit this link and check out a recording of our webcast — you’ll have to register and log into the webinar interface to see it.

I’ll also have the YouTube video up soon and I’ll update this page with the link when it arrives!

Edit, June 1, 2012: OK, here’s the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHv5yMSrCe4

I’ll also embed the same video below.