Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Rising gas moot for OC Transpo

According to a story in the Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa's public transit budget this year shouldn't be tremendously disturbed by rising gas prices. Despite an unexpected 20 per cent increase over budgeted prices for diesel fuel--roughly $8M more than was budgeted--an increase in paying riders is expected to roughly balance out that $8M expense. From the Citizen story:
[City of Ottawa treasurer Marian Simulik] said the city budgeted for 93 cents per litre of diesel this year, but on average, it looks like the municipality will spend about 20 per cent more for the roughly 39 million litres of diesel it uses to power public transit. This translates into about $8 million more than the transit fuel budget.

However, as fuel prices have shot up, more people have turned to public transit, with five per cent more riders compared to last year. If the trend holds until the end of the year, Ms. Simulik says, it should work out to about an $8-million increase in revenue for the transit company.

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