No evidence Conservative transit tax credit boosting transit

Every month I dutifully save my monthly TTC Metropass, and when I do my taxes I tally up the cost (it's currently $121/month in the T-dot), claim it on my taxes and get some of the cost back against my taxes. And stick the 12 passes in a box to save for seven years in case I'm audited.

The Public Transit Tax Credit was one of several similar programs introduced by the Conservatives in 2006. Ostensibly, the idea was to boost transit ridership. However there's no evidence the program is achieving that supposed goal:

Michael Roschlau, president of the Canadian Urban Transit Association, said it’s a great idea to reward people for taking public transit, but the statistics do not show that the credit produced a spike in ridership.

“We have not been able to attribute a direct correlation between the ridership trends and the tax credit,” he said.

The fact the credit was budgeted to cost $200 million annually and, so far, has been coming in under budget, would seem to indicate there hasn't exactly been a mad stampede of people leaving their car at the park and ride, swayed by the tax credit.

That's because a tax credit for riders isn't going to do anything about an underfunded, over capacity transit system. Even if it encourages some drivers to give transit a try, the transit system is unprepared for an increase in ridership so, finding crowded buses and subway trains, they'll be quickly back to their cars.

If the federal government really wanted to boost transit ridership, they'd take that $200 million and find a way of getting more stable operational funding to transit systems like the TTC, so they can improve service levels, build capacity, and offer a more compelling quality of service that will convince people to become regular transit users.

The tax credit is nice for me, but I'm going to be taking the bus regardless. It does nothing to improve transit.

Of course, improving transit service was never really the Conservative goal with the program. Sure, they could boost operational funding and see better transit service as a result. But there's no photo-op or political impact with that. But with a tax credit, you're reminded every year at tax time as the Conservatives try to buy your goodwill with your own money.

Less gravy train, more transit train please.

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The TTC is on crack

Most cities want people to take public transit. They see value in getting people to park their cars and take the bus or subway. They even encourage such behaviour. Not so in Toronto. In Toronto, transit users are an annoyance to the transit system, something to be barely tolerated, and even loathed.

Yes, the TTC is set to hike fares again, and I don’t mean by a little. They’re proposing major fare hikes that will, bizarrely and stupidly, hit Metropass holders the hardest.

The cash fare for a single trip is proposed to rise by a quarter, fro, $2.75 to $3. Token fares would also go up by a quarter, from $2.25 to $2.50. A weekly pass would rise from $32.25 to $36. And the big daddy, a monthly Metropass, would skyrocket from an already pricy $109 to a ridiculous $126.

The problem, according to the TTC? It seems too many people are taking transit. The horror!

I accept that riders do need to pay their fair share to fund the transit system but it’s worth noting that the TTC already gets 71 per cent of its revenue from riders, one of the highest percentages in North America.

The TTC needs to control costs internally, and the province and feds need to step in with stable operating funding. They’re quick to do flashy capital acquisition photo-ops, but operating funds keep the trains running.

There’s a reason we as a society subsidize transit: it gets cars off the road, reduces congestion, and is good for the environment. Maybe less money on highways and more money on transit would be an idea.

But back to the TTC. Even if you accept the need for fare hikes, the decision to disproportionately punish Metropass holders, your best and most loyal customers, is asinine. You want to be encouraging people to buy Metropasses, not discourage them.

Already a pretty shitty deal, under the new fare regime a Metropass holder needs 50 trips to break even over token fares. That’s a round-trip to work every weekday, and at least another roundtrip every weekend. And THEN you start to have a better deal over tokens. That’s an exceedingly shitty deal that is only made less shitty, ironically, by the Harper government’s transit pass tax credit, which lowers the break-even number to about 42 trips.

(Although, it’s worth noting that the credit is also part of the problem: it encouraged people to buy passes, yes, but with no more operating funds for the TTC it leads to congestion and the need to either lower service levels or hike fares, thereby driving some back to their cars.)

It’s stupid for the TTC to be discouraging pass holders like this. They should want to incent people to buy passes. It’s better for them. They get the money in one hit at the beginning of the month, instead of having to collect it over the course of the month in cash and tokens, that cost them money to process. Pass holders generate steady, predictable revenue and are loyal customers. Most transit systems price cash, token and pass fares to encourage pass buying over tokens, and tokens over cash. Not the TTC.

These hikes will undoubtedly encourage many to just go back to their cars, as the TTC is making the transit value proposition less and less attractive. Which may be their goal; those pesky transit users only clutter up the subway cars.

But for many, such as me, there’s no choice but to take the TTC. Buying a car isn’t really an option right now. So we’re held hostage to the TTC and its ridiculous fare hikes. And it’s hard to see any sanity on the horizon.

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Conservatives wrong on transit

More evidence today that when it comes to public transit, the Conservatives have the wrong approach that puts getting electoral credit above good, sound public policy that will get people out of their cars and into an efficient, well-run transit system:

The TTC is looking to end a major incentive for Metropass holders, charging them up to $6 a day to park in its jammed commuter lots.

A staff recommendation to be voted on at tomorrow's Toronto Transit Commission meeting calls for eliminating free parking for Metropass holders, who make up 80 per cent of the drivers using the lots.

The move, which could be implemented in about six months, would hit more than 10,000 drivers who use the TTC's 16 parking lots. They'd have to pay the same daily rates other drivers do – from $6 at the huge Finch Ave. subway station lot, to $2 at the Lawrence Ave. E. RT station.

There's not one single silver bullet when it comes to building an effective transit system, and encouraging people to make the move from car to transit. It takes a lot of different elements, and free parking for Metropass holders is definitely one of them. It makes a lot of sense. Rather than drive downtown clogging the roads and then pay to park, park for free at the end of the subway line and take the subway in. Start charging to park, and many will decide to just drive instead. They may have been on the edge about transit already; this will flip many back onto the car commuter side.

What does this have to do with the Conservatives? A lot, actually. The TTC is considering this move because they're starved for operating funds. They want to divert the money they're spending subsidizing parking to improving, and really just maintaining, service levels. If they had more operating funds they wouldn't have to consider this move.

Rather than pump new, long-term, stable operating funds into public transit across the country, Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty made a conscious decision to give a tax cut on monthly transit passes, like the TTC Metropass. It made sense politically. Every year when you do your taxes, you remember that Conservative tax cut. It's not good policy though, if it's not coupled with more operating funding, and indeed its counterproductive to the goal of getting people on transit.

How so? Well, sure, a tax cut on transit passes will get more people to give transit a chance. But when they get on board, what do they find?

They find a system that is straining to meet the demands of increased ridership without increased operating funding. More crowded buses and trains, longer waits as full ones pass by. The system becomes strained and begins to buckle and the new riders don't like what they see, so they go back to their cars. And you wind up with the TTC considering cutting parking to ease that operating strain, but that just makes it an even easier decision for people to ditch transit.

Politicians like capital spending too: they love to cut ribbons. But again, without operating funding, we end up with the scenario where the TTC nearly shuttered the Shepard line to make ends meet.

Operating funds aren't sexy for politicians. There's no ribbon to cut. People aren't reminded of it when they file their taxes. But if the goal is a greener Canada, if the goal is less cars on the road, if the goal is really an effective, efficient public transit system, then we absolutely must increase, in cooperation with the provinces, direct operating funding assistance to transit systems across Canada.

Too bad the Conservatives are more concerned about political credit and building unneeded lines through Conservative-friendly ridings than actually making transit work.

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