Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Council to vote on proposed fare hike

According to a report in the Ottawa Sun, OC Transpo management is recommending a series of fare hikes in order to try and balance the amount the transit utility collects from fares with the amount it receives from the city's tax base. According to the report, the average fare hike will be 7.5 percent, but isn't evenly distributed across the different fare and pass types, with the percentage raise in brackets (numbers from the Sun):
  • Regular Adult Pass: $91.50 (8.0%)
  • Express Adult Pass: $114.00 (7.5%)
  • Rural Adult Pass: $141.75 (7.6%)
  • Regular Student Pass: $73.25 (12.3%)
  • Express Student Pass: $85.50 (11.8%)
  • Regular Student Semester Pass: $250.00 (3.3%)
  • Express Student Semester Pass: $290.00 (2.3%)
  • Rural Student Pass: $110.75 (7.5%)
  • Senior Pass: $36.00 (13.4%)
  • Day Pass: $7.50 (7.1%)
  • Cash Adult: $3.25 (8.3%)
  • Cash Express Route: $4.25 (6.3%)
  • Cash Rural Express: $5.25 (5.0%)
  • Cash Child (6-11 yrs.): $1.60 (6.7%)
  • Ticket Adult: $2.50 (8.7%)
  • Ticket Express Route: $3.75 (8.7%)
  • Ticket Rural Express: $5.00 (8.7%)
  • Ticket Child (6-11 yrs): $1.25 (8.7%)
  • Regular Student Annual Pass: $650.00 (3.8%)
  • Express Student Annual Pass: $762.00 (3.8%)
  • Senior Annual Pass: $395.00 (3.7%)
  • Adult Regular Annual Pass: $930.00 (3.9%)
  • Adult Express Annual Pass: $1,164.00 (4.0%)
  • Adult Regular Ecopass: $80.52 (8.0%)
  • Adult Express Ecopass: $100.32 (7.5%)
  • Rural Ecopass: $124.74 (7.6%)
  • Senior Ecopass: $31.68 (13.4%)
  • Community Pass: $32.00 (5.3%)
  • O-Train fare: $2.75 (10.0%)
Ottawa's bus fares were comparable to other major cities in Canada recently, but these consistent hikes will certainly affect that. On July 1, 2009, most fares went up fairly significantly; this proposed fare hike for July 1, 2010 compounds that.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

That is crazy! Sooooo glad I'm driving a car now.

Anonymous said...

So, to balance the amount they collect from fares with the tax base, they're going to just increase fares, but not decrease taxes.

This is getting so annoying. One year, they'll raise fares because they're not making money, the next year, they'll still raise fares to even out disparities. But every year, it's certain that they'll find a reason to raise fares.

They also have been consistently reducing the discount given to students, which is distinctly unfair! I'm not even a student anymore and I still think it's ridiculous!

Dean said...

With yet more fare hikes,a strike and expansion issues maybe it's time we took transit from city hall and try some other model from around the world. We can choose from fully public to fully private or something in between. The model we have now is not working.

All this current system of dithering gets us is system decay and greater expense. It's embarrassing that it was quicker and easier to build an underground tunnel between London and Paris than it will be to build surface rail across the city.