Council’s transit commission found enough money to cut a transit fare hike for seniors in half without raising taxes, but any relief for students and youth will have to wait — if it comes at all.
Under the plan commissioners endorsed on Monday, the cost of a monthly pass for seniors would increase 60 per cent to $78.50, instead of the 120 per cent hike city staff initially pitched in their draft budget. The plan would also preserve free service for seniors on Wednesdays, though not on Sundays.
Transit commission chair Glen Gower said councillors heard a “very loud outpouring of feedback” that the initial hike was “just too much.”
The new plan would cost $820,000 more than the draft. A motion from Coun. Tim Tierney, who called the 120 per cent hike “a completely crazy number,” proposed offsetting the cost by reducing the amount the city pays into its transit capital reserve.
“Seniors are my priority today,” Tierney said.
Transit commissioners passed his motion 8 to 1, with only Coun. Shawn Menard opposing. The plan will still need final approval from a full meeting of council on Dec. 11.
Menard said Tierney’s plan should be considered in tandem with two other motions that looked to limit fare hikes more – at the price of a higher tax increase.
From ‘preposterous’ to ‘outrageous’
One of those motions pushed to save seniors even more money, by holding the fare hike to the cost of an EquiPass for low-income people, or $58.25.
Coun. Jessica Bradley proposed paying for it with a 0.11 per cent hike to the transit levy on property taxes, saying it would cost the typical urban taxpayer just 94 cents for the year.
She called the initial 120 per cent hike “preposterous,” and said a 60 per cent increase remained “outrageous.”
But commissioners learned that they had no authority to pass that motion, since only city council as a whole can consider tax increases, so Bradley’s motion will have to wait until December.
The same goes for a motion from Coun. Sean Devine, who aimed to reverse steep fare hikes for young people with a higher tax increase.
Riders aged 13 to 19 can get a youth pass for $99.25 per month, much less than the current $128.75 cost of an adult pass. But the draft budget proposes eliminating that discount entirely to raise about $5.6 million.
The transit levy would have to go up 1.4 per cent to make that money up, adding $11.99 to the average urban property tax bill.
Gower signalled that there’s limited appetite for further tax increases — above the current proposal of 3.9 per cent.
He said councillors have heard relatively few complaints about that tax hike, so far.
“There’s a threshold though where, I think, those relatively few become a torrent, a waterfall of protests from residents,” he said.
But seniors who came to speak at transit commission preferred Bradley’s more generous plan, even at the cost of higher property taxes.
“Please use the transit levy to cover the required funding, not fares,” said Greg Richardson of the Kanata Seniors Council. “But if, and only if, you must raise fares, limit the increase to 4.4 per cent, because that’s the increase in the Canada Pension Plan.”
Richardson said steeper fares and fewer free days could mean missed medical appointments, more isolation and less exercise, costing seniors their mental health and wellbeing.
‘You cannot afford to lose a $20-million contract,’ students warn
Students and young people showed up at transit commission in a bid to save their discounts too — and to oppose a five per cent hike OC Transpo is proposing for the U-Pass available to Carleton, University of Ottawa, Algonquin and St. Paul students.
University of Ottawa Students’ Union president Delphine Robitaille said OC Transpo cannot impose that hike unilaterally without breaching its contract, which limits hikes to 2.5 per cent.
She said OC Transpo — which earns millions from the deals — stands to lose even more than students, who have already endured reduced off-peak LRT service reductions that make it tougher to get to class.
“To be blunt, judging by the city’s transit deficit, you cannot afford to lose a $20-million contract,” she said.
Coun. Riley Brockington said the students are under “no obligation to even entertain discussions on this matter.” Coun. Jeff Leiper agreed that the city cannot unilaterally hike the fees, but would need to negotiate.
He asked Robitaille how students would respond. She said it would require a vote from her 40,000 members, who have little reason to agree to pay more.
“I don’t think the results of a student referendum would be favourable to the city,” she said.
Risk scares councillors
Three transit commissioners, Menard, Brockington and Wilson Lo, voted against the full transit commission budget proposals, which use a combination of fare hikes, taxes and capital deferrals to fill a $120-million deficit.
Menard said he couldn’t stomach a budget that only balances on the backs of seniors and students. Brockington and Lo were uncomfortable with the uncertainty of a budget that makes tens of millions of dollars worth of assumptions.
The budget assumes the U-Pass negotiations will bear fruit. About a million dollars hinges on that. More than two million hinges on a crackdown against fare evasion.
A full $20 million depends on whether ridership numbers reach 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, instead of the 70 to 75 per cent today.
And then there’s $36 million based on little more than a wish that the federal and provincial governments will come through with support. Lo called that the “most glaring item” and said it made him “uneasy.”
With so much at stake, Brockington called the budget probably the most important in OC Transpo’s history.