HSR riders will be forced to pay nearly all the cost for proposed transit improvements, continuing a quarter-century council tradition of refusing to use tax monies to fix transit. The latest staff transit strategy also dramatically abandons repeated city promises to double transit ridership, despite acknowledging that Hamilton lags far behind comparable city bus systems.
The proposed strategy unveiled last week also offers no improvements for suburban residents in the next two years dedicated to fixing “existing deficiencies” and doesn’t mention any changes to the area-rating system that continues to force residents of old Hamilton to pay more than three times the tax rates imposed on the former suburbs.
Transit chief David Dixon explained to councillors last week that the HSR needs $6 million over the next two years just to deal with current problems before the system can be properly marketed and actually start seeing real growth in ridership.
Dixon is proposing fare increases of over 12 percent this year and more in 2016 to raise nearly all ($5.7 million) of the $6 million. The spending would increase hours of service by just over six percent in hopes of ending bypasses where full buses leave waiting passengers at the curb.
Cash fares would jump to $3 in September (currently $2.55), tickets rise to $2.25 (from $2) and adult passes climb $12 a month to $99. Senior’s fares would go up 24 percent. There would be a further 10-cent-a-ride increase in each of the next three years and probably every year into the future.
But he warned that even his ten year plan will only get the city to 50 rides per capita – barely above the 48 achieved in 2006 and far less than the 65 that London has already reached. The new goal is a dramatic retreat from the 80-100 repeatedly promised in transit plans going back to 1994.
The 1994 Vision 2020 promised to reach 100 rides per capita by 2020. The 2007 Transportation Master Plan lowered that to 80-100 by 2025. Dixon’s new plan only aims to get to 50 by 2024 from the 45 where it currently sits.
Taxes will cover just $0.3 million over the next two years – an average of about $1 per household per year and almost certainly only taken from residents of the old city – with none at all collected until 2016. Expansion plans beyond that point depend heavily on the province agreeing to provide a new subsidy of $330 million that Dixon hopes will be in addition to the promise of full-funding for Light Rail Transit.
“For the initial years we believe the large portion will be primarily funded through fares,” Dixon said. “There is a significant unfunded capital component and this will be a recommendation to look to the province to help us fund that.”
Much of that is for new express route buses – the previously envisioned BLAST network – but the largest component would pay for a new bus storage facility.
The 2007 plan called for adding $12 million each year to HSR operational funding – something that hasn’t even begun to happen. The 2013 Rapid Ready plan asked for $45 million in extra cash by 2017. The plan unveiled last week lowers that to a total of $10 million mainly collected from fare hikes – suggesting that transit staff have greatly reduced their hopes of financial support from a city council that has not put new tax monies into the HSR since the early 1990s.
Dixon presented a slide showing Hamilton performing far worse than six comparator cities – with our rides per capita down six percent since 2006, and the others up between 7 and 45 percent. That was emphasized by the following slide showing Hamilton also far below the others in budget increases over the same period.
“We are the only system trending negatively. Our contribution per capita is the lowest of our peer comparators,” observed Dixon “Over the last few years we’ve had no financial contribution. We have low contributions per resident and if we’re going to achieve our goals and our aspirations and a sustainable, quality transit service we need to start investing in transit.”
However, the latest transit strategy won’t do much to change that.