Hundreds of residents have signed a “Fix the HSR” petition launched by Environment Hamilton, but so far city councillors don’t appear to be listening. After two straight years of falling ridership, another fare hike is already approved and the HSR is asking for only a modest budget increase.
The steep fare hikes imposed over the last two years have not generated anywhere near the revenues expected. Despite the hikes, HSR staff wrongly predicted ridership would go up and at this point would be up nearly 160,000 rides per annum over 2014 levels. Instead it dropped by nearly 400,000 last year and just released revenue figures show it has dropped even further in 2016 – marking the sixth time it has declined in the last decade.
The city had expected to collect $43.2 million from the fare box this year, but now acknowledges it will only take in $41.3 million. Despite that decline, the 2017 budget assumes revenues will some how climb to $45.2 million – an expectation that may squeeze bus service if it again turns out to be wrong.
Part of that rosy assumption may rely on the ten cent fare hike next year that was approved by council back in March 2015. That resolution also orders a further 10 cent increase in 2018 and “annual fare increases of at least the consumer price index thereafter”. Paying attention to inflation however has not been council’s practice in putting city monies into the HSR.
“Hamilton has been spending increasingly less on transit over time,” calculates Environment Hamilton. “Adjusting for inflation to 2016 dollars, the city spent $83.85 million on transit in 1994, $61.15 million on transit in 2005, and $59.02 million on transit in 2016.”
The group’s petition calls on city councillors “to take our city’s transit needs seriously by committing to substantially increase funding for the HSR.” Hopes that might happen were raised when the Trudeau government announced $36.5 million for Hamilton transit, but the requirement that the city match that subsidy was met with concern at city hall.
Staff recommended borrowing the matching dollars and adding nearly half a percent to property taxes to pay it back. Council balked and has now come up with using profits from electricity rates generated by Horizon Utilities to cover most and possibly the city’s entire share. The city is a part-owner of the electricity distributor and expects to get an extra dividend when Horizon merges with two other distributors and purchases the Hydro One network.
An option suggested by Environment Hamilton would see the city “spending more of our federal gas tax dollars on transit, like other cities do”. Hamilton gets $32 million every year from that grant, but puts less than ten percent toward transit.
Toronto and York region use all their gas tax grants for transit – the apparent original intention of the subsidy when it was established by the Paul Martin Liberal government in 2005 – while other cities like Brampton use at least half. Mississauga has spent more than a third of its gas tax monies on purchasing new buses – something quite different from the recent experience of HSR riders whose fare hikes were used to cover similar purchases in Hamilton.
The new Trudeau government grant can only be used for transit. With the matching city monies, it totals $73 million. Of that just $10.4 million is being earmarked for new buses over the next decade. Another $15.1 million will go to replace existing ones as they reach their end of service. Almost twice that ($28.7 million) will be used to kick-start a new bus storage barn, while smaller amounts will go to transit shelters ($7 million), automated passenger counters ($4.3 million) and other HSR capital spending.
Council debate on the 2017operating budget starts on January 20, but the detailed consideration of the transit portion isn’t scheduled until February 21. That’s two days before the budget public consultation where residents get five minutes each to give their views on the city’s spending plans.