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By Gary Santucci (anonymous) | Posted May 19, 2013 at 17:56:02
CATCH News – May 19, 2013
Inner city taxed much more for HSR
Thirteen years after amalgamation, residents of the former city of Hamilton are still taxed three to four times higher than suburbanites for the HSR. If the higher-income suburbs made the same contribution as inner city dwellers, it would provide the first new property tax funding in over twenty years for a transit system that has the worst growth rate in the province.
The average-valued home in old Hamilton is taxed $288 a year to support the HSR, while a similar-priced house in Ancaster pays just $71. The equivalent charge in Stoney Creek is $83, in Dundas $62, in Waterdown $50 and in Mt Hope $93 per annum.
Suburban HSR service is less frequent – and very limited in places like Dundas and Waterdown – but all riders pay the same fares to use the bus in any part of the city. And because incoming suburban riders board first, it often means they get seating, leaving inner city passengers standing on overcrowded buses or too often standing on the street waiting for another bus that has enough room to take them on.
HSR ridership has actually declined in four of the last six years, so while London, St Catharines, Mississauga, Ottawa, Durham and Brampton registered increases from 13 to 70 percent, the HSR showed only 3.5 percent growth over the 2006-2011 period. Average national ridership grew by nearly that amount in just the first six months of last year according to the Canadian Urban Transit Association.
The disparity in taxation rates is a unique Hamilton arrangement called area rating that used to also be applied to fire protection taxes and culture and recreation until it was finally modified in early 2011 to treat all urbanized areas the same, while imposing lower charges on the rural areas where many city services aren’t available. But the much heralded “end” to area rating wasn’t applied to the transit system where changes were “deferred until the completion of an approved plan for transit service improvements.”
The transportation master plan was approved in 2007 and called for substantial increases to transit funding. A major consultant study on HSR operations received in 2009 also advocated more funding was but its recommendations were merely received by council without taking any action.
In late February of this year councillors endorsed the Rapid Ready transit plan that made clear that “implementing the city’s strategic direction for transportation will required continued increased investment, particularly in transit.” Councillors enthusiastically praised the report, but implementation funding will not be considered until 2014, and will face the extra challenge of approving new spending in an election year.
And a council committee has already handed the plan a major setback when last week it rejected a pilot bus-only lane on King Street even though funding for it will come entirely from the provincial government. Last month council also rejected all the options being considered by Queen’s Park to cover a $2 billion a year increase in transit funding in the Toronto-Hamilton area.
The Rapid Ready report strongly emphasizes the need for a substantial increase in HSR funding, noting that provincial subsidies have only allowed for additional service “more or less in line with population growth” since 2003, leaving the annual rides per person unchanged.
“To achieve gains in ridership per capita and transit mode shares, the level of investment in transit, both in the amount and quality of service, needs to greatly outpace the rate of population growth,” states the report. “In the case of Winnipeg, a city which is similar in size as Hamilton, service hours per capita are about 40% greater than Hamilton.”
It notes that other cities of a similar size to Hamilton such as Victoria and Quebec City offer much more transit service (more than two revenue service hours per person versus Hamilton’s 1.4). The first two targets in the report would provide a bus every three minutes between Eastgate and McMaster and install regular Dundas service.
Between 1994 and 2005, the HSR’s inflation-adjusted budget actually fell by 25 percent, and since then only fare hikes and more monies from senior levels of government have kept the system from further decline.
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