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Toronto transit system makes the argument for a fare increase, noting that subsidy for Vancouver riders three times higher than theirs

September 27th, 2012 · 22 Comments

This came in through today’s whitewater rafting on the information rapids: the Toronto Transit Commission’s report to council on why it should get a five-cent fare increase.

On page 8, the report writers include a comparison chart of the subsidies provided to various transit systems in various cities. (My attentive readers will remember that my post a few days ago noted that ALL transit routes in Vancouver require a subsidy of one sort or another. Fares simply do not cover the cost. That’s true for transit systems as a whole, everywhere.)

Before anyone jumps to conclusions of incompetence, btw, I’d make the point that transit systems that have to serve newer large sprawling cities as opposed to transit systems that get to serve older, denser cities seem to require more subsidies.

Los Angeles, currently revered by transit nerds because of the money its mayor is spending to build new rapid-transit lines, is close to $5 per rider subsidy. Vancouver is almost at $3. Toronto is around 80 cents.

 

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  • Guest

    See this post at SkyccraperPage.com for overlays of the service area for TransLink compared to TTC, Montreal and Chicago – provided by TransLink’s Buzzer Blog:

    http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=4467496&postcount=3769

  • Boohoo

    Pacific ocean off Richmond?

  • Richard

    Only problem is that it not an apples to apples comparison. More like apples to apples+oranges+debt sevicing on the apple trees. The apples being transit and oranges being roads.

    In the 2012 budget, TransLink’s transit revenue was $453 million and transit expenses were $862 million, meaning a subsidy of $409 million. Much less than the $617 million stated in the TO report.

    The operating subsidy would even be less if it were not for the wacky Canada Line payments that are reported as operating costs but are really a combination of operating and debt servicing costs. The Canada Line payments were $106 million year. I believe only $35 million or so is actual operating costs and the rest is really debt repayment.

    Anyway, the transit cost recovery is 50% and the revenue per passenger is $1.86 so the subsidy is also $1.86, far less than the $2.93 claimed in the TO report.
    http://www.translink.ca/~/media/Documents/about_translink/governance_and_board/board_minutes_and_reports/2012/February/2012%20Business%20Plan%20Operating%20and%20Capital%20Budget%20Summary.ashx

  • Roger Kemble

    So, we are back to griping about getting around Metro again.

    I’m not surprised!

    Wow all the armchair expertise. The same problem, the same solution, the same voices!

    As for movement relief, we are looking in the wrong direction.

    As a starter, look at the entrenched bureaucracy Translink has become. Look at the entrenched bureaucracy Highways has become. Look at their work hour parking lots: how many autos tell you managers of the system do not use the system.

    Will those who have caused the problem solve the problem?

    “The operating subsidy would even be less if it were not for the wacky Canada Line payments that are reported as operating costs but are really a combination of operating and debt servicing costs.” Good point Richard @ # 3

    When the conversation gets around to operating costs and leaves out debt servicing we know we are being hood winked!

    The Canada Line is touted as a success. But that ignores traffic along Cambie etc. the bridges and YVR parking lots. Essentially nothing has changed.

    Moving around Vancouver, despite all the ongoing self serving puff pieces . . .

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/what-does-it-mean-to-have-the-worlds-best-reputation-vancouver-will-soon-find-out/article4572459/

    . . . is hell on wheels.

    The ultimate and eventual solution will be to start planning for a sustainable relationship between point of origin and point of destination.

    When I was a kid in wartime England there was a reminder posted every where . . . Is your journey really necessary!

  • Duncan

    One thing that Modo, Car2Go etc. have done is made, at least for me, clear how expensive individual trips are for driving a car around the region.

    I assume, perhaps wrongly, that the costs for Modo, as they are non-profit and have considerable economies of scale, approximate the costs of my trips in my private automobile.

    Given that- the fares we currently pay on Translink are a bargain- even adding $3 to each fare they’d still be substantially cheaper than driving, at least for the routes I take.

  • MB

    @ Roger 4:

    The ultimate and eventual solution will be to start planning for a sustainable relationship between point of origin and point of destination.

    Agreed.

    But since the war the families of returning soldiers got seriously addicted to personal mobility, not without a big leg up by GM and Standard Oil who killed the competition.

    As the result, and with the complicity of persons with decision-making powers over public funds, our cities have been designed and built almost exclusively for the car for a tad over six decades now.

    This situation is not without its problems, chief among them the hard costs, now more recently with the external costs surfacing (you mentioned debt, and that’s a biggie, but it’s not the only one), and the lack of resiliency with its dependency on one form of energy to keep it moving.

