07-02-2016, 09:06 AM
(07-01-2016, 08:59 AM)Canard Wrote: Perhaps it has to do with the way it scales? i.e., in a town of 20k, you might only need a couple of "Bus-Plus" sized buses. But in Waterloo Region there are hundreds of big buses, with a huge depot, etc. and maybe the cost of maintenance doesn't scale linearly with the population like that? (I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there)
(I loved Iceland, too!)
I know I said the KC Streetcar was free, but I should have mentioned that only the new Streetcar line is free - their bus and BRT system still has a fare.
The region's current transit operations budget is roughly $120M, with revenues of about $60M. If we made it completely free, that would be a hit of about $60M on the regional budget, or an increase of about 22%. Given that the regional budget accounts for about half the property taxes, that would increase everyone's property taxes by around 11%, or maybe $200 on average.
It's not a huge amount, and lower-income people who would feel it the worst, would benefit the most from free transit. But there would surely be highly vocal opposition to such an idea.
Now, there would be some cost savings because we could eliminate fare collection. But on the other hand, transit usage could rise significantly, requiring GRT to spend more on buses (and eventually more trains).