TransLink is projecting a $3.1-million deficit this year after originally aiming for an $11.4-million surplus, the cash-strapped Metro Vancouver transit authority said Monday.

The projected shortfall stems from rising fuel costs and lower than anticipated tax revenue.

But TransLink can't afford to run a deficit this year. Starting next year, it'll be drawing down on its $400 million reserve just to make ends meet.

TransLink will tighten the belt to make up the extra cash, said spokesperson Ken Hardie.

“The reserves are going to carry us for the next couple of years until we get some funding gaps closed,” Hardie said.

Those 'funding gaps' are sizeable.

By 2012, TransLink expects to be short $150 million yearly just to run the system with projects it has already committed to. But it will be short $450-500 million every year – nearly half its current budget – if it hopes to take on the commitments made under the province's partially funded $14-billion transit plan for the region announced this year.

It's further evidence, says NDP transportation critic Maurine Karagianis, of chronic underfunding.

“TransLink was burdened with a huge amount of promises by the Campbell government that they're not going to be able to achieve,” she said. “How is the government going to make good on the promises they can double transit ridership by 2020?”

TransLink has been looking into a controversial revenue scheme that would see the transit authority dip its fingers into real estate development along transit routes.

In January, the B.C. government unilaterally announced a long-term provincial transit plan for the region, effectively overstepping the then-newly appointed board. But the province committed to only $4.75 billion of the $11.1 billion in new funding requirements. That leaves TransLink and municipalities to come up with more than $3 billion on their own and the federal government with a $3.1-billion bill it has yet to sign off on.

Irwin Loy reports for Vancouver's 24 hours.