File Photo By Matt Hermiz
An Owen Sound councillor expressed an interest in ending the city’s conventional public transit system but did not find any support from his colleagues at the council table.
Coun. John Tamming gave notice at city council’s meeting on Monday about a motion he intended to introduce for the city to terminate conventional transit as of March 2022 and restrict its service to mobility transit only. However, the motion will not come to the council table for discussion and a vote as it did not have a seconder, which is required for it to be brought to the floor under a new procedural policy.
Declining ridership on conventional transit, rising costs and a need to lower taxes for Owen Sound residents were among the reasons Tamming cited in pursuing the motion to end the service in Owen Sound.
This came ahead of a special council meeting scheduled for Jan. 7 when the future of the city’s transit service will be discussed.
Owen Sound’s Director of Corporate Services Kate Allan told councillors during budget talks earlier this month the city’s conventional public transit will cost an additional $500,000 in 2022 to maintain the current level of service, a 49 per cent increase.
A breakdown provided by Allan attributed the projected half a million dollar spike in net transit costs to increased contract costs ($185,000), increased winter bus stop maintenance ($90,000), increased fuel costs ($30,000) and about $194,000 in decreased revenues (from gas tax, declining ridership and Greyhound contract).
In the last decade, she says the net cost of providing conventional transit has climbed from just under $500,000, to over $1.6-million.
Allan told councillors ridership on public transit in Owen Sound has been in steady decline since 2010, a trend that accelerated further since the onset of the pandemic. In 2010, around 300,000 riders boarded the city’s transit service annually and it’s estimated that number will fall below 100,000 this year.
“Our ridership is going down, steadily over the last 10 years, and our cost is going up,” Allan says.
A bus fare in Owen Sound is $3 and Allan told councillors the actual cost to the city for each rider on a bus is close to $14.
She says in 2022 nearly 80 per cent of the cost of the city’s transit service will be covered by municipal tax payers. Gas tax covers about 12 per cent and fares/passes only contribute about eight per cent of the total cost of the service.
“We’ve got tough decisions coming,” says Owen Sound Mayor Ian Boddy in a recent interview on The Open Line on 560 CFOS. “We know the bus service is important to a lot of people to get to places … tough decisions. It will be interesting to see what council decides as a group.”
The city recently completed a transit optimization study and is currently preparing to issue a request for proposals for a new contract for its transit service.
City staff are recommending the RFP include a costing option for a reduced level of transit service to not only keep cost of contract down, but also offset some lost revenues due to ongoing ridership decline.