Comments on: Three Years of Thinking Small at GRT

By: Michael Druker

Michael Druker — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:58:42 +0000

Chris – that’s a fair comment. I believe three years is plenty of time to design and implement changes such as a redesign of route 7, elimination of mid-route layovers, removal of Hespeler Terminal and route redesign, etc. Frankly, many of the changes we suggest are efficiencies, which should translate into more resources for new routes or expanded service hours.

The amount of budget they have to work with could be flexible – but it would take advocacy within GRT / the Region for a better bus system, perhaps at the expense of other priorities. I’m not really seeing it at the moment.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:33:39 +0000

I’ll be frank– I’m surprised how much you’re unhappy about this plan. TriTAG is an advocacy group for transit, among other things, so I would expect you to push GRT and the Region to deliver more. But from a pragmatic standpoint, there’s a lot to this plan. Given the cut-back funding for implementing the RTMP to try and make the LRT tax impact more palatable, I have a hard time imagining how GRT would fit more in. Route changes and policy changes that may not affect operational hours still require months of time, coordination and consultation to work out.

I do question the wisdom of increasing fares to recoup a higher proportion of operating costs (rather than for funding more service expansion, or as a response to higher operating costs.) This does fly in the face of growing ridership. I have a suspicion that someone wants GRT to show a higher-than-average cost recovery to defend against future attacks on “the cost of our transit system”. Not that I believe this is a valid reason.

Still, that said– keep the pressure on, but don’t be unreasonable about it. Organizations can’t turn on a dime.

By: Michael Druker

Michael Druker — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:27:36 +0000

Generally, here: roads are built using a combination of development charges, general property taxes, and assorted stimulus funding. Maintenance and operations — including rebuilding at the end of the road’s life — comes mainly from property taxes.

Gas taxes here are both provincial and federal. Part of Ontario’s gas tax currently goes into funding transit. Part of the Federal gas tax is given to municipalities for various infrastructure uses. Waterloo Region currently devotes all of its $14 million share to road reconstruction. As far as I know, Gas taxes in Canada were not designed as highway user fees, so it is not directly comparable to the US. However I don’t believe the gas taxes generated here are anywhere near the level of road expenditures.

The costs of roads are not limited to the direct ones, though. There are public health impacts of crashes, of air pollution, of not having a reason to walk. There are the costs to have more emergency services as these are based not on population but on service area and distance. There’s the cost of school buses.

Transit isn’t cheap, either, so it’s not an easy comparison. But that’s in large part a consequence of the land use patterns and the social-service aims inherent in current transit planning.

Thanks for the topic suggestion — I agree it’s an important one, and one that would be good to discuss with some facts on hand.

By: Gus

Gus — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:12:05 +0000

Road operation is and will continue to be paid through general property taxes…

Is this true? I’ve heard claims (particularly about the US) that roads are paid for from taxes on gasoline, which implies that people who drive cars really do pay for road usage.

If true, this discrepancy is an incredibly persuasive testament to the efficiency of transit vs. personal vehicles. A TriTAG blog post dedicated to the topic might turn some heads… Just sayin’.

By: Kourtney

Kourtney — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:49:55 +0000

I wish GRT would start a quality improvement initiative. I’d like to see them tracking the percentage of buses that do not arrive within a tolerance of schedule and submitting plans to reduce that percentage.

That’s a shame about the plan to increase farebox recovery rates.