Mississauga gets off the bus
Transit ridership is down 6 per cent in 2009, forcing the city to consider shelving growth plans
Tess Kalinowski
TRANSPORTATION REPORTER
ANDREW WALLACE/TORONTO STAR
Fare hikes and bad weather are partly blamed for ridership drops as large as 25 per cent on some Mississauga bus routes in 2009.
The recession is taking such a toll on transit ridership in Mississauga that the city is considering scaling back an aggressive growth plan designed to lure residents out of their cars and onto the bus.
The drop in ridership – 6 per cent across the system in the first four months of this year – runs counter to a trend in the GTA that has seen transit use continue to grow despite climbing unemployment. If this trend continues for the rest of 2009, Mississauga would lose 1.8 million rides from last year's total of 31.4 million.
Ridership on some routes in industrial areas around Dixie and Tomken Rds. is down as much as 25 per cent, according to a report before the city's budget committee.
The city's commissioner of transportation and works is hopeful that Mississauga ridership will recover through the summer and fall. Meantime, slowing expansion "is the rational thing to do because the economy has slowed," said Martin Powell.
Other factors may have played into the year's slow start, he said, including the TTC's decision to freeze fares while Mississauga raised its own, as well as miserable winter weather that may have discouraged people from taking the bus in January and February.
Mississauga increased cash fares to $3 in January, the second hike in 11 months. The TTC charges $2.75.
The budget report recommends there be no general fare increase next year. But it does propose raising the cost of the U-Pass (for university students) by $15 effective September 2010, and eliminating routes that cost the city more than $4 per ride. It doesn't indicate which routes would be affected.
Powell stressed that rush-hour service improvements will still go ahead in some areas, although the report recommends scaling back the planned addition of 262,500 hours of bus service by 2011 by more than half, to 125,000 hours.
Economic downturns typically reduce transit ridership. But that hasn't been the case this time for the TTC or GO Transit.
TTC officials have been scratching their heads in recent months, trying to determine why Toronto ridership has continued to grow by more than 3 per cent despite the recession. They suspect that at least part of the credit goes to last year's major service expansion.
GO Transit has also continued to expand service across the region.
But in areas such as Mississauga and York Region, where transit officials walk a fine line between maintaining popular services and routes and trying to attract more riders, rising unemployment is presenting a challenge.
Ridership has flatlined this year at York Region Transit, according to general manager Don Gordon. He blames a January strike for a dip that month, but the recession has kept the numbers flat since.
"One of the key metrics we use is ridership growth relative to population growth. Since YRT was established, ridership was outpacing population growth. That changed last year," he said, adding that York is also seeing declining ridership in routes that serve business parks, including some routes that York contracts to the TTC.
York, whose fares are even higher at $3.25, has also expanded this year with extended hours on some routes and additional service to newly developed neighbourhoods.
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