Buses line the Vancouver Transit Centre in Vancouver on Jan. 22.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
The long recovery in transit ridership from the upending of the pandemic has been slow, yet steady.
In May, according to Statistics Canada, the country’s urban transit systems saw 135.1-million passenger trips. That’s up almost 10 per cent from a year earlier. It is also the 38th consecutive month that saw higher ridership, since the spring of 2021.
Ridership, however, remains below prepandemic levels. There is a ways to go for transit systems to get back to their previous ridership highs. This May’s numbers stood at 87 per cent of the amount of trips taken in May, 2019.
Transit systems had been built around morning-afternoon rush hours. While some routes in some cities are as busy as they’ve ever been, there’s a hole in a core segment of demand that seems permanent. As of spring 2023, 20.7 per cent of Canadians in urban areas were usually working at home. That’s more than triple the 6.1 per cent rate seen in May, 2016.
Amid the pressures to patch gaps in operating budgets and plan for new services, transit operators need the continued support of governments. Transit requires increased investments, for current operations and expansions, but that spending has to be carefully managed, especially in new construction, and sources of funding have to be reconsidered.
TransLink, which runs transit in the Vancouver area, in late July warned it would have to slash service in 2026 if a funding hole representing about a fifth of its budget wasn’t addressed by next spring. The Surrey Board of Trade called on governments to recognize transit as “economic infrastructure” and the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade said “cutting transit would be bad for business.”
The pending hole at TransLink is currently filled by pandemic relief funding from the provincial and federal governments. That’s the short-term.
TransLink is also staring at a longer-term issue earlier than its peers. Five per cent of cars and trucks in British Columbia, at the end of 2022, were electric. In 2023, TransLink’s fuel tax revenue fell 8 per cent.
The bottom line: Drivers are paying less for transit, as property taxes and fares go up. Transit needs a recalibrated long-term funding plan, which operators have long urged.
Ottawa jumped into what it tried to make look like action in mid-July.
It announced the Canada Public Transit Fund. That was first announced in 2021. The money is billed as the largest such investment in Canada ever but the cash, as planned, does not flow until 2026. The $3-billion annual fund is a step up from the average of $2-billion a year for transit from Ottawa over the past decade or so but the added money is slow to arrive. The focus of federal funds remains on supporting expansions, rather than operations. That’s on the insistence of the Liberals but the need to support current operations remains paramount.
The cities and provinces need to do more, too. At the civic level, transit needs to be a priority. Toronto has some of the busiest bus routes in North America and five years ago talked of five priority bus lanes. Faster, more reliable transit draws more riders, yet Toronto has opened just one of the planned five. In Vancouver, city council in July voted to have several dedicated bus lanes open by 2026.
Budget pressures on expansion projects are another challenge to be better handled. In the 1980s, Toronto envisioned three new subway lines by 2011. The ideas were crushed by political infighting and funding pressures. This is emblematic of Canada’s deep lack of capacity to successfully build big projects. The 15-kilometre Ontario Line subway – to open in 2031 (four years late) – is now budgeted at $27.2-billion to build and operate, up from $17-billion in 2022. This is in the ballpark of quadruple – quadruple! – the cost to build in cities such as Copenhagen and Paris.
In Vancouver, the $2.8-billion Broadway Subway has been delayed almost two years to late 2027. Costs will likely rise, though the per-kilometre figure will probably remain far less than the Ontario Line. In Calgary, a modest budget squeeze for the LRT Green Line sparked a swirl of political blame and in late July city council was forced to cut back the project, undermining the long-term success of the line.
Transit faces challenges in every direction. OC Transpo in Ottawa last week announced reduced service on a key LRT line. Short-term issues can be overcome. Governments need to see the long-term value in transit and figure out funding.