Transit Costs Climb
Tuesday, May 31, 2016 @ 5:58 AM
Prince George, B.C. – Use of Transit in Prince George has slipped over the past couple of years, and the costs have risen.
While Prince George City Council has approved the 2016/17 Annual Operating Agreement with B.C. Transit , the cost to the City will be about $149,440 more on a fiscal year basis.
For the 2016 calendar year, the boost works out to about $112,080.
The increase in cost attributed to:
- Variable costs increase as a result of an increase in service hours due to fewer statutory holidays within the 2016/2017 operating year ( shift of Easter weekend)
- An inflationary increase in the operating company’s fixed costs which includes all of the company’s overhead (non-driver and non-mechanical)
- An increase in driver’s wages and benefits
- Variable fuel costs are budgeted at a fuel price of $1.28 per litre
In a presentation to Council, B.C. Transit’s Senior Regional Transit Manager, Chris Fudge, pointed out that ridership has slipped from a five year high of 2.032 million in 2013/14 to 1.877 million in the 2015/16 fiscal year. He says part of the reason for the slide is a decline in enrollment at UNBC.
Comments
what was the ridership back in 2006
Was it under a million back then?
Ridership is down because they switched over to bikes. See our roads just covered in bikes, see there goes one now! Oh wait riding on the sidewalk with no helmet, does that count?
Falling birth rate and falling population might have a little to do with falling ridership . Also the schedule has an impact . Plus electric assist bikes are getting cheaper by the year . Conversion kits can be had on eBay incredibly cheap . Most ebikes are really incognito. Unless you know what to look for , you can’t tell them apart from non assist bikes . I see many seniors using them . The ones I meet mostly say the same thing . ” without the electric assist I would not be on a bike again because of old bones , bad knees or feet etc. China three months ago broke the 200MN ebikes on the road . They cost pennies to charge .
Ataloss, about all of those seniors that you see using electric assist bikes, are they here in Prince George?
I don’t just post on this Prince George site, I live in Prince George! I don’t see a lot of seniors here, here in Prince George lining up to purchase electric assist bikes!
Where did you say that you live, cause it sure as heck ain’t here in PG?
By the way, are those electic bikes using those toxic and environmentally hazardous lithium ion batteries, lithium obtained in that environmentally destructive manner called mining?
People need to get around to live: to work, shop, get away. And it should be cheap, like pocket change cheap. If it costs too much people don’t use it. But many people need it. The service costs the city too much then the city should find a way to cut costs but not at the expense of the users like reducing the number of buses or frequency. It’s really important for people to be able to get around and if they don’t have a car to do that then they need the bus and they need the bus to be cheap. The easier the city makes it for all people to go here or there the better we all are. Maybe the city could press the feds about the importance of this. I know it’s not the norm in Canada. Transit is really expensive here. But in other places around the world it is not expensive; it’s really cheap in Seoul, Korea for example. Bus, taxi and train are affordable to all. Should be like that here, too.
Do you want to pay for it then? The money to run the service has to come from somewhere. If you reduce the price to ride then our taxes would have to rise in order to offset the costs. We already pay too much in taxes and I sure don’t want them to go any higher.
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