Public transport is an essential service that promotes equity and health and reduces pollution. Non-profits can help mobilize riders and fund research and advocacy to support meaningful change.
When the City of Montreal recently told residents not to expect any new public transit services for at least five years because of major budget shortfalls, Mayor Valérie Plante didn’t hide her concern. “I’m worried,” she told reporters. “Public transit is crucial for Montreal.”
The Quebec metropolis is facing a transit deficit of $560 million. By 2028, it’s expected to jump to $700 million, and no new money is coming from the province. The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on ridership, and despite a number of cost-cutting measures – slashing services and payroll, reducing its fleet of buses – Montreal’s transit agency, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), says it needs predictable sources of revenue to provide adequate services while growing and maintaining its infrastructure.
This situation isn’t unique to Montreal. It’s been a bumpy ride for many Canadian municipalities struggling to maintain effective public transit during post-COVID revenue collapses. A McGill University study warns that cuts to transit services could lead to a “doom spiral,” with entire systems collapsing. Fewer passengers would force service cuts, driving transit users away and eventually leading to less overall funding.
After looking at the budgets and revenue sources for eight public transit systems – in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax – a Leading Mobility study concluded that cash-strapped local transit agencies need new models for operating funding. Currently, most Canadian transit is funded through passenger fares and property taxes, and “cities have very limited options for other sources of revenue.”
Even with a recent boost from the federal government’s Canada Public Transit Fund – a $30-billion program spread over 10 years – advocates and environmental groups say public transit infrastructure is insufficient. While some funding for rural, remote, and Indigenous communities, and building more housing near public transit, is included, the fund fails to include operating costs to improve transit’s frequency and reliability and won’t be available until 2026.
Cuts to services risk severely affecting Canada’s most vulnerable riders: low-income residents, new immigrants, single moms, students, seniors, et cetera – those who depend on transit being accessible, reliable, and affordable. If Canadians pride themselves on their universal healthcare system, why isn’t it equally important to ensure that people can get to where they need to go, even if they can’t afford a car?
Advocates say it’s a question of equity. Not only is public transport an essential service, central to an equal-opportunity society; it’s also a means of accessing public services, amenities, income-generating and educational opportunities, and affordable housing.
Expanding transit is one of the most effective public policies in Canada right now.
Denis Agar, Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders
Public transit gets cars off the roads, improves public health, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and creates safer and more sustainable communities. It’s at the core of solving many of the country’s most pressing challenges. “Expanding transit is one of the most effective public policies in Canada right now,” says urban planner Denis Agar, executive director of Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders. Yet, with few exceptions, transit advocacy in Canada comes from non-profits that rely on grassroots, volunteer-led initiatives. As a result, they’re limited in both scope and reach.
In sharp contrast, “there are dozens of transit organizing groups currently in the US with paid staff and remarkable track records,” Agar says.
A 2020 workshop on transport equity highlighted how existing transportation inequities are exacerbated by a lack of investment in transit relative to population growth. “Planners need support from researchers to define, measure and plan for transport equity,” it concluded.
“Move Minnesota has a $1.2-million annual budget and recently fought for and won $450 million in annual funding for the transit agency,” Agar says. “The state has one-tenth the number of transit users in Vancouver alone.”
Canada has much more transit usage [per capita] than the US, but we have almost no funding for transit advocacy or organizing.
Denis Agar
What could Canadian transit advocates accomplish with a little more support? Agar says federal funding isn’t enough to tackle transit overcrowding and eliminate transit deserts. “Canada has much more transit usage [per capita] than the US, but we have almost no funding for transit advocacy or organizing.”
While working for Vancouver’s transit agency, Agar came to understand that a lack of informed advocacy that policymakers could rely on to push through projects that would face predictable opposition was a real barrier to better transit. “I was responsible for providing funding to municipalities to implement bus lanes, and they wouldn’t take the money,” he says. “Cities were afraid of backlash if they needed to remove parking spots or a traffic lane. They felt they would be raked over the coals.”
It was while “trying to push this boulder up the hill and constantly failing” that Agar realized municipalities need external pressure and support in the form of facts-based research to assuage fears and car-centric agendas. “Better advocacy,” Agar says, can mobilize people “to be the wind at the back of politicians who want to fund public transit but feel they can’t go out on a limb.”
One of these policymakers is Michael Janz, an Edmonton city councillor. Janz believes that a stable, reliable, and permanent framework for transit-operating funding is fundamental to a safer, more accessible, and improved public transit system. “Unless we actually invest in building capacity and in people who use public services, we’re always going to be at risk of austerity rollbacks by those who don’t want to pay for it,” he says. “It’s self-defeating.”
Unless we actually invest in building capacity and in people who use public services, we’re always going to be at risk of austerity rollbacks by those who don’t want to pay for it.
Michael Janz, Edmonton city councillor
Significant new investments are needed for public transit to deliver on its full potential.