    So, to shorten the origin-destination line would require noting less than the reconfiguration of our cities, at least those portions build since WWII.

    It is a very expensive situation to get out of, but I remain optimistic that deep planning and incremental change over time will indeed shorten that line to a more sustainable level.

    Though Gen-X, Y +Z are as addicted to mobility as their parents and grandparents, they seemingly are more aware odf the value of sustainable neighbourhoods (my 30-year old niece really gets it), and their addiction may be somewhat offset with its extension to electronic mobility via incessant chatter on the cell.

  • Roger Kemble

    “ So, to shorten the origin-destination line would require noting less than the reconfiguration of our cities . . . ”

    Well, MB @ 6 that is my point . . .

    http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/1yorkshirelad/vancouver.re-boot/Vancouver.re-boot.html

    . . . I’ve been saying that until I’m blue in the face . . .

  • Roger Kemble

    PS “. . . reconfiguration of our cities . . . ” is a more viable solution than doing what we are doing now!

    Can you imagine the disruption and chaos if we try to Cambie-ize the UBC B route?

    To say nothing of the “say no more” inter-generational debt load!

  • Guest

    Combining trips and making use of alternate activities can eliminate a lot of trips.

    Running errands, grocery shopping once a week instead of running back and forth many times. Never drive to the grocery store for just one item!

    Limit the kids to certain sports activities and make sure they aren’t at fields or rinks halfway across town.

    Pick and choose movies and theatre plays carefully and sit at home with a video or TV show instead.

    Cook at home instead of eating out (or eat out within walking distance in your neighbourhood instead of the trendy restaurants across town) – that’ll also save a lot on the pocketbook!

  • Voony

    My attentive readers will remember that my post a few days ago noted that ALL transit routes in Vancouver require a subsidy of one sort or another

    yes, but, according to the latest Translink annual report,
    Translink revenue per boarding: $1.26

    According to Translink bus summary route performance (BSPR) review:
    Translink expense per boarding:
    – $0.61 on the route 99
    -average $1.25 on ALL Vancouver city bus routes (1 to 84 and 99)
    -$2.43 system wide.

    So
    (1) the attentive reader can guess where the Translink subsidies go (or not go)

    (2) When compared apple to apple (ref. to Guess@1)…
    Translink is not performing as badly as suggested by the TTC report. In fact TTC expense per boarding is $1.70 (so lower than Translink taken as a whole, but higher than Translink Vamcouver city route).

    (3) Richard is right, but still the tax money going to Translink is $617k, a fair share going to road and bridge infrastructure…it could be fair to deduce it, on the other hand Translink receive transfer of senior government (for the fare-gate among other…), so all included probably 600k of subsidy is what it take to run Translink as is, hence a fare recovery closer to 40% than 50%…but who knows what is included in the TTC financial sheet? or for that matter any other transit agency…that is the reason why a good usual practice is to compare only operating cost
    (to answer Roger@4)

    (4) what is not obvious of the TTC report is that Vancouver top the chart when we consider transit subsidies per taxpayer…

    Thought that the figure could look much different if we were to include European cities that can be considered a problem which will be not addressed by throwing more taxpayer money at Translink.
    It requires a much more questioning on the urban development of the region (yes Roger@7 is right too as well as MB@6)

    and for sure, the last announcement of Clark on the George Massey Tunnel while completely ignoring the above Translink problem doesn’t bold well for the future of the region

  • Roger Kemble

    “. . . or eat out within walking distance in your neighbourhood instead of the trendy restaurants across town – that’ll also save a lot on the pocketbook!”

    Thanqu, Guest @ #9, you make my point.

    Clustering amenities, far more than just the local eateries . . .

    http://members.shaw.ca/theyorkshirelad72/working.mount.pleasant.html

    . . . has to have some place in the future if the future means green.

    The Great UBC trek of 1922 was a mistake although given the time understandable: the U envisioned space to develop and a land endowment for the future.

    On the other hand siting of SFU out on remote Burnaby Mountain, in the early ’70’s, was a big mistake. Michael’s U village, although very well designed, is just not appropriate for a city with green pretensions.

    I hope you will suffer the above Mount Pleasant link again: it nevertheless illustrates a local urban village centre, with all the amenities clustered, according to how a green city should be obviating the need for the maxed out bus-bunching every school year: I hope the point of the link is obvious!

  • MB

    I would argue, Roger, that it’s not just amenities that need to be centralized — or brought to the sprawling suburbs which, aguably, is the greater need — but commercial / retail / office right into the heart of neighbourbhoods as well instead of plunked down on highway strips.

