New Transit Funding Sources

[Johnny Au]

I live in Mississauga which has used articulated buses for decades and they are troubled by high maintenance costs.

And in terms of operation, the lower frequency means more people waiting at stops, loadings times are longer, so bus are slower or fall behind schedule easier, which lowers the frequency and capacity of the route or increases the operating cost to maintain the same frequency and capacity. Buses may be longer, but still just one door for boarding.

Articulated buses also cannot operate when it's snowing heavily. They get stuck in the snow very easily as Ottawa learned the hard way. I have personally been forced off articulated buses because they got stuck in the snow. But Mississauga Transit just keeps them in the garage now when it's snowing.

So based on my experience, I think articulated buses should never be used except for limited stop routes, especially with all-door boarding scheme. But this is still Canada, this is Toronto, it still snows, so you can't have a fleet with too many articulated buses or there could be shortage of buses when there is snow on the roads.

Perhaps this might be better (or worse): Futuristic Chinese Bus Concept

 

[doady]

You can see the entire GTA and Hamilton struggled with ridership loss or slower growth in 2015, if you look at the chart on the following page from some guy:

https://seanmarshall.ca/2016/03/18/on-transit-ridership-in-the-gtha/

Even Brampton saw lower ridership growth in 2015 compared to previous years, so the ridership (and fare revenue) probably did not meet their budget expectations.

Only Mississauga saw transit ridership grow normally, so no budget shortfall.

But yeah, for everyone else, the "new transit funding source" seems like merely waiting for the recession to end. That's what Mississauga did during the 2009 recession, in which they experienced a massive 6% ridership loss:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2009/06/09/mississauga_gets_off_the_bus.html

Mississauga froze fares and added service during the recession and now not only has ridership recovered, it is still growing normally even in the midst of another recession (see Sean Marshall's chart again).

 

[TOareaFan]

^we are in a recession?

 

[rbt]

^we are in a recession?

Seems it's been so long since we had a recession people have forgotten what one is.

2016 is a great year for Ontario (2.5% GDP growth) and 2016 is shaping up to be even better (~3% GDP growth based on Q1/Q2). City of Toronto "Economic Dashboard" reports usually show the GTA slightly edging out Ontario's average.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I think the city of Toronto has actually been in a recession recently, though not the GTA or Ontario as a whole. A lot of growth has been happening in Guelph, Ottawa, KWC, etc.

 

[muller877]

I think the city of Toronto has actually been in a recession recently, though not the GTA or Ontario as a whole. A lot of growth has been happening in Guelph, Ottawa, KWC, etc.

2 million square feet of downtown office space coming on line. Definitely not a recession in Toronto nor the GTA. The jobs are changing which can be scary for those affected but the economy is chugging along.

Has the TTC messed up their growth projections? Yes.

Maybe we need to understand the massive amount of people now walking or biking to work compared to 5 or 10 years ago. Plus reverse commuting. Plus telecommuting. So the growth in jobs and population doesn't show up as additional traffic congestion on the road but also does not show up as additional riders on the TTC.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Unfortunately, we'll have to wait till 2017 for the Census results for the up-to-date numbers. From link.

Six official 2016 Census data releases are scheduled between February and November 2017.

February 8, 2017....Population and dwelling counts

May 3, 2017.........Age and sex
....................Type of dwelling

August 2, 2017......Families, households and marital status
....................Language

September 13, 2017..Income

October 25, 2017....Immigration and ethnocultural diversity
....................Housing
....................Aboriginal peoples

November 29, 2017...Education
....................Labour
....................Journey to work
....................Language of work
....................Mobility and migration

 

[W. K. Lis]

TTC will feel crunch from province’s new carbon tax

See video at this link.

From this link,

Diesel ($13.9 million): The total diesel budget will be reduced by $9.8 million. The
TTC has hedged 86% of the 2016 diesel requirements at an average price of 87 cents
per litre and the budgeted price for the balance of the requirements has been reduced
to reflect market conditions for an overall savings of $13.9 million. These savings are
partially offset by $4.1 million for diesel required to operate the additional service.

Now if they add 4.6¢ a litre carbon tax ($5 million?) on top of the costs of diesel fuel (plus HST on top of that), we had better hope that the price of all fuel either continues to go down in cost, or stays the same. BTW, there's this prince from Nigeria who...

I just hope that all transit agencies (TTC, GO, etc.) will be exempt from the carbon tax.

 

[ssiguy2]

These new revenue tools they are searching for and the city will discuss this fall, will City Hall just be reviewing them or will they also have to be voted on?

 

[pstogios]

I just hope that all transit agencies (TTC, GO, etc.) will be exempt from the carbon tax.

Or, they could switch to the numerous hybrid or full-electric buses, which is what the carbon tax is supposed to encourage. Of course funding for such upgrades is another question, just saying this would be a progressive and welcome step.

 

[Amare]

Or, they could switch to the numerous hybrid or full-electric buses, which is what the carbon tax is supposed to encourage. Of course funding for such upgrades is another question, just saying this would be a progressive and welcome step.

Have you seen the TTC's past experiences with alternative technologies? Every time they try one out, it fails miserably and ends up costing them ten's of millions to rectify the problem. The CNG experiment failed, the Bio-Fuel experiment failed, and the hybrids were an unmitigated disaster.

This goes to show how backwards the transit situation is in this province. They implement a carbon tax that is going to penalize a transit organization, which has the mandate of transporting thousands of people across a city which ultimately takes cars off the street and reduces pollution. There's no rational thought process going on whatsoever.

 

[Johnny Au]

Soon enough, the province would suggest the Chinese straddling buses in the 905.

 

[ssiguy2]

Again is this just a discussion or will it be a vote? If it's just a discussion then god knows when {if ever} Toronto decides to pay the price for the transit it wants.

 

[goreckm]

Again is this just a discussion or will it be a vote? If it's just a discussion then god knows when {if ever} Toronto decides to pay the price for the transit it wants.

Probably a discussion on whether they should do another study before some more discussion can take place.

 

[ssiguy2]

Thanks for the answer. Never seen a city that can talk so much and do so little.

This is where Queen's Park should say there will be no more increases to the TTC subsidies until Toronto matches the contribution and the same thing should be told to GO. If their subsidy goes up by 2% per year keeping in line with inflation over time that is mega bucks and would force the City to put it's money where it's mouth is. It would also stop the TTC and GO constant requests for more money on top of inflation without having to be equally answerable to the taxpayers as QP is.

This would not only force Toronto {and GO| to raise non-fare revenues but also force them to do it quickly.