Metrolinx Slurps Up Hamilton Bus Fare Money to Pay Sunshine List Jobs in Toronto

One of the reoccurring themes of this blog is the ongoing centralization of government jobs serving the province to Toronto, much like what goes on in Bangkok versus the rest of Thailand.

The Star has a good article on Metrolinx charging 905 cities a higher percentage of bus fares to support Presto, the agency's mediocre fare collecting product.

Some councillors in the 905 region are fuming about a potential new deal for the Presto fare card system and are accusing the provincial transit agency of gouging smaller municipalities while giving Toronto a sweetheart deal.

For the past year 905 municipalities have been in negotiations with Metrolinx over a new operating agreement for Presto, the provincially owned fare card system used by transit systems across the region.

A deal has yet to be reached, but a report that went before the regional council of Durham Region last Wednesday revealed tentative terms of a potential 10-year deal.

According to the report, by 2021 the seven transit agencies in the 905 could have to pay a commission to Metrolinx equal to up to 9 per cent of fare revenue they collect through Presto. The municipalities currently pay a commission of 2 per cent, which Metrolinx uses to pay the operating costs of the fare card regime.

Under the terms of a deal the TTC inked with Metrolinx in 2012, the Toronto agency pays a commission of 4.65 per cent.

Before Presto, Hamilton would have received all their transit fares for the HSR. Now using Presto, potentially Hamilton could have to pay 9% of their fare revenue to Metrolinx, which is based in Toronto. On the 2012 Sunshine List, Metrolinx had 262 people making over $100,000 a year. That's a prime example of jobs that were originally done in Hamilton, now effectively centralized in Toronto. This begs the question of whether losing 9% is worth it compared to the hassle and expense of collecting a cash or ticket fare. 

The province enforces Presto by gas tax revenues the province shares with municipalities (in a method highly weighted toward Toronto). What is more ridiculous is that the TTC gets a massive break from Presto compared to other cities (plus the jobs working on the payment system stay in Toronto).

Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger should propose to the province to move Metrolinx to Hamilton from Toronto. Being a regional agency (and providing Presto to Ottawa) there's no reason it has to be in Toronto and future workers could live in a much cheaper city and much cheaper digs than Union Station.

The HSR's $200 Million Bus Barn

Raise the Hammer has a great article comparing the cost of the recently proposed HSR bus barn per bus to other bus buildings in Canada. The tl:dr? Hamilton's is three times the cost per bus compared to the others.

Something seems strange about this project and I'm glad people are pointing it out. $200 million is more than the cost of Tim Horton's Field and more importantly as others have pointed out one quarter of the proposed cost of LRT.

Andrew Dreschel had an article in the Spec today about the HSR brain trust and how council wasn't given the heads up on the bus barn and other funding that would be requested from the province. Surly Hamiltonian has always maintained that the city needs to make sure the province funds $800 million for the LRT captial costs, otherwise that money will be spent elsewhere in the GTA. The province is broke and the city can't give the province an out from funding LRT.

DARTS Hamilton Posts Deficit

The Spec has an article about the disabled bus service DARTS posting a $225,000 deficit.

I've always wanted to do a comparison of the HSR's budget the last fifteen years versus DARTS' budget. My guess is that DARTS has been rising significantly faster than the HSR budget over the years and has been taking a bigger piece of the overall public transit spending pie.

As the article mentions, the province has mandated the city provide more DARTS services. There's not a lot the city can do about that, however my point is that if people look at HSR spending and complain public transit funding in the city is flat, that's not really true when you include DARTS funding, which one should.

Old 2004 Ontario Document on Distribution of Gas Taxes to Municipalities, Hamilton versus Toronto

I stumbled across this 2004 Ontario government document about the distributions of gas tax money to municipalities, with the amount broken out by municipality. What stood out was the amounts paid to Toronto versus Hamilton and other cities:

Toronto: $81,250,894

Hamilton: $5,906,764
Oakville: $1,091,889
London: $4,544,310
Ottawa: $18,846,257

As I recall this funding is based on public transit ridership and not so much population. However the differences are still quite stark, with Toronto's approximately five times greater population than Hamilton receiving close to 12 times more funding. Similarly Oakville receives way less population wise proportionately than Hamilton (likely due to Oakville's paucity of public transit).

From Hamilton's perspective, this is an interesting program. Gas money from Hamilton is disproportionately distributed to Toronto for their transit system. Obviously Hamilton could try and increase ridership to get more money, but the fact remains that would be difficult to more than budge the needle. Hamilton would be far better off demanding equality for transit funding. However then cities like Oakville would probably benefit significantly more and Hamilton might not be better off.

Here's the entire list. I'll try looking for more up to date numbers, but with Hamilton's transit numbers stagnant they are probably proportionately worse.