    Was it you who said the suburban malls are the downtowns of tomorrow?

    But in the meantime there is a huge number of people who commute regionally, and their trips are usually made by car, the majority as single occupants.

    It is profoundly unfortunate that such a vast infrastructural network was built from public funds to support this extremely inefficient and deleterious paradigm.

  • MB

    @ Roger 8

    Can you imagine the disruption and chaos if we try to Cambie-ize the UBC B route?

    That would be harkening back to the dark ages of engineering, as one engineer from the losing Bombardier bid put it shortly after the switcheroo to cut-and-cover was announced.

    That’s why I would prefer twin bored tunnels with station pits covered over with bridge structures.

    Oh the cost … oh the humanity …

    If this was France, the federal government would be a major player, if not the major player.

    Our federal government prefers to hide behind provisions in the constitution that are distorted with the objective to download responsibilities to the provinces, federal responsibilities every other advanced industrialized democracy accepts, the US economic meltdown notwithstanding.

    The cost of tunnel boring machines could be shared with four or five other cities in Western Canada alone that would use their services under a federal program. The machines would be repaired after each use, and move on to the next project.

    Light rail rolling stock and buses could be ordered by the hundreds in big national contracts with serious bulk-order unit discounts covering several cities.

    Further, the negotiating power of a national government weilding massive purchasing contracts with vendors covering several projects would be orders of magnitude greater than that surrounding one-offs.

    This power could extend to negotiating returns on real estate investment next to transit hubs and stations — even down to working out the urban design and architectural character.

    The Canada Line is not a viable example of doing it right, even though the line has exceeded its ridership forecasts almost from Day One.

    Instead, look to France.

  • MB

    Further, the negotiating power of a national government weilding massive purchasing contracts with vendors covering several projects …

    To clarify, this would cover what the vendor will bring to the community, from jobs in assembly plants to public art. Companies competing for huge contracts will put a lot on the table.

    If Bombardier puts more on the the table than its competitors in the intitial discussions, there may be an argument in favour of sole-sourcing provided that the higher value to taxpayers is evident.

    But of course this is pie in the sky until the feds wake up from their long slumber and realize that cities really do matter to the national economy.

    In fact, they may contribute more than all our national resources combined when you include things like value-added industries and the value of human intelligence gathered there.

  • Roger Kemble

    “Was it you who said the suburban malls are the downtowns of tomorrow?”

    Well no, MB @ #13, but if Oakridge new town centre pulls it off I’m on side!

  • Sean Nelson

    @MB #12: “I would argue … that it’s not just amenities that need to be centralized … but commercial / retail / office right into the heart of neighbourbhoods as well instead of plunked down on highway strips.”

    There’s nothing wrong with strips of commercial development as long as they’re dense enough and close enough to residential areas. Vancouver is very fortunate to have numerous commercial strips within walking distance of much of its residential areas. Those strips are there as a result of the city’s original streetcar routes which, in the days before the widespread adoption of the automobile, needed to be in walking distance of the residential areas they opened up.

    The problem in the outlying regions is that these strips are too far from most of the residential areas and the buildings are behind huge parking lots which make walking to them and between them an unpleasant option.

  • Roger Kemble

    “Oh the cost … oh the humanity …”

    Don’t be surprised MB if Evergreen is cancelled before completion when the costs begin to soar: Massey Tunnel too!

  • Roger Kemble

    “France is another country. They do things differently there.“

  • Roger Kemble

    “The cost of tunnel boring machines could be shared with four or five other cities in Western Canada alone that would use their services under a federal program. The machines would be repaired after each use, and move on to the next project.”

    But MB there’s more to it than frantically swoshing around.

    there is the essential humane quality of being there . . .

  • Roger Kemble

    “Vancouver is very fortunate to have numerous commercial strips within walking distance of much of its residential areas. Those strips are there as a result of the city’s original streetcar routes . . . ”

    That is true, Sean@ #16. I used to take (I’m talking 1951) the Hastings/Arbutus interurban from were I worked downtown to Kerridale were I lived.

    The tram would then go onto Steveston.

  • MB

    @ Roger … there’s more to it than frantically swoshing around … there is the essential humane quality of being there . . .

    At present we have the need for both Being There and swooshing, though Being There will perhaps be the ultimate goal after a swooshing transition.

    In technical jargon, that means local and regional transit service are both valid for maybe a generation yet until neighbourhoods can develop their loci better.

  • MB

    @ Sean 16

    Your last paragraph is exactly what I was referring to regarding suburban commercial strips.

    Mid-Main is completely different than Port Kells, though both have commercial strips.