Janz says non-profit organizations should invest in building public-transit capacity to counteract “multibillion-dollar automobile and fossil-fuel industries.” He points to former Alberta Conservative premier Jason Kenney receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from car dealerships and the Motor Dealers Association of Alberta.
“We’re facing powerful lobbies that push information and have huge means behind them,” says Blandine Sebileau, a sustainable mobility analyst with Équiterre, a Quebec-based environmental agency. “It takes capacity and money to build our arguments and mobilize people around these issues,” she explains. “We can’t just say, ‘This policy is better because we believe so.’ It needs to be based on science. Research requires funding.”
Without funding we can’t work with academics to collect the data we need to convince policymakers.
Blandine Sebileau, Équiterre
“There’s no union of transit riders, no customer association, no way to build power,” Janz says. “But we hear from automobile groups all the time. In the US, one of the top 10 lobbying organizations is the highway industry.”
Équiterre receives provincial funding that’s critical for its work. “Membership fees aren’t enough,” Sebileau says. “Without funding we can’t work with academics to collect the data we need to convince policymakers.”
Janz believes that equal power to influence policymaking should belong to average commuters. “Tenants’ unions have been fundamental in getting rent control, and parents’ associations have been critical for education,” he says. “At the end of the day, this is a power struggle between private and public interests.”
Transportation is currently the second-largest source of carbon pollution in Canada, mostly because of our dependency on cars. “Better federal investments would double ridership and reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions by 65 million tonnes by 2035,” an Équiterre report concluded.
Some of the barriers advocates currently face could be eliminated or significantly reduced with more non-profit support. More money could fund research that explores alternative funding models, how to make transit construction cheaper, and optimizing project planning that’s proven successful in countries like Spain or South Korea, where, Agar says, “each kilometre of subway costs a fraction of the cost in Canada.” Canada currently has the ninth-highest average cost per kilometre for rail rapid transit construction – an average of $396 million per kilometre.
Most Canadian advocacy groups rely on the goodwill and commitment of transit and climate enthusiasts who spend much of their time raising operating funds instead of crafting their arguments.
Still, despite limited or no funding, they’ve managed some substantial wins. British Columbia’s Free Transit movement groups, like the Transit for Teens Youth Leadership Coalition and the Centre for Family Equity, were able to introduce the Get on Board program, allowing children aged 12 and under to ride all BC Transit and TransLink transit services free of charge. The City of Victoria also introduced a free transit pass for youth 18 and under, while Burlington, Ontario, is considering making transit free for all, after reducing fares for youth and seniors. Advocacy groups like Get on the Bus have been instrumental in moving the needle on convincing governments to invest in free youth transit programs.
South of the border, private national organization TransitCenter’s model ensures that its primary source of funding is through grants awarded to organizations working on transit-related issues. This allows the groups it incubates and supports to focus solely on advocacy. Grants support initiatives that promote policy changes for better transportation options, with a focus on climate and social justice. TransitCenter has spent more than US$50 million bolstering transit advocacy since 2013. “If that level of support were applied here in Canada,” Agar says, “we could take things way further than in the US since transit riders here make up a much higher percentage of the population and voter base.”
Well-funded public transit research and advocacy could be a significant step toward long-term predictable public transit funding, which could help counter the current transit crisis and even the playing field. “There’s no way we can build our way out of congestion,” Janz says. “The only lasting investments that work is providing a quality alternative, and that’s public transit, the humble bus, and a functional LRT system.”
I would challenge any philanthropic organization to take a serious look at your mandate and ask yourself if your impact could be magnified by supporting for-public services such as transit.
Michael Janz
If well-designed, reliable, and affordable public transit helps build healthier, more equitable, and more accessible communities, doesn’t public transit policy therefore clearly align with philanthropic organizations’ mission to promote social inclusion, strengthen public health, and aim for long-term, positive impact?
“Why will we spend billions of dollars on twinning a road or a highway for cars,” Janz asks, “but it’s not spent or it’s heavily scrutinized when we spend on public transit?” And this when studies show car transport to be far more subsidized and far more costly for society than public transit. “If we’re trying to build a more equitable society,” Janz says, “investments in public transit save our society money in terms of costs of injuries, in terms of moving and connecting people more efficiently, especially those who can’t afford a vehicle.”
Non-profit involvement can help better fund research and advocacy, encouraging best practices, addressing serious gaps left by the government, and supporting meaningful change.
“Often, people misunderstand what we’re trying to do as convincing people to ride the bus,” Agar says. “But what we’re trying to do is broaden awareness that there are already too many people trying to ride the bus. We have so much demand for transit in this country, and at a baseline what we want is enough funding to meet that existing need.”
“I would challenge any philanthropic organization to take a serious look at your mandate,” Janz says, “and ask yourself if your impact could be magnified by supporting for-public services such as transit.”