Ajax/Pickering	$1,176,793
Barrie	$843,751
Belleville	$348,585
Blind River	$14,079
Brampton	$3,023,264
Brant County	$96,174
Brantford	$643,339
Brockville	$112,260
Burlington	$1,008,495
Chapleau	$13,196
Chatham-Kent	$542,581
Clarington	$363,996
Cobourg	$93,603
Cochrane	$27,080
Collingwood	$85,666
Cornwall	$455,944
Dryden	$38,537
Dysart et Al	$17,273
Elliot Lake	$82,840
Espanola	$18,326
Fort Erie	$66,375
Fort Frances	$39,571
Grey Highlands	$13,272
Guelph	$1,401,872
Halton Hills	$71,821
Hamilton	$5,906,764
Hanover	$197,556
Huntsville	$48,000
Ingersoll	$53,863
Kapuskasing	$39,044
Kawartha Lakes	$339,877
Kenora	$81,046
Kingston	$1,025,547
Leamington	$131,123
London	$4,544,310
Loyalist Township	$85,550
Meaford	$38,861
Midland	$85,071
Milton	$154,255
Mississauga	$7,367,243
Niagara Falls	$546,728
North Bay	$625,067
North Huron	$68,349
Oakville	$1,091,889
Orangeville	$130,836
Orillia	$180,974
Oshawa	$1,137,179
Ottawa	$18,846,257
Owen Sound	$133,357
Peel	$303,050
Pembroke	$104,921
Peterborough City	$745,102
Peterborough County	$38,092
Port Hope, Town	$80,276
Quinte West	$242,898
Renfrew	$140,542
Sarnia	$517,113
Sault Ste Marie	$592,513
Schrieber	$15,186
St Catharines	$1,280,264
St Marys	$31,587
St Thomas	$212,890
Stratford	$242,994
Sudbury (Greater)	$1,354,072
Temiskaming Shores	$67,792
Thunder Bay	$996,091
Timmins	$319,833
Toronto	$81,250,894
Trent Hills	$59,817
Uxbridge/Scugog	$52,736
Waterloo Region	$4,056,791
Welland	$285,729
West Elgin	$67,218
West Perth (was Mitchell)	$32,443
Whitby	$589,336
Windsor	$2,071,154
Woodstock	$189,880
York Region	$5,624,776

 

Hamilton Switching Back to Natural Gas Buses, As Surly Hamiltonian Said They Should in July

Here's an interesting article in the Spec about the HSR switching back to natural gas buses because the price of diesel is so high. I blogged last July the following in this post:

"The Spec has an article on the HSR buying new diesel buses, replacing natural gas buses. Considering the cheapness of natural gas (which looks to continue for years in North America) and the high cost of diesel fuel (based off the price of crude), I have to wonder why Hamilton is doing this. Obviously the HSR must have the infrastructure for natural gas if they already have natural gas buses."

Good to see the HSR is following what I recommended.

Spec Article on Mac LRT Report

The Spec has a good article on a report McMaster researches wrote on LRT and Hamilton, complete with some mayor Bob Bratina negative positions on LRT.

In the article there's some comparison with other cities and their LRT experiences (including Buffalo's rather sad experience). One thing that needs to be emphasized is that ridership on the existing route is already quite high, both between downtown and Mac and between the East end and downtown. Good and fast LRT service could not help but increase ridership along the route.

Another factor in LRT's favour is the increased comfort of the ride over the low floor buses the HSR uses. Two weeks ago I took an Upper James bus from the MacNab terminal around 5 pm on a weekday and it was a miserable experience. The bus was clogged with the very large baby carriages that are now popular and the remaining seating on those buses is quite limited compared to buses of the past. The carriages meant getting from the front to farther back was difficult and one had to stand anyways. LRT's have plenty of room for carriages by design and many more seats than a regular low floor bus. When in Europe on business I never mind riding an LRT.

Why in Times of Cheap Natural Gas is Hamilton Buying Diesel Buses?

The Spec has an article on the HSR buying new diesel buses, replacing natural gas buses. Considering the cheapness of natural gas (which looks to continue for years in North America) and the high cost of diesel fuel (based off the price of crude), I have to wonder why Hamilton is doing this. Obviously the HSR must have the infrastructure for natural gas if they already have natural gas buses.

The buses cost $450,000 without upgrades according to the article. Perhaps natural gas buses are more expensive or don't last as long. Who knows? Perhaps the cost of fuel isn't relevant compared to the cost of buses.

This site has an estimate of American buses of all types using an average of 1396 US gallons per year (of diesel I assume). I'm not sure if that's high or low for a HSR bus, but we'll go with it. That's approximately 5,284 litres per year. On Gas Buddy today, prices around Hamilton for diesel were around $1.13 per litre. Maybe the HSR gets a better price and maybe they don't have to pay all the taxes. Still using this number that's $5,970.92 a year or $71,651.04 over the 12 year bus lifetime. Is that enough to justify buying more expensive natural gas buses? I don't have the numbers, but it makes you wonder.

Hamilton Bus Strike Averted

I'm glad to hear that the HSR and the city have come to an agreement and there will be no bus strike. I remember the last bus strike, which lasted for three months. Ridership never really recovered after it, as people found ways to get along without the bus.

I still hope the HSR can implement signs at important stops with information on how many minutes until the next bus (real-time information, not just that based on the schedule). I really think it could boost ridership, as people walking by could see that a bus is just about to come and pay the $2.55 single fare. When I lived in Europe I know I would do this. Or if you know it is going to be 20 minutes, you could pop into a store for a bit. The HSR has this information, they just need to catch up to other bus services.