Ugly day for transit.
The way I read the Transit Priority Measures Report is basically: "We're working on it". There's no concrete actions or locations given.
Bus Network Service Plan Update is rich. The 2023-24 ETS Annual Service Plan includes a blurb on the new route 31 on page 30/31, but, if you read through the report, the 31 is up for service cuts on page 35.
But, my biggest complaint is the Bus Fleet Replacement Plan.
Basically, the 2023-2026 budget includes minimal funding for replacement buses to the tune of $240 million short. I went through the Transit budget extensively. I always have. I often see dire warnings about what happens if this or that doesn't get funded. I saw NOTHING about a shortfall in replacement bus funding, although, I questioned the numbers that were in the related Profile as they didn't seem sufficient.
In the mean time, Council has been wanting to add service here, build a satellite garage there with 20 growth buses, and redeploy 73 funding, and all the while we don't have the funding to replace the buses we are running right now.
I see a significant disconnect between what Council knows and what Administration knows.
Remember, this report about the Bus Fleet Replacement Plan came about because council asked: "That Administration provide a report to Committee outlining a bus fleet replacement plan that identifies efficiencies that can be reinvested into the bus network to address the service gap". Would they have even known about this shortfall if they hadn't asked for this report?
To me, this seems to say that Council thought that perhaps they though if they sped up replacements, they could reduce spare ratios and that would increase the available bus fleet. Instead Administration is telling them we're $240 million short of being able to do what you want. I don't think Council realized the shortfall situation they were in.
Awesome.
For a bit of context too, I've been following the budget and transit since the early 2000's. I remember when the extra funding to kill off the high floor buses came through that allowed for a massive 231 bus order in 2006 with 2007/08 delivery and a follow on order for 121 buses with 2009 delivery. There was a lot of extra government (Federal and Provincial) funding available at the time. After that, Transit seemed to have a plan in place for a reasonable number of replacement buses per year so that they didn't end up in that situation that again. They did well for a few years, and had a plan back in the 2010's for replacements into the 2030's. That plan has fallen off the rails for one reason or another since then. We (my friends and I) have been waiting to see how ETS and the City actually handle the replacement of 231 buses from 2007/08 over 2 years at they reach 18 years old in 2025-2026 and beyond. At this point, the City isn't failing to disappoint. We didn't expect them to be able to manager the large replacement adequality, and it seems they aren't.
The City should not have reallocated the 73 service hours. The artics should have been redeployed and a number of 40' buses retired since funding wasn't in place for replacement. The City should immediately halt service expansion plans, scrap the satellite garage, and focus on fleet replacement, or, they need to figure out how to come up with sufficient funding for replacement buses plus the expansion plans.
Of course, that's not to mention that ETS resurrected retired buses due to the electric bus parts supply issue. Basically, the replacement buses received in 2023 went to propping up the electric bus fleet and allowing ETS to re-retire a few diesel buses for the second time. Maybe. We'll see if they have a second resurrection to support fleet expansion.
I'll be very curious to see where this goes. As I said in another thread, I don't trust Admin. Why hasn't this shortfall been made obvious before this?
