How much does P.G. Transit lose on a good day?

“It is estimated the City loses about $1500 a day in fares through this program “

In other words, taxpayers pick up the slack. Why doesn’t the City just directly donate $1500 for every day they want to run the program and leave transit out of it? Or is there value in the feel good exercise of bringing food onto the bus?

It would be interesting to know what the bus system gets per day in fares, and how many people ride the bus per day. I generally find myself on busy buses and love to see them being well-used. On a day like today it’s great because the buses still arrive more or less on time and get me where i need to go without the hassle of having to deal with the roads, or finding a place to park.

Except for a couple routes at specfic times of the day, the busses ride around empty.

Not true, JohnyBelt.

I ride almost all the city routes on a regular basis, but at odd times of the day to get around to and from my job and school. I can’t remember the last time I was on an empty bus and there are generally quite a few other people riding. I have even seen a few buses that were so full they could not pick up any more passengers.

I don’t have specific numbers, but when they do ridership surveys every year, the number of riders keeps going up. They are not just university students either.

“I can’t remember the last time I was on an empty bus and there are generally quite a few other people riding.”

It’s all your perspective, I guess. I won’t say I never see full busses, because I do occasionally see them around the University, but I see lots and lots of empty busses as well, in the off peak times and at night. For every ‘full’ bus I see, I see 10 empty ones.

No matter how you want to slice it, transit loses money in this town. It’s just a matter of how much.