A fair increase?
Arguing against a 25 cent raise in bus fare
Daniel Hildebrand
Sam Katz has proven himself to be a delinquent regarding Winnipeg transit. Already Katz should be known as the mayor who cancelled a rapid transit deal at a time when it was desperately needed. Yet, last week, the mayor one-upped himself when he added cabalistic secrecy to his previous record of mere ineptitude. On late Thursday afternoon, Nov. 8 (right before a long weekend), it was announced that Winnipeg City Council would decide whether or not to hike transit fares by 25 cents. The process began on the following Tuesday.
I asked Fort Rouge city councillor Jenny Gerbasi why the process to increase bus fares has been so secretive. Surprisingly, she had only heard the news at the same time as the rest of the public. Gerbasi was diplomatic with her words, describing herself as “disappointed” and admitted that participation would be very difficult. What matters is that one of the city councillors most closely associated with the cause of transit users, was kept in the dark about this plan.
Anne Lindsey of the Manitoba Eco-Network offered another assessment: “Anything that makes it more difficult for people to take transit (as opposed to driving) is anti-environmental. . . . The timing on this issue does not show respect for democratic participation.” Without any real public debate, we now appear headed for a 12.5 per cent hike in the user fees of an essential infrastructural service, and it will be low-income people who suffer the most.
Mass transit is an essential component of public infrastructure, just as much as roads, traffic lights, or water and power utilities. There are only two possible justifications for imposing user fees on public infrastructure. One is that in some circumstances it may be necessary to dissuade people from using more of a particular service than they need. Thus it is acceptable to have some user fees on water, electricity, and natural gas. In other cases, the extraordinary cost of a particular piece of infrastructure justifies levying user fees, preferably temporarily.
Given public transit’s obvious role in reducing carbon emissions, as well as the proven benefits it holds for improving Winnipeg’s tarnished urban character, an undemocratic attempt to grab cash from public transit users should be a major scandal for Sam Katz.
For the particular instance of Winnipeg’s public transit, only a very weak case could be made that either of these conditions have been met. One would have to argue that using public transit is wasteful and must be controlled with user fees or that the extraordinary cost of providing transit has made a fee hike necessary. To the former position one can only laugh: contrasted with private automobiles, transit leaves a negligible environmental footprint and actually requires far less public funding. To the latter reason for a fare hike, one must point out that the city has made no significant new investments into mass transit for over half a century. The current fare hike has come only with a vague indication that some plan of improvement (rapid transit) might be forthcoming someday . . . maybe.
Speaking to the city’s failure to invest in public transit in relation to the current fare hike, Robert Galston of the Transit Riders’ Union made the following analogy: “Imagine that you live in a rented house or apartment. One day, your landlord comes by and says: ‘I’m thinking about raising your rent by 12.5 per cent next year because I might make some major improvements to the property one day – I don’t know when. I know I’ve [been] consistently ignoring and cancelling plans for major improvement for 49 years now, and three years ago, I cancelled the most recent plan. . . . Today, I have no [definite] plans for the most paltry improvements, but the point is, one day I might, and I know how much you’d like to see that finally. So I’m raising your rent by 12.5 per cent.”
Some will say that high fuel prices constitute the extraordinary new costs, therefore justifying the fare increase. Yes, the cost of supplying fuel for Winnipeg transit has increased, but so has the price risen for supplying fuel for private automobiles. A responsible government should take this as motivation to make the fuel-efficient transportation more attractive. Based on simple supply-and-demand logic, the more people that can be compelled to use public transit will have a deflating impact on fuel costs.
Winnipeg already pulls a large portion of its transit revenue from user fees. Cities like Vancouver have far better transit systems while taking a lesser portion of funds this way. A fare hike will only push Winnipeg’s funding imbalance further askew. Given public transit’s obvious role in reducing carbon emissions, as well as the proven benefits it holds for improving Winnipeg’s tarnished urban character, an undemocratic attempt to grab cash from public transit users should be a major scandal for Sam Katz.
Daniel Hildebrand is a fourth-year student majoring in philosophy and history. He writes a blog, “The Axis of Free Will,” at www.axisoffreewill.blogspot.com.
