Would the
possibility of a two-year fare freeze influence your voting
intentions on October 10? That’s what the NDP proposes -- should the
party gain power at Queen’s Park after the provincial election.
Whenever a person in Ontario takes a trip by local transit, their
fare covers a portion of the cost to operate the service -- the
municipality pays the rest. In some cities, this subsidy is over 60
per cent of the total fare. At the TTC, it’s about 25 per cent.
The New
Democrats say the province must again share half the subsidy on each
ride, as it did when Bob Rae was NDP premier. Peter Tabuns, the
party’s transportation critic and candidate for re-election in the
riding of Toronto Danforth, says funding would flow as long as a
municipality commits to freezing fares for two years.
In the time
since the NDP made this campaign pledge the TTC approved a fare
hike, to take effect in early November. Says Tabuns, “We would call
for a rollback to the pre-increase levels.” York Region Transit has
also been planning a price rise, but last week regional council
decided to put off the decision until October 22.
Fare hikes are
mixed up in the larger issue of municipal downloading, especially in
Toronto as city budget shortfalls were the main justification for
raising TTC rates. Local politicians across Ontario are calling for
Queen’s Park to ease the pressure on municipal finances by once
again paying for services that used to be the responsibility of the
province.
Premier Dalton
McGuinty has called for a task force to report in the new year on
which level of government should pay for what, but his Liberal party
has not clearly committed to helping Toronto through its immediate
budget trouble. McGuinty, along with municipal leaders, recently
pressed the federal government to direct some of its $13.8 billion
surplus this year to transit.
Ontario PC
leader John Tory has pledged to move faster on the downloading issue
so cities can deal with their 2008 budgets, as well as address the
yearly cap-in-hand financial ritual between Toronto City Hall and
Queen’s Park. He also says his party would make more gas tax funds
available for day-to-day transit funding next year.
Lost in the
discussion of local transit needs has been the status of GO
Transit’s provincially-provided subsidy -- customers pay an
astounding 89.4% of GO’s operating costs. How much more service
could be offered right away -- especially buses during the
“shoulder” periods around rush hour -- if the province freed up some
of its very own budget surplus?