BALOGNA.
5 cent hike proposal for January because of rising fuel prices, expensive buses, and inflation.
Wrong answer, boys.
What Kives' article doesn't tell you is what transit has said before. Let's look at what they said before, shall we? By diving into the citizen journalism archives of my own website, of course. In job postings for journalism they always want you to be able to "keep files" on "developing stories." Well here ya go, see, I can do it.
In 2007, Transit fees went up by TWENTY FIVE CENTS to $2.25. The reason? To "increase ridership." (laugh all you want but ridership has skyrocketed in the past 4 years. More expensive Transit probably isn't the reason though.)
In 2008, Transit fees went up by a nickel, to $2.30. Reason? RISING FUEL PRICES.
In 2009, Transit fees went up another nickel, to $2.35. Reason? RISING FUEL PRICES.
Now. Remember that in the summer of 2008, gas prices were 1.40 a litre. How do I know this? I blogged that important stat in said blog post from 2008 that I linked to above. It is an important figure to keep in mind in the overall narrative of all this. Let's track the trend of rising gas prices and juxtapose with the reasons for Transit's rate hikes: rising gas prices.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit. This was the first time gas spiked for a period of time. But this was almost like a test for the market, to see how much the oil companies could charge without backlash. In the coming years, gas continued to increase. Directly preceding the US Banking financial bubble that burst in 2008, gas prices in Winnipeg hit a record $1.40/l, people were going insane. But the oil bubble burst before the US economy went bust.
In July 2008, oil hit a record $147/barrel. This is concordant with the Transit rate increase of July 2008, most Transit hikes occur in January. Transit needed an "emergency hike" of sorts to help deal with this crazy market fluctuation. So they asked for an extra nickel and everyone was fine with that. Understandable, right?
But just six months later, the oil market crashed with everything else, gas prices were crashing too. In July oil was trading at $147 a barrel, but in December of 2008 it was trading at just $32 per barrel, a whopping $115 drop in just six months.
Did that stop Transit from making a request for another nickel because of "rising fuel prices?" Hell no. And so I blogged on January 8th, 2009, that the price of gas in Winnipeg was down to $0.75/l. Almost half of what it was the previous summer. But Transit still wanted a "rising fuel price hike" so they asked for it, and got it.
Here we are in 2011. The price of gas is somewhere about in between of $0.75 and $1.40.
And Transit needs more money for gas?! Rising fuel prices?! INFLATION?! Expensive buses? You mean the ones they want for this $1.25 million dollar transit strategy? Start saving those nickels now, we'll need them all by 2031? Just say it's because of "rising fuel prices?"
Ridership is up. Therefore Transit brings in more money. Size of the fleet has increased nominally. But three years of rate hikes for "rising fuel costs" is totally bogus.
There's one thing fueling these rate hikes. Bullshit is apparently an energy source, and it costs Winnipeggers an extra $0.05 per ride, per year to buy. Bullshit is at a premium these days.
I urge you to send this to your respective councillors. Transit needs to come up with a new bait and switch strategy. This one doesn't work anymore.
4 comments:
I have a hard time blaming transit for nickel and diming us (literally) with annual increases. The real blame should go to the funding levels of government, who have hamstrung transit operations across the country by persistently underfunding them.
I agree, though, that rising fuel prices is a bit of a red herring, though the relevant data point is not gasoline per litre, but diesel. The latter has enjoyed a steadier climb over the last several years.
$0.05 increase on a $2.40 is a 2.08% increase. The Consumer Price Index, according to Stats Canada in Manitoba for 12 months ending September was 3.2%.
Which means, transits cost of providing service should have rose by an equivalent inflation of 3.2% but they are only asking for 2.08%. I'm quite okay paying an extra nickle to ride the bus.
To be fair to Transit, diesel prices have risen steadily since 2002.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emd_epd2d_pte_nus_dpg&f=a
However, diesel is only 9.5% of the transit budget. Salaries and benefits (which is 58% of the budget) and the bus replacement reserve are also putting strain on Transit's books. However, those factors rarely get mentioned by transit... it's always fuel prices that get blamed for the annual increase.
Transit raises fares every year. I would be more surprised if they *didn't* raise fares.
Most people I know don't take the bus anymore. Why? Because $2.40 one-way is just not worth the inconvenience for them. I certainly can't blame them. BTW, why is it transfers are only good for 1 hour? Nowadays, that's rarely ever useful and I've seen bus drivers insist on people paying additional fare if their transfer is off even so much as 5 - 10 mins. When I was in San Francisco, I was pleased to see transfers were good for 2 hours.
I could go on and on about Transit, but we've all heard the same complaints before.
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