TransLink formally celebrated SkyTrain's 25th Anniversary this past week at the Edmonds Yard in Burnaby. As I listened to the speeches, I couldn't help but pick up on a tendency to spend more time reflecting than talking about the future. Part of this is the self-congratulatory nature of politics, but it's also a product of transit's awkward funding paradigm that keeps cities from funding their own infrastructure. As a result, the provincial and federal governments are invariably involved in what would otherwise be relatively local transportation investment. The issue is not so much the additional layers of partisanship and politics - each of BC's three most recent governments have helped advance and construct a SkyTrain line, for example - but lenses focused on large swaths of relatively empty space used to judge spending and policy decisions. As much as Canada is an urban country, municipalities are dependent on the whims of other orders of government, with different sets of priorities. While Ian Jarvis, TransLink's CEO, spoke of shaping vibrant communities around SkyTrain stations to build ridership and a sustainable region, the Government of Canada's line revolved around efficiency, effectiveness, security, cleanliness, and prosperity.