Grand River Transit

[danbrotherston]

The Planning and Works committee will be voting on fare hikes. Averaging about 3%.

I do wonder how much the price of parking is being hiked...

For 2019? My impression was that a 3% hike was already approved, but deferred to September 1 (from July 1).

3% doesn't seem excessive to me as a transit user. That's barely inflationary. And almost identical to the 2019 property tax increase for the Region.

It is definitely above inflation, although not by a whole lot.  And yes, it doesn't seem excessive, but it's only in the latest of many many hikes.

The real thing which bugs me is that this raise is happening in the context of generally flat parking rates, and an extreme response to the increase in cost of gas.

In fact, how many times do you hear people invoke the less fortunate as argument against raising the cost of driving, but hear nary a peep from them about fare hikes.

Measuring the cost of driving is much harder, as it has many factors, but most components of driving aren't increasing at nearly the rate transit fares are.