Grand River Transit - Printable Version +- Waterloo Region Connected (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com) +-- Forum: Waterloo Region Works (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=14) +--- Forum: Transportation and Infrastructure (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=25) +--- Thread: Grand River Transit (/showthread.php?tid=13) Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
|
RE: Grand River Transit - jeffster - 05-27-2021 (05-26-2021, 09:48 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:(05-26-2021, 08:32 PM)jeffster Wrote: The problem with the limit is that it is way too low. As I said, $37,000/year for a family of 4, for example, is close to poverty. So if they have a couple school aged children, this is an additional $300/year (if 10 months). While that doesn't seem like a lot, for those already struggling to pay for this service and make ends meet, it is a lot of money. I did not know that about University, but I don’t know the details. I only knew about Conestoga having a much higher rate. As for TravelWise, I’m not sure if it is subsidized by the employer. That said, being the amount of government workers that can use this service (the cities, the region, the libraries, for example), that subsidy is going to be paid by taxpayers either way. As for means testing, the approach is all wrong, and very old school and ass backwards. For example, the GST credit and Trillium are all means tested. However, as a taxpayer, you’re not having to do any work for that extra cash, if you qualify. It’s automatic. The household income testing for the GRT, is wrong because you need to collect tax information from all members of the family, you need to highlight take-home pay for all members, and you need to ensure them that you’re living well below the poverty level. This is what makes it wrong. Take a single senior, for example: the cutoff is $18,900, any senior that worked at all (even for a year or two) won’t qualify for transit: OAS and GIS maximums (low income seniors) is already $18,500, this is the least amount of money you can get. If you receive $90 in CPP, some of GIS will be taken away, and likely leave you with an income around $19,000/year. What I saying is, the only seniors that might qualify are those that came to Canada and don’t qualify for much or any OAS, GIS and CPP. If you were born and raised in Canada, you won’t get this transit discount. The region needs to look at how they can get young riders to use the transit, and cheap transit is one way. If you’re a student, and even taking a yellow bus, give them a ride for $1.50 or less, so when they are done with school, they are more inclined to us a bus, rather than buy a car. Get them hooked at a young age. RE: Grand River Transit - tomh009 - 05-27-2021 (05-27-2021, 06:22 AM)jeffster Wrote: Take a single senior, for example: the cutoff is $18,900, any senior that worked at all (even for a year or two) won’t qualify for transit: OAS and GIS maximums (low income seniors) is already $18,500, this is the least amount of money you can get. If you receive $90 in CPP, some of GIS will be taken away, and likely leave you with an income around $19,000/year. What I saying is, the only seniors that might qualify are those that came to Canada and don’t qualify for much or any OAS, GIS and CPP. If you were born and raised in Canada, you won’t get this transit discount. Yes, basically the program gives a 50% discount to seniors who are living on OAS+GIS only (or equivalent), and none to ones who have substantial other income. Currently all seniors get a 16.7% discount on the monthly passes. While the cutoff is too low it's still far better than the current reduced fare system. A graduated approach to the discounts would be better but I think to make this work the region would need to get the income data from CRA as a manual system gets way too complex. Maybe they are working on this? Or maybe CRA won't do it as a matter of policy? Don't know. Current student pass is $75, or around $0.90/ride assuming you ONLY use it for getting to school and back. The future discounted pass is about $0.55/ride, and the undiscounted still not much over a dollar. If you're looking at a few-times-a-month usage scenario, the discounted fare (with the card) is $1.49, which meets your criteria. Overall, moving to this system is the right direction. Hopefully, with experience, it can be expanded and improved in the future. RE: Grand River Transit - ijmorlan - 05-27-2021 (05-27-2021, 06:06 AM)jeffster Wrote:(05-26-2021, 10:32 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: By the way, is it really the case that the program gives people with income less than a certain number a fixed percentage off, and those with income perhaps $1/year more no discount? If so that is disgusting. Don’t these people understand the concept of marginal tax rates? If the program started phasing out at the specified limits and finished phasing out at double the limits it would be at least defensible even if not ideal. Contemptible. It shouldn’t even be legal to operate a program like that (although even with each individual program phasing out in an apparently-reasonable way, it’s still possible for the overall effect to be unacceptable). RE: Grand River Transit - Acitta - 05-27-2021 (05-27-2021, 06:22 AM)jeffster Wrote: Take a single senior, for example: the cutoff is $18,900, any senior that worked at all (even for a year or two) won’t qualify for transit: OAS and GIS maximums (low income seniors) is already $18,500, this is the least amount of money you can get. If you receive $90 in CPP, some of GIS will be taken away, and likely leave you with an income around $19,000/year. What I saying is, the only seniors that might qualify are those that came to Canada and don’t qualify for much or any OAS, GIS and CPP. If you were born and raised in Canada, you won’t get this transit discount.I am on CPP-OAS and am less than 2500 over the cutoff. RE: Grand River Transit - tomh009 - 05-27-2021 (05-27-2021, 09:52 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:(05-27-2021, 06:06 AM)jeffster Wrote: It literally a cut-off. If you made $1 more, you go from a discount to full price. It's one more step than today. And one more step than with property taxes. If today's scheme isn't illegal, I don't see why this should be. I suspect the real problem here is the challenge with the access to income data: without it, it's really hard to do graduated discounts effectively. While it's far from perfect, this is still much better than the current scheme, at least in my bopinion. RE: Grand River Transit - danbrotherston - 05-27-2021 (05-27-2021, 09:15 AM)tomh009 Wrote:(05-27-2021, 06:22 AM)jeffster Wrote: Take a single senior, for example: the cutoff is $18,900, any senior that worked at all (even for a year or two) won’t qualify