Grand River Transit

[jeffster]

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.

Though personally, for kids that are borderline too close for the yellow bus, yet too far to walk it every day, even the old rate was too much. I took the bus to high school for 4 years, and I am trying not to date myself, but according to the inflation calculator, my cost was either $25/month or $45/month in 2021 dollars.

Should be noted, that those who can afford university, still have a $96 pass that's good for 4 months (though Conestoga is $300). It's a regressive system that attacks the lower middle and middle class.

We now have a system that the smartest and richest get the cheapest rate, while the absolute poorest get a bit of a discount (though still 100% more expensive than a U-Pass) and an f-u to everyone else including the college kids who are in college likely because university is too costly. What an ass backwards region. What the hell. Oh, and if you qualify because you work for a corporation that is part of TravelWise, you too get a discount, but go screw yourself if you work in a crappy factory or at ShortStop. Those corporate people can actually AFFORD to pay full fare, I should know, as I work for one.

Also, I think it's disgusting that in this day and age the region is asking for income verification. Yes, RoW, people really want to show you how poor they are, how they have a shitty job, and how stupid they are because they can't get a job that pays more than $15/hour. Yet they have enough honour and self-worth to at least try to work FT to support their family on $40G a year. What a bunch of ignorant assholes working for the region. Totally disconnected from reality. Wow. Give your ratepayer some dignity. It's one thing to confirm ODSP, OW, or that you fought in WW2 or Iraq or wherever, but confirming that you're poor is just so out of touch. I just can't imagine how embarrassing it will be for low income earners collecting tax information from all members of the household to prove that they're piss poor.

Man, why am I so pissed off with this? It's not like it affects me... but I see this as being so wrong on so many levels. But I am sure brainiacs that are better than the rest of us think this is a terrific idea, and people like me have zero clue what we're talking about.

Two things here...one, you are making assumptions about the wealth of university students, assumptions which are not justified in all cases.

Second, the UPass is not a government subsidy, it is a student subsidy. Students who don't ride transit (perhaps because they are wealthy and can afford a car) subsidize students who cannot afford a car. Students are subsidized by other students.

It's a program that the STUDENTS voted on, and Conestoga also had the opportunity to vote on. Mind you, they eventually did support it, but not in time not to get fucked over by our shitty provincial government.

And for travelwise, I agree those people are unlikely to need a transit subsidy, I am curious though, I am unsure how that program is funded, if workplaces are funding it, then that's perfectly fine, a workplace can (and should) choose to subsidize transit for their employees.

As for means testing, I have no real problem with it. I'd rather we live in a society with a guaranteed basic income, but that isn't the reality we have right now, and given that our government is unwilling to fund transit like they fund roads, and there are limited dollars to spend and a reasonable means testing makes those dollars go farther, those who need them get them, and those who don't help fund our transit service.

But I'm not sure why you are seeming to take this personally. I see nothing wrong with getting upset about injustices in the world that don't affect you, it's the definition of empathy. I just don't happen to think this is a particularly significant one.

That being said, as I said, I agree, the limits are far too low.

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.

[tomh009]

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.

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.

[ijmorlan]

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.

It literally a cut-off. If you made $1 more, you go from a discount to full price.

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).

[Acitta]

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.

[tomh009]

It literally a cut-off. If you made $1 more, you go from a discount to full price.

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).

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.

[danbrotherston]

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.

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.

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.

[danbrotherston]

Two things here...one, you are making assumptions about the wealth of university students, assumptions which are not justified in all cases.

Second, the UPass is not a government subsidy, it is a student subsidy. Students who don't ride transit (perhaps because they are wealthy and can afford a car) subsidize students who cannot afford a car. Students are subsidized by other students.

It's a program that the STUDENTS voted on, and Conestoga also had the opportunity to vote on. Mind you, they eventually did support it, but not in time not to get fucked over by our shitty provincial government.

And for travelwise, I agree those people are unlikely to need a transit subsidy, I am curious though, I am unsure how that program is funded, if workplaces are funding it, then that's perfectly fine, a workplace can (and should) choose to subsidize transit for their employees.

As for means testing, I have no real problem with it. I'd rather we live in a society with a guaranteed basic income, but that isn't the reality we have right now, and given that our government is unwilling to fund transit like they fund roads, and there are limited dollars to spend and a reasonable means testing makes those dollars go farther, those who need them get them, and those who don't help fund our transit service.

But I'm not sure why you are seeming to take this personally. I see nothing wrong with getting upset about injustices in the world that don't affect you, it's the definition of empathy. I just don't happen to think this is a particularly significant one.

That being said, as I said, I agree, the limits are far too low.

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.

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.

[ijmorlan]

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.

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.

[tomh009]

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.

[Bob_McBob]

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.

• Offer subsidized transit products that are reduced by an average of 48%. 
  
• Make multiple types of reduced-fare transit passes available to people living with low-income, including a product that costs as little as $20.
  
• Consider making lower-cost off-peak transit passes available to the general public.
  
• Develop a capacity for experimentation in the interests of acquiring knowledge and proactively shaping the future.
  
• Continue to work with local community support organizations in a common effort to make affordable transit a reality.
  

The amount the region is committing to this subsidy is literally 0.55% of the net operating budget for all transit services. This line in the staff report says it all: "One of the goals of the review was to ensure no increase to the net levy."

[Bob_McBob]

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.

[tomh009]

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.

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.

[Coke6pk]

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.

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.

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

[tomh009]

I did say "ideally"

[ac3r]

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.