Free and accessible transit now

Those powers, especially for "agents" with limited training, are terrifying. That money could have provided fare cards for vulnerable people.

I'll definitely listen to that. Not enough time now.

Free transit, free healthcare, free higher education, free housing! No responsibility for anything. Make the rich pay for it all.

How did removing bridge tolls work out for BC? A $1.5 bn spending black hole that 'the rich' won't be filling.

BC Hydro is adding a $.25 /month surcharge to build a 'fund' that will cover up to $600 per annum for 'vulnerable' customers who can't afford Hydro. It will raise $5.3 million per annum, cost $900k to administer and $600k to implement.

This scam is simply another tax grab that covers Hydro's bad debts by forcing the rest of the client base to pick up the tab. It does nothing for the 'vulnerable' except stressing them out fighting with some highly paid bureaucrat for coverage.

If the vulnerable were paid an increase to cover Hydro rate hike, they could pay for their own. More scams and bullshit from this government. 

Thanks for this re Estonia...meanwhile here in BC, the mass transit bus service in the Interior has been decimated dropping major towns, cutting back service to one a day...forcing more people to waste their lives hitchhiking back and forth......

Martin N. wrote:

Free transit, free healthcare, free higher education, free housing! No responsibility for anything. Make the rich pay for it all.

How did removing bridge tolls work out for BC? A $1.5 bn spending black hole that 'the rich' won't be filling.

BC Hydro is adding a $.25 /month surcharge to build a 'fund' that will cover up to $600 per annum for 'vulnerable' customers who can't afford Hydro. It will raise $5.3 million per annum, cost $900k to administer and $600k to implement.

This scam is simply another tax grab that covers Hydro's bad debts by forcing the rest of the client base to pick up the tab. It does nothing for the 'vulnerable' except stressing them out fighting with some highly paid bureaucrat for coverage.

If the vulnerable were paid an increase to cover Hydro rate hike, they could pay for their own. More scams and bullshit from this government. 

"Free" is a misnomer and the rich do not pay for it all. Medicare provides better outcomes for less money than private health care systems. Pharmacare saves the people of countries billions of dollars. Our road systems are not "free". Collectively people agreed that it was cheaper and more practical to pay for roads collectively rather than through tolls on roads built by locals. 

Public transport within dense communities makes sense because a city can't run without it. If everyone got cars it would be far more expensive. From infrastructure to public health it would cost us much more collectively. Strong mass transit attracts business. 

When mass transit is "free" fewer people buy cars and those who own them use them less. Increased ridership improves the system shortening wait times and adding more express buses increasing the popularity. It even improves life for people using cars as it reduces road traffic and congestion (and associated pollution). In other words, mass transit is a public good just like roadways and education. They are best paid for collectively. 

I do have a pet peeve. Where I live there is so little parking it is difficult to receive visitors. There isn't a logical place for them to park to switch to public transport except a metro station an hour a way by public transport to my place. So they would have to pay parking, then pay transit. By the time they pay all that plus double or triple their transit time it just isn't worth it. It's cheaper to just come by car and pay downtown parking fees or just not come at all. 

A start to changing that is free public transit. That would change the financial calculation and reduce travel time as increased usage validates improved services. 

The decision to pay for things collectively versus individually shouldn't be ideological it should be pragmatic. As a society we need dramatically improved public transit to reduce pollution with its associated costs and reduce the need to expand infrastructure in the form of more roads and expanded parking. The most cost effective means of achieving  those collective goals is through a collective solution. Free public transit. 

Greyhound Canada cancelling all BC routes but one, no more prairie services
From here on out the only public ground transportation across Western Canada will be Via Rail, if it passes through your town.

Well if the US Greyhound corporate headquarter's idea of reasonably profitable is the same as US OmniTrax, nothing short of government subsidies to the tune of 80% of their costs would ever suffice. The rate I chose is pulled out of thin air but I definitely know that OmniTrax has been demanding one pay off after another to run the Hudson Bay Railway and Churchill Port since they first purchased it in the late 1990s. They have absolutely no shame about cutting off the many rail communities that depend on the railway for supplies and transportation. And they don't give a shit about economically starving the town of Churchill.

Grand Chief Arlen Dumas made a very good point when he called Greyhound to task for not giving northern communities advance warning so that they could find alternate plans to deal with this incredible loss of service. I hope he manages to get the conglomerate One North on track (no pun intended) to not only purchase OmniTrax holdings but establish other transportation networks to service northern Manitoba.

cco wrote:

Based on the fact they're laying off 415 people for 2 million riders, assuming a standard full-time work week paid at $20/hour, it'd cost $8.63/rider/year to keep those buses on the road. $17.26/rider/year if they paid generous union wages. Speaking only for myself, if the federal government wanted to nationalize those routes, that's an investment of tax dollars I wouldn't even notice, let alone object to.

I hope that Arlen Dumas and other like minded folks take it on. I know that our current governments in Saskatchewan and Manitoba won't because they view it as socialism.

The rich have never paid for it all. What the rich do very well however is get lawyers and accountants working to ensure the rich never have to pay their fair share of taxes, effectively keeping the rich, rich, and the poor, poor.

The Saskatchewan Transportation Company was a Crown corporation  that was set up by the NDP government to provide bus service to the many small rural communities in our province. The NDP treated STC as a very essential service.

As bus demand gradually dwindled over the years, STC switched from the full sized Greyhound style buses to the smaller 12 seat buses to keep some of the rural routes going.

