A examine by Ontario’s Monetary Accountability Workplace says Ottawa will see the steepest decline of wherever within the province subsequent yr in per-resident subsidies for transit.
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Revealed Sep 14, 2024 • Final up to date Sep 16, 2024 • 3 minute learn
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An LRT automotive on a curved part of the Confederation Line in Ottawa. Photograph by Jean Levac /POSTMEDIA
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For the Metropolis of Ottawa, which already complains it doesn’t get its fair proportion of transit funding from the province, issues are about to worsen.
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A examine launched this previous week by Ontario’s Monetary Accountability Workplace says Ottawa will see the steepest decline of wherever within the province subsequent yr in per-resident subsidies for transit. The explanations? Declining fuel tax income and the tip of particular post-pandemic “Safe Restart” funding.
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Ottawa would be the hardest hit of 5 areas the place subsidies will decline in 2024-25, the report reveals.
“The FAO projects that the Ottawa economic region will experience the largest reduction in per-resident subsidies, from $59.61 in 2022-23 to $31.91 in 2024-25, primarily due to the conclusion of the Safe Restart Agreement,” says the report that was launched on Thursday.
Windsor-Sarnia, London, Stratford-Bruce Peninsula, and Kingston-Pembroke are the opposite areas hit by the reductions.
In distinction, the per-resident subsidy in Toronto will rise to $196.49 in 2024-25 from $191 in 2022-23, the report says, largely due to heavy subsidies offered to the regional service, Metrolinx, which serves commuters in Toronto and your entire Golden Horseshoe space.
The best will increase in per-resident subsidies will happen within the province’s far northwest and northeast, areas served by the regional Ontario Northland service.
The common per-person subsidy throughout the province was $111.16, a quantity dragged upward by the Toronto impact. Ottawa’s per-resident subsidy of $59.61 was similar to the $59.82 determine within the Hamilton-Niagara area and considerably increased than Kitchener-Waterloo-Barrie ($36.76) and Kingston-Pembroke ($19.29).
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The Toronto Transit Fee sits head and shoulders above different transit networks on the subject of provincial operation subsidies, however additionally it is by far the largest and busiest.
The TTC serves a inhabitants of three.0 million in comparison with 1.1 million in Ottawa, but TTC had a ridership of 321 million in 2022 (the latest ridership numbers used within the report). That’s greater than six instances better than OC Transpo’s 50.8 million riders that very same yr.
Each the TTC and OC Transpo have been hit exhausting by the COVID-19 pandemic and the work-from-home and hybrid-work fashions that got here with it.
TTC ridership declined by 330 million (62.4 per cent) between 2019 and 2021, however rebounded to 60.6 per cent of pre-pandemic ranges by 2022, the report says.
OC Transpo’s ridership dropped by 66.3 million rides (67.4 per cent) from 2019 to 2021, however solely returned to 51.7 per cent of pre-pandemic ranges by 2022. Photograph by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA
OC Transpo’s ridership dropped by 66.3 million rides (67.4 per cent) from 2019 to 2021, however solely returned to 51.7 per cent of pre-pandemic ranges by 2022.
Ottawa is final in Ontario on the subject of producing its personal transit income. Simply 19 per cent of OC Transpo’s working income got here from fares, with the remaining 81 per cent coming from provincial and federal subsidies, the FAO says. The TTC, in distinction, generated 35.9 per cent of its income from fares and 64.1 per cent from authorities subsidies. The provincial common of own-source income was “about a third,” the FAO reviews stated.
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The FAO report didn’t look into capital prices, an expenditure that Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has repeatedly raised in his “Fairness for Ottawa” marketing campaign.
When Ottawa struck its deal to construct the Confederation Line LRT, which celebrated its fifth birthday on Saturday, the price was to be shared equally, with municipal, provincial and federal governments every paying a 3rd. However constructions prices soared through the pandemic and ongoing and dear reliability issues have ballooned the LRT pricetag. Ottawa taxpayers have borne these will increase alone, leaving town protecting practically half the price of the $4.6-billion system.
Building on the extension of the LRT Strains 1 and three close to Westboro Station on Sept. 2. Photograph by Jean Levac /POSTMEDIA
More moderen agreements in Toronto have seen the province pay the complete value of costly subway expansions. The Ontario-Toronto New Deal Settlement introduced in November 2023 included a one-time $300-million Subway and Transit Security, Restoration and Sustainable Operations Fund to the TTC in 2023-24 and one other three-year, $330-million Finch West and Eglinton Crosstown LRT working assist subsidy.
In distinction, the New Deal for Ottawa introduced by Premier Doug Ford in April included cash for a brand new interchange on Freeway 417 at Barnsdale Street and a proposal for the province to imagine accountability for Regional Street 174, however no cash earmarked for transit.
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