‘Not enough butter’: Calgary Transit sees funding boost but more required to expand service

Calgary Transit is poised to get a boost in funding in next year’s proposed budget, but city council heard Friday more would be required to further increase service and frequency moving forward.

Officials with Calgary Transit were on hand at city hall Friday for the fifth day of budget talks, which is scheduled to extend into next week.

The agency’s net operating budget is set to rise to $417 million next year, with an additional $59 million earmarked for the service in 2026 across both operating and capital budgets.

“Calgary’s transit system right now is a lot of bread and not enough butter,” Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas told reporters. “We have to attack it in a number of different ways.”

Included in the new funding is $14 million in ongoing funding to increase frequency on key bus routes, the first instalment to support transit’s RouteAhead strategy.

The strategy, which will take 10 years to implement, aims to provide service frequency of every 10 minutes, at least 15 hours per day, seven days per week.

“This budget is a good first step in achieving our 10-year plan to meet the fast and frequent service that Calgarians are asking for,” said Sharon Fleming, director of Calgary Transit.

While the funding will help address frequency on main routes on Calgary’s primary transit network, Fleming said it won’t impact transit’s “base network,” which is made up of mostly neighbourhood bus routes.

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Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly told reporters that while he’s happy to see increased funding for transit, he’s “disappointed” it won’t result in improvements on those neighbourhood routes.

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“It’s all about reliability and efficiency,” Kelly said. “If that bus isn’t there when you’re looking for it, it’s not going to make much of a difference for you in terms of your trip or your likelihood of using Calgary Transit.”

According to Fleming, the transit service is “a little bit behind” when it comes to required funding outlined in the RouteAhead strategy.

The $14 million included in the budget is $1 million short of what was recommended annually to fund RouteAhead, and the proposed budget doesn’t include $45 million to increase the city’s bus fleet to boost service levels; a figure needed annually for the next decade.

“We do hope future budgets include bus acquisition,” Fleming said. “It’s a challenge for us to grow service without more vehicles.”

Council will face some tough decisions ahead as some, like Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot, are indicated they’d like to see cost savings.

Chabot told reporters he’d be interested in eliminating the downtown free fare zone after TD pulled out as the naming rights sponsor, as well as cutting the free fare policy for children under 12 on transit, which he said costs the city $10 million per year.

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$25 million in one-time funding from reserves is proposed in the budget to fund the Low Income Transit Pass, bringing the total cost of the program to more than $50 million.

“We’re now investing $58 million per year on the low-income transit pass, and only receiving $6 million back from the province, which is something that ultimately should be a provincial responsibility,” he said.

“Other provinces are providing funding way beyond income-support on support of the transit system.”

A chart presented to council during Friday’s meeting showed provincial funding contributes to Vancouver spending $798 per capita on transit while Toronto spends $772.  Calgary spends $261 in comparison.

“The provincial government in B.C, Ontario and Quebec provide direct operating support to transit agencies for day-to-day service,” said David Cooper, principal at Leading Mobility. “Alberta is increasingly becoming an outlier as the province of Manitoba provides that as well.”

Farkas told reporters he’d like to advocate to other orders of government to help improve transit service, while suggesting he wants to see further boosts to transit’s bottom line.

“If anything, I think we need to continue to invest to increase not just service frequency and reliability for transit users, but also safety,” he said.

An adult transit fare is proposed to increase by 2.6 per cent, or an additional 10 cents next year.

However, Chabot said he wants transit to increase adult fares to $4 to help generate more revenue.

According to Chabot, 35 per cent of Calgary Transit’s funding is recovered by fares while 65 per cent is covered by property taxes.

“It will generate some additional revenue,” Chabot said. “If somebody wants to increase the level of service, then increase the funding to pay for it. A user-pay system.”