Brad Wall treated STC like a business. If it lost money some years then the fiscal solution was to shut it down and liquidate all the assets which they did.

Now, we see all kinds of people on the busy highways in -32 degree weather out hitchhiking. It is very dangerous and sickening to see.

The Federal Government needs to step up to the plate and establish a national bus service. We are the second largest country in the world geographically and we are very widely dispersed throughout all the regions. This is the governments responsibility and they need to step up to the plate and take ownership of the issue.

Private enterprise and capitalism failed. This is an essential service.

Sounds like the market worked for tourists. Not so great for remote communities that are impoverished and have no tourism.

While I agree with you about the necessity of buses and transport access for all, in cities public transport forms with a higher carrying capacity (trams, and métro lines) are essential for the system to function. I live about one minute from my closest bus, and about 10 from my closest métro station. Of course in fine weather I simply walk to the métro, but it gets so icy here in the winter that sometimes I wait for the bus.

In rural areas, we need bus stops with shelters for cold weather, and some way of ensuring their safety.

The lack of bus service in rural and remote areas also indicates how low a value we place on people who are low-income or otherwise vulnerable, and often Indigenous.

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Consider the subsidies of each kind of transportation. Moving oil costs governments billions of dollars: the Trudeau Liberals handed Kinder Morgan $4.5 billion to build their Trans Mountain pipeline expanion

That's not analagous to subsidizing a bus company, it's analagous to subsidizing the building of the highways a bus might travel on. 

Didn't we do that, too??

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Greyhound, responsible for the lion’s share of moving people in Western Canada, receives no subsidies at all.

Given that they're just one private transportation company, I can already hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth if the government started subsidizing them (which is to say, their investors).

Here's the sticky wicket:  it's not especially feasible to transport someone 400km from a remote community to a big city so they can visit their aunt, for the $25 they can afford to pay.  So... then what? 

Everyone covers the bill, because we all love our aunties and should visit them as often as possible? 

The one person pays the $320 it really costs, because that's what it really costs?

The government requires Greyhound to cover the cost deficit as a requirement of operating in Canada, but other bus lines face no such requirement?

Any solutions that actually make sense?  Noting that "drop it at the feet of one company" doesn't make sense?

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

Consider the subsidies of each kind of transportation. Moving oil costs governments billions of dollars: the Trudeau Liberals handed Kinder Morgan $4.5 billion to build their Trans Mountain pipeline expanion

That's not analagous to subsidizing a bus company, it's analagous to subsidizing the building of the highways a bus might travel on. 

Didn't we do that, too??

Quote:

Greyhound, responsible for the lion’s share of moving people in Western Canada, receives no subsidies at all.

Given that they're just one private transportation company, I can already hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth if the government started subsidizing them (which is to say, their investors).

Here's the sticky wicket:  it's not especially feasible to transport someone 400km from a remote community to a big city so they can visit their aunt, for the $25 they can afford to pay.  So... then what? 

Everyone covers the bill, because we all love our aunties and should visit them as often as possible? 

The one person pays the $320 it really costs, because that's what it really costs?

The government requires Greyhound to cover the cost deficit as a requirement of operating in Canada, but other bus lines face no such requirement?

Any solutions that actually make sense?  Noting that "drop it at the feet of one company" doesn't make sense?

Nationalization. The more profitable lines subsidize the less profitable lines. Another option would be to help communities to collectively set up a non-profit that they run themselves, subsidized if need be; the equivalent of o-op housing for transportation. 

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

Nationalization. The more profitable lines subsidize the less profitable lines.

Great.

Nothing at all to do with Greyhound though, yes?  I'm only curious why this is their mess to fix, just because they were the last transport company to try to make a go of it.  Were they supposed to become a charity, or what?

I agree. Not their mess to fix. It still would have been better for their brand had they given the communities much more warning. 

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Nothing at all to do with Greyhound though, yes?  I'm only curious why this is their mess to fix, just because they were the last transport company to try to make a go of it.  Were they supposed to become a charity, or what?

Well, it's not like these routes were a pilot project they just gave a shot for a couple of months, then realized they were unprofitable. Greyhound knows it's a vital part of the infrastructure, since it's been shaking down governments for extra subsidies for years using precisely that argument. Companies that are the sole providers of infrastructure to a given area (be they telecoms, railroads, ambulances, shipping lines, airlines, or what have you) have long had a close symbiotic relationship with governments, receiving subsidies and being subject to regulation preventing them from just closing up shop overnight.

Personally, I'm also in favour of nationalizing the routes, but I find it amusing that many of the same politicians who are saying this is just the free market in action are the same ones who'll line up when there's a strike at CN or CP to push for back-to-work legislation, because those are vital pieces of infrastructure, and if their workers can't afford to work there at those wages, well, tough shit. None of those Tories have yet endorsed back-to-service legislation and told Greyhound it'll just have to eat its losses. Why, it's almost as if their support for back-to-work legislation has nothing to do with keeping services in place, and everything to do with ideological assaults on labour.

Touché CCO. Some battles matter more than others when it comes to capitalists.

Here is another aspect of accessible transit, or the contrary. The CAQ's plan would do nothing to reduce congestion, and would fuel sprawl: https://ricochet.media/en/2267/the-caqs-shameless-electoralism-is-a-blas...

The Vienna initiative is very inexpensive, but having to pay for the whole year at once could put it outside the reach of some low-income people.

These are certainly ideas to look to.