TransLink bus ticket machines can be easily hacked by anyone with a laptop, as evidenced by this series of tweets in 2013. With this method and the right knowledge, it's possible that someone could intercept information. Because this flaw is directly part of the ticket machine's network, the security of card transactions comes into question.
The Compass Card program is already $23.2 million over budget – 13.5 per cent. It was supposed to be $171 million, but it’s now $194.2 million.
TransLink communications staff ordered a company-wide boycott of CKNW Radio when the station hammered away at fare evasion in 2012. TransLink later backed down, after CKNW was instrumental in getting the provincial government to pass legislation to crack down on fare evasion ticket deadbeats.
Transit Police, desperate to show why they deserve $30+ million a year in tax, sweetened their crime numbers by including other police forces’ requests for CCTV footage of transit stations. The cops claim they worked on those investigations – but all they did was hand over some videotapes.
Riders were outraged to discover that TransLink will double-charge people buying paper tickets on buses if they want to transfer to SkyTrain. Despite a solution being available, TransLink executives decided double-charging was preferable.
A TransLink contractor suspended two HandyDART drivers for sharing their concerns about the system with CKNW Radio.
TransLink supervisors were caught on tape by CTV getting luxury, $38 car washes at King’s Auto Spa.
TransLink claimed its move to a new building in Sapperton would save taxpayers money, but it didn’t: the Transit Police’s old building was free, and TransLink paid $100,000 every month because it couldn’t sublease its former space in Surrey.
TransLink spent $30,000 studying a gondola up Burnaby Mountain that neither neighbours nor City Hall supported. As Mayor Derek Corrigan said: "[If TransLink is so broke,] why are they going into additional expenses, like the gondola? It’s never been a priority."