Mayor Goldring, City Councillors:
My name is Doug Brown, and I am here tonight representing Poverty Free Halton. We are a non-partisan citizen organization dedicated to the long-term goall of ending poverty in Halton Region. Through education and advocacy, our dedicated volunteer committee works to highlight issues of poverty and identify solutions to all levels of government. We believe that the solutions to poverty are within grasp, we just need the political will to obtain them.
Affordable and accessible transit is vitally important to many in our community. People on low income and those that cannot drive due to age or disability depend on transit to get to school, to get to work, to shop, to get to appointments, or to visit family and friends. Unfortunately, this is not easy in Burlington because of an under-funded transit system. This means that many people are not within reasonable walking – or rolling distance from a bus stop, or have inadequate service in terms of frequency and hours.
Burlington spends significantly less money on transit than most similar municipalities. This has been documented in the current MM Dillon Transit Master Plan Study. (Slide 1 Peer Review of municipal transit expenditures/capita). A complete comparison of transit spending by GTA municipalities was done by the Sustainable Urban Development Association (Slide 2 GTA property taxes in support of transit). This comparison shows that Burlington spends only half of the GTA average on transit.Under-spending on transit has caused Burlington to trail other communities in service levels and ridership. Historically, we can see that Burlington now has just over half the ridership per capita as it had in the mid nineteen eighties. (Slide 3 Transit Historical Performance)
Burlington’s low level of municipal funding for transit is also matched by it’s low proportion of transit spending from its gas tax monies. Currently it is 30% of gas tax funding – but even this low proportion may be reduced. It should be noted that in Toronto100% of gas tax funding goes to transit.
The Benefits of Transit:
Benefit/Cost analysis is the best way to look at the benefits and cost of public expenditures. Fare box revenues are only a small part of the benefits of transit and city expenditures on transit.
Transit provides a large range of benefits to the City and to all its residents. These include: reduced road congestion, reduced road expenditures, reduced expenditures on parking, reduced health care costs (fewer injuries and cleaner air), reduced policing costs, and reduced personal expenditures on transportation.
The benefits of transit have been quantified in a recent study by the Canadian Urban Transit Association, (CUTA), The Economic Impacts of Transit Investment in Canada:A National Survey. (Slide 4)
The CUTA findings were:
- The total economic benefit of the existing transit network in Canada is at least $10 Billion annually
- A recent cost-benefit analysis of a large-scale national investment in transit found that an investment of $71 Billion in capital costs would return $239 Billion in benefits over 30 years – an annual rate of return of 12.5%
- Transit reduces vehicle operating costs by about $2.4 Billion annually.
- Transit saves the health care system at least $115 Million annually.
- Reduced Policing, EMS, and Fire Dept. costs– enforcement of HTA accounts for a large part of total policing costs.
- Expenditures on roads – an additional $2B in road widenings in Halton 2012-2031
- Expenditures on parking – average parking space cost $30,000 (Gil Penalosa).
The economic and social benefits of transit are very substantial. Let’s go beyond the narrow and misleading R/C ratios and base our decisions on a comprehensive analysis of all the benefits of transit and all the costs of car-based transportation.
Respect Burlington’s Planning Documents and Planning Process:
The Ontario Municipal Board has required that Burlington increase its transit ridership from the current 2% of trips to 11% of trips by 2031 to allow for future intensification in our Official Plan. This will require more than a quadrupling of our transit ridership. With this in mind, the Steering Committee of the Transit Master Plan adopted a goal of increasing ridership.
It would be very unfortunate then, if before the Transit Master Plan is completed, City Council would reduce transit funding. This would not only prevent any service improvements, but would require service cuts, with a resulting loss in ridership.
Such a decision would be counter to the City’s two main planning documents – the Official Plan and the Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan Our Strategic Plan calls for an “increase the number of people who cycle, walk and use public transit for recreation and transportation. --What will it look like? - There are fewer cars on the road because more people are using public transit, walking or cycling”
The Strategic Plan sets out the following expectations for the current Transit Master Plan update:
- - improved transit service
- - more use of Burlington Transit
- - better mobility in and out of the city
Poverty Free Halton is asking that Council respect it’s own planning process and not approve a cut in transit funding from the gas tax.
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