When news of Toronto’s billion dollar gift for the TTC started
rippling out across the province and the country two weeks ago,
there were reports of grumbling in other cities where transit
service is also hurting. Other cities have plans to build new
transit lines, but most have been struggling to keep buses running
and fares down, just as Toronto has. Ottawa’s city council recently
voted to slash bus service for local riders. In Transit asked
Michael Roschlau, the President of the Canadian Urban Transit
Association, to paint a picture of the Ontario’s municipal bus
systems. The picture has some dark colours in it, in the form of
sobering statistics.
Roschlau says
“There are huge needs in terms of transit investments across the
province. A big chunk of this is the backlog from the last 10 years
of neglect. All the announcements of new funding -- whether it be
the one at the TTC or others -- are certainly good news, but I think
we need to recognize that the first priority for any investment is
going to be returning our transit systems to a state of good repair
and playing catch-up on the backlog. The second priority is going to
be maintaining the state of good repair. Only after that’s done can
we seriously think about expansion and building up capacity to
attract new clientele.”
On top of the
list is modernizing the province’s urban bus fleet -- TTC riders are
especially familiar with this. He says, “When we look at the average
age of buses across this province, they’re currently at about 12
years. The TTC, I believe, is at 14 years -- which compares to a
national average of 10.8 and a U.S. average of 6.9 years.”
To make it
clear to the provincial cabinet ministers who will decide how much
to fund transit, experts have shown them some crucial indicators of
what has happened in the last decade. First, average transit fares
across Ontario have risen by 41% in the last ten years, while the
Consumer Price Index in Ontario has gone up by 18%. Says Roschlau,
“Transit fares across the board have increased by more than double
the rate of inflation.”
He says that
total transit ridership has gone up, but when you factor in
Ontario’s steady population growth, per capita ridership has dropped
by 10%. The amount of transit service available to each person has
also gone down by 10% in ten years -- that can’t be helping the
battle against gridlock.
One more hard
fact -- the user pay index, or the proportion of the operating costs
that are covered directly by fares, was 59% ten years ago. Today
Ontarians pay 70% of the day-to-day costs of running transit. The
Canadian average? 62%. In the U.S., where all levels of government
pay for buses, streetcars, subway and commuter rail, the user pay
index is 39%. Those who grumble that Toronto is getting a special
deal should know that GO and TTC users pay more than 80%.
For Mr.
Roschlau, these numbers show “how far we still have to go in
recovering from those last ten years, before we raise any
expectations around what transit can do in the future to relieve
traffic congestion, to improve air quality, to being a real partner
in a smart growth agenda.”
If you would
like to see the kind of buses that Americans get to ride, a new
diesel-electric hybrid bus will be on show today at 10:30 a.m. in
Nathan Phillips Square at Toronto City Hall. The vehicle, one of 325
ordered for operation in New York City, uses up to 22 per cent less
fuel and reduces carbon monoxide emissions by almost 90 per cent.
The TTC is considering the new technology for new buses that could
hit Toronto’s streets in 2006.
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