for transit: OAS and GIS maximums (low income seniors) is already $18,500, this is the least amount of money you can get. If you receive $90 in CPP, some of GIS will be taken away, and likely leave you with an income around $19,000/year. What I saying is, the only seniors that might qualify are those that came to Canada and don’t qualify for much or any OAS, GIS and CPP. If you were born and raised in Canada, you won’t get this transit discount. I'm curious, do any of the discount apply to tickets? Transit passes are great for those who ride frequently, but discounted tickets would also be a good option for many other travel patterns. RE: Grand River Transit - danbrotherston - 05-27-2021 (05-27-2021, 06:22 AM)jeffster Wrote:(05-26-2021, 09:48 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Two things here...one, you are making assumptions about the wealth of university students, assumptions which are not justified in all cases. Yeah, getting people onto transit early makes sense as well. But there's also a risk of it appearing to be the stop gap you use until you can get a car. Regardless, I'm totally in agreement that the proposed system is pretty poor. The biggest problem remains the fact that driving is massively subsidized...you are unlikely to be able to beat the driving subsidy just by making transit cheaper. If we mandated that parking cost money for example, the travelwise subsidy would be less important. RE: Grand River Transit - ijmorlan - 05-27-2021 (05-27-2021, 12:00 PM)tomh009 Wrote: It's one more step than today. And one more step than with property taxes. If today's scheme isn't illegal, I don't see why this should be. If they can verify a person’s income is under $X they can use the annual income in a calculation that determines the discount in a more appropriate and fair way. I understand that there are people, not well off, who face a 100% marginal tax rate when all income supports programs are taken into account. In other words, if they earn another dollar it will be taxed at 100%. This is even worse than that: earn one more dollar, lose the entire transit discount. I know it’s slightly easier to run this program this way, but bureaucratic convenience just doesn’t make it acceptable. RE: Grand River Transit - tomh009 - 05-27-2021 (05-27-2021, 02:28 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I'm curious, do any of the discount apply to tickets? Transit passes are great for those who ride frequently, but discounted tickets would also be a good option for many other travel patterns. Monthly passes and stored value are discounted, but not cash fares (which are more expensive to start with) or machine-purchased tickets. I expect this is because they cannot do the income verification at those points of purchase. RE: Grand River Transit - Bob_McBob - 05-27-2021 I strongly support transit subsidies for low-income residents, but the new program is just an insult. According to the original staff report, around 43,000 residents would be eligible for ATP, but only 8,600 are expected to use it. Right off the bat that's a terrible uptake considering car ownership must be significantly lower in this income bracket, and it makes me think a lot of people can't even afford the subsidized rate. Another thing ATP highlights is just how utterly pathetic the previous TRIP program for low-income residents was. The vast majority of expected ATP users were not enrolled in TRIP because the region made it so difficult. There were only 1,350 people using the program, with a waitlist of 2,150. So we've gone from a completely dysfunctional low-income transit program almost nobody could access to tossing the barest hint of breadcrumbs at poor people and cutting them off the moment they reach an incredibly low income threshold. Not only that, but staff were so concerned uptake might be higher than expected they recommended a staged rollout over multiple years so they could monitor it and adjust the program if necessary. So they literally don't even want most eligible residents to use ATP. I note the region conducted a large study involving UW and various local groups like Lutherwood to evaluate the effect of this type of subsidy. The key recommendations appear to have largely been ignored in favour of minimizing the budget impact.
RE: Grand River Transit - Bob_McBob - 05-27-2021 (05-27-2021, 12:00 PM)tomh009 Wrote: I suspect the real problem here is the challenge with the access to income data: without it, it's really hard to do graduated discounts effectively. Why is access to income data a challenge? Anyone applying for ATP who isn't receiving OW/ODSP is required to submit extensive verification of their household income on an annual basis, including CRA assessments, bank statements, and pay stubs. RE: Grand River Transit - tomh009 - 05-28-2021 (05-27-2021, 05:14 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote:(05-27-2021, 12:00 PM)tomh009 Wrote: I suspect the real problem here is the challenge with the access to income data: without it, it's really hard to do graduated discounts effectively. Yes, you can ask people to bring in paperwork and have someone go through it and validate it. It will take time, for both the passenger and the staff, and it's no fun for the passenger and it costs money for the region. Ideally, the GRT staff would scan in an ID card or enter a SIN, and the GRT system would make a request to the CRA system for the family income, and then determine the discount level. The staff member would never see any personal documents or income information, the system would just indicate that this person qualifies for a 40% discount, for example -- and that would automatically be tied to the person's pass or EasyGo card. RE: Grand River Transit - Coke6pk - 05-28-2021 (05-28-2021, 09:09 AM)tomh009 Wrote:(05-27-2021, 05:14 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: Why is access to income data a challenge? Anyone applying for ATP who isn't receiving OW/ODSP is required to submit extensive verification of their household income on an annual basis, including CRA assessments, bank statements, and pay stubs. First off, accessing the CRA system will never happen. As an person with high knowledge of federal government computer systems, while client facing systems may appear modern, the backbone of the systems are antiquated. That gov't employee you are dealing with at a counter is likely to have a DOS based program running on the other side. Additionally, giving an outside group not involved in tax preparation access to that info would never pass the privacy test the gov't has set up. Coke RE: Grand River Transit - tomh009 - 05-28-2021 I did say "ideally" RE: Grand River Transit - ac3r - 05-28-2021 Some banks still use ancient operating systems like OS/2, so I can't imagine what sort of servers the government has running in musty old datacentres. |