Transportation for Liveable Communities (TLC) a working group of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) McMaster. PO Box 19 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton ON, Canada, L8S 1C0 905-525-9140 ext. 26026

A city council without vision is an ineffective driving force

By Julia Kollek, Dundas
The Hamilton Spectator, (Dec 17, 2005)

We just spent hundreds of thousands chasing a Commonwealth games dream. Plus a great deal more spent on the last run at this dream.

We're spending $430 million on an expressway that may generate some economic development. We're prepared to spend $100 million to $300 million on an aerotropolis dream.

Why not spend money on a transit dream?

The debate over raising transit fares needs careful examination, because the issue runs deeper than just a fare hike.

In the mid-1980s, the HSR was attracting nearly 30 million riders a year. That dropped steadily to 20 million by the turn of the century. Since the last fare increase in 2002 [sic] it has climbed to about 22 million.

Both the declines and the recent rebound are connected to fares. HSR staff are very aware of this and they tell councillors straight out that if you increase fares you will lose riders. They can even tell you how many -- 855,000 if there's a 15 cent increase, and different numbers for different size increases.

The fundamental problem lies in the attitude of council toward the HSR. For most of the last 20 years, council has treated the HSR differently from other items in its budget.

All departmental budgets increase --usually every year -- because of inflation, etc. Council raises taxes or cuts expenses or both to deal with these cost increases. Except for transit.

There they raise fares to deal with increases. And when they raise fares, they lose riders.

Council can't raise fares to pay for increases in park costs. It can't raise fares to pay for road construction or reconstruction. It can't raise fares to pay for more police -- and parking fines etc. don't do the trick either.

It doesn't raise fares to cover the growing costs of sprawl. In fact, it doesn't even raise fees sufficiently to cover the real costs of hockey services or golf courses, or some other sacred cows that have strong political lobbies. So the logic used for the transit budget is fundamentally different from the logic used for other expenditures.

Everyone knows that dramatically improving transit will substantially improve the lives of Hamiltonians, reduce air pollution, cut greenhouse gases, alleviate poverty, reduce injuries and deaths from auto accidents, and a whole host of other benefits.

On top of that, the provincial and federal governments are eager to help.

What we're missing is a vision -- or a commitment to a vision -- from our city council.

The last fare increase was actually January 2003