On the Privatization of Transit in York Region
We are now on the 17th day of the transit strike. It’s expected talks will be resuming between Veolia and the union (ATU Local 113) today, which could represent progress towards the restoration of service on the Viva lines. I’ll be posting any news about the outcome as soon as it becomes available.
In the comments to yesterday’s post I speculated the union had pulled a sort of bait-and-switch on the public, claiming to be striking over wages while actually pursuing an anti-privatization agenda. In fact, the union has been up-front about this from the start. From the strike announcement posted on ATU Local 113′s website:
The strike is mainly about the huge wage gap ($7/hour) between York Region Transit workers and those doing essentially the same jobs in surrounding communities…
The problem is privatization,says Local 113 President Bob Kinnear.York Region passengers pay the highest fares in the GTA and taxpayers pay the highest subsidies but the workers have the lowest wages. The difference is the huge profits that are being shipped out of the country by these transnational corporations.
The big question is why Local 113 went on strike at all when the employer, Veolia, claims it already gave them what they asked for
to begin with—but I’ve written enough about that. My point is that it’s actually no secret the union wants to use the strike to get people questioning the privatization model used for transit in the region.
(Update: As I was writing this blog post Torontoist published an article, More Confusion Than Commuters
, that provides a great deal more information about the negotiations between the contractors and the union. Significantly, it contains a refutation from Kinnear of Veolia’s characterization of its offer.)
I’m just beginning my research into the public-versus-private debate and I’ll have more to say about it soon. From what I’ve learned so far, I’m less convinced than I was that transitioning to a purely public model would be a bad thing for taxpayers. But before we run off and start pestering Council, there are a few things I’d like people to keep in mind.
The fact that our transit system is so heavily subsidized by taxpayers and has such high fares means only one thing: Our transit system is currently very expensive to operate. This could mean taxpayers are getting a bad deal from the contractors, yes, but there are other factors to consider as well. York Region is very large geographically with a fairly sparse population, and York Region Transit has the challenge of providing adequate service to such a large area despite a comparatively small ridership. Fares in the region are likely to stay high for the foreseeable future, as the buses have a lot of ground to cover and there simply are not that many people paying fares to begin with. This is one reason why comparisons to the TTC and other systems are often specious: Those systems are operating under a much different set of constraints.
I’d also like to point out that unless savings are found elsewhere, raising driver’s wages will only increase the cost of operating the transit system. And this in turn means an even higher taxpayer subsidy, even higher fares, or both. This is not an argument against paying drivers reasonable wages, but it is something to keep in mind, especially as we read comments from the union itself about what the transit system is costing us.
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One point of contention for me was how large an area YRT serves despite a comparatively small ridership;
Certain route run as north as the shoes of Lake Simcoe.
I expect that redership will increase due to continuous urban development that is ongoing in once rural areas like Stouffville, Keswick and Aurora, & E/W Gwil; Notwithstanding the cost of purchasing a home in the GTA, there is relatively little room left to develop land: More and more professionals with familes will continue to move north.
If this is the case, these far flung north route are justified provided the receive the required ridership.
If not, YRT may have to look into reducing service or eliminating routes.
@Alyssa: What you’ve said makes sense and is similar to the argument used by some private operators (though not ones in York Region) to abandon unprofitable routes: If ridership is so low buses are running empty throughout the day, why continue to service the area at all?
The counterargument is that for ridership to grow, the transit system needs to cover the municipality as completely as possible. Otherwise, people in underserved areas have an easy justification for owning a car, and the system never expands at all. There is also a political angle, in that the people furthest from a city’s core are frequently the ones most in need of public transit and the least able to afford it.
But I too hope that as people move into the area (and ours is supposedly the fastest-growing population in Ontario), the ridership will grow and make service to outlying areas more easily justified.