Monday March 18 2013 - Budget night in Burlie. What City Council accomplished on Monday is something they do best; turn a deaf ear to the community and the real needs of our community. This can be seen most clearly in the Budget in general, and the Transit portion in particular. The mayor & the ward 5 councillor kept attempting to tell us the 4.46% tax increase was really only 2%. We have more money for senior staff to get MBA’s and more money for the Economic Development Corporation to buy CEO’s steaks but no increased investment for infrastructure needs like Transit.
We in Burlie have a very long way to go to improve transit in Burlington, especially in the North & East. We are still reeling from a halfbaked interim service plan that in 2012 cut the system dramatically and removed $500,000 in capital from the system. In reading this year’s staff proposal for BT I was detecting a hint at an improved direction. Some minor improvements but not major new spending, and no, the half million dollars removed last year has not been replaced; but no major cuts. Burlington Transit Staff recommended not to increase fares and asked council to establish a structure & a process for predictable fare increases. In what can only be described as a cynical move Council at the Budget committee, pulled a 8.4% transit fare increase out of thin air. In fact the budget overview sent by Mayor Goldring to residents in February made no mention of a possible Transit fare increase.
This arbitrary 8% Fare Increase puts Burlington tied for the 2nd highest transit fares in the GTHA and according to Burlington For Sustainable Accessible Transit (BFast) with the lowest operating spending on transit & the fewest Busses per capita, and the oldest fleet in the GTHA. So I chose to make a presentation to council in hopes they might see what this increase will mean to some of the most at risk in our community. A fare Increase, especially an arbitrary 8% one is unfair to the most vulnerable of our community, and a large segment of BT’s customer base.
To some bus fare is small change, they don't take transit
To help to get beyond the numbers I feel we must use our moral imagination, and moral imagination must go beyond personal experience. To help visualize what a 25¢ increase per trip means let me tell you about I’ve recently met through some volunteer work. None of these people are eligible for the Handi Bus.
One gentleman is recovering from a serious illness. As a result of this illness he’s lost everything, & is living in shared accommodation.
Another is a woman in a similar situation & has to travel back & forth to Mac several times a week for treatments. She’s attempting to find work as she's made progress in her treatments but reliance on transit is a real handicap.
A third is a family of modest means. The Mum has underlying health issues, & works part time, her husband also with underlying health issues, works in Oakville & it takes him better than an hour on Busses to get to work, a trip that would take one 15 to 20 minutes by car.
In my conversations with all of these people I've given them the contact information for the Halton Region’s Split Pass*, & my hope is not only do they qualify, but that there are passes available for them as when I last checked, Oakville's quotient for 173 Split Passes had been met & no further applications were being accepted. Burlington’s 195 still had some available. Right now, all of these people I’ve described have days when they have to choose between food and transit.
What does 50¢ per round trip or an average of $12 a month translate to? How does it affect people who are always hungry, always tired, always food insecure? This photo illustrates what it means in real terms, the amount of food one person will have to do without in a month and spend on transit.
In the March 13 2013 Toronto Star article on the failures of transit in the 905 Mayor Goldring was quoted without a hint of irony as saying:
“They (fare increases) should not be done on an ad hoc basis, … There should be some clear rationale.”
The Mayor is correct, but he didn’t listen to either himself or me. Burlington City Council went ahead with this Ad Hoc increase. Rather, than link fare increases to some facts like increases to Ontario Works, the minimum wage, and ODSP, City Council did what they often do; pat themselves on the back tell us how hard they worked & what a good plan they’ve concocted.
Lots of jargon was used in the Budget debate, lots of double talk about result measured outcomes and many of the other cool new MBA terms. Budgets are complex enough, we don’t need more jargon. What we do need is a clear and truthful plan, and clear and truthful numbers. We need important areas like Transit to make all of their numbers available to the public not buried & mixed in with other departments. We need the annual payments made to Metrolinx spelled out as payments to Metrolinx not included as part of the Burlington Transit operating budget. In this process we should also stop & remember one important thing, all the derivative traders who caused the financial crisis of 2008 all had MBA’s. All these MBA’s used this same jargon and double speak & the world’s financial system is still a mess because they pulled the wool over too many people’s eyes.
* One may apply for a Split Pass on the phone by calling 311. It is administered by the Region of Halton and the budget for the programme is split between three of the four municipalities on a per capita basis. The phone application will be passed on and in some cases the pass may be delivered by a social worker once one is successful. It has been expanded to include several groups that were not eligible in the past. The Split Pass is a monthly pass, and the user must purchase a special monthly pass, not discounted tickets nor discounted Presto usage. It is not on going, it must be applied for every month and it is awarded through a means test.
