Jennifer Smith

About a year ago I took a ride with my friend Zeeshan Hamid on the brand new Scott Express bus. We chatted about the differences and similarities between our respective wards, and I noted how much more sensible this route was than the one which meandered round my own neighbourhood.


The Scott route was the first in a series of changes to Milton Transit that culminated last fall in the implementation of new routes and the overhaul of existing ones to make them more direct and less of the Grand Tour variety.

Earlier this week I decided to check it out.

I caught the #2 Main Street bus at a stop a couple of blocks from my house. Note to the Town: the Commercial and Heslop stop is in a really bad spot - no sidewalk and it hasn't been shoveled, so you have to either stand in the street or in half a foot of snow. Once I boarded, however, it was a very direct and comfortable ride to the GO station, where it paused for a few minutes before continuing eastbound to the Wal-Mart and back again.

I can actually get from my door to the movie theatre in less than 20 minutes on a single bus now.

I've been hearing a lot of complaints about empty buses driving all over town, but that was certainly not my experience. Riding most of the length of the #2 route there were a total of fifteen people who rode with me on and off - and this was in the middle of the afternoon. Not exactly crowded, but that's about as busy as most suburban Toronto or Ottawa buses are during off-peak hours in my experience.

The only empty bus I rode was the #5 Yates route where only one other passenger got on. But of course that's all commuterville down there and the big commuter rush was still over an hour away at that point. I had a nice chat with the driver who informed me that not only does that bus get very busy after 6:00, but that he also drives the School Special routes to the two high schools, and those ones are completely packed. Standing room only.

I also had a long chat with the driver of the Scott Express, which was almost as busy as the #2 and had a couple of dozen people waiting to get on after I got off back at the station at about quarter to six.

Both drivers were very enthusiastic about the service, but frustrated and confused that they seemed to be getting a lot of push-back from Council. They have seen how quickly ridership has been growing since the new routes were implemented, and they know from their riders how much demand there is to have it expanded to weekends and evenings. So they don't understand why some council members are suddenly fighting to cut service.

Neither do I.

From what I heard at the budget meeting, it sounds like this is largely due to a lack of basic understanding of how public transit works. So for you, gentle readers, and for those Councillors who still don't get it, here are the facts:

• Transit is a service, not a money-maker. Fares help subsidize the service, but outside of very high density cities like Tokyo and Hong Kong, a significant percentage of the costs of operating a transit system is always covered by taxes.
  

• The 'fare recovery ratio' is the percent of costs covered by fares. Toronto's TTC has one of the highest ratios in North America at 66% (in fact, it used to break even before they stopped charging extra for riders crossing in from the suburbs back in the early 70s). Most other major cities like New York and Chicago are around 50-55% - smaller cities and suburbs closer to 20%. Austin, Texas has a fare recovery ratio of 9%. Milton's is about 17%, but we also get money from the gas tax so only 60% is actually paid for by property taxes.
  

• Conventional wisdom states that the higher the population density, the higher the fare recovery ratio and the more efficient the transit system. Compact cities have very efficient transit systems - sprawling suburban and town systems are less compact and therefore more expensive, just as it's more expensive to provide waste and snow removal and other services there. While all that is often true, it is actually an over-simplification. Density isn't the whole story, and transit can be made to work well in lower-density towns and cities.

• Small increases in service result in large increases in ridership. For example, Milton Transit increased service by 35% last year which resulted in a 50% increase in ridership. Conversely, small cuts to service often result in drastic declines in ridership - often colourfully referred to as a 'death spiral'. Nobody has ever made a transit system more cost effective by cutting routes or frequency.

The bottom line: If you really want our transit system to be more efficient and more cost-effective, keep it growing. If you want to kill it dead, by all means get out your axe.

Finally, for those who still believe that "nobody in Milton rides the bus" or "only poor people and seniors ride the bus", all I can suggest is that you do what I did and check it out (and yes, I'm looking at you, Rick Malboeuf). You will see what I saw - rich and poor, young and old, commuters, shoppers, students - a complete cross section of Milton all happily making good use of our transit system.

All aboard!