The road to nowhere

Opinion

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This article was published 11/09/2015 (3394 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

During a week when most Winnipeggers headed back to work or school, the last thing commuters wanted to deal with was less room on their morning bus.

As a result of a maintenance backlog, Winnipeg Transit was forced to operate fewer vehicles on dozens of rush-hour routes Thursday and Friday. This situation is likely to persist for months.

Transit riders are justified in being angry about the slowdown. They may also wonder how it appeared to take the city by surprise on Wednesday night.

Here’s what happened, according to the city and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505, which represents most Transit workers:

 

Why are there fewer buses on the road?

Too many are in the shop right now. Winnipeg Transit has 595 buses, but 109 were out of service Wednesday.

 

Surely this didn’t happen overnight.

It did not. Winnipeg Transit director Dave Wardrop said the city wound up with a serious backlog of maintenance issues in June, when it was negotiating a new contract with ATU Local 1505. Wardrop said the city hoped to deal with that backlog over the summer, but failed to catch up in time for the launch of the fall transit schedule in September.

 

Why the lack of notice for service disruptions?

Wardrop said 15 more buses went out of service on Tuesday due to problems with their emissions-control systems.

 

So why was the public only notified Wednesday night?

Transit was slow to sound the alarm. Chief administrative officer Doug McNeil apologized on Transit’s behalf for the communications delay, and Mayor Brian Bowman said transit users were not made to feel like a priority.

 

Why didn’t Transit get more buses fixed in the summer?

The union claims not enough mechanics are employed. The city says it has 89 mechanic positions but two are not filled. The union says there only 86 positions and five are not filled. Roughly one-third are apprentices.

Recruitment and employee retention are hampered by wages the union says are lower than those offered by private-sector employers. Wardrop said Transit — like all city departments — could use more money.

 

Why doesn’t the city spend more money on transit mechanics?

That’s a tougher question to answer. On one hand, the city is not flush with money, even though the operating budget — money spent on services — rises every year. These increases typically outpace the growth in property tax revenue, the city’s main source of money.

On the other hand, Transit is only partly funded by property taxes. Precisely half of its $175-million budget comes from bus fares, while another 23 per cent is covered by the provincial government.

Since taxation only covers 27 per cent of Winnipeg Transit’s budget — and the province matches almost every dollar the city spends on the utility — there is some wiggle room for the city.

 

Why not just buy more buses?

That’s what the city plans to do. During the next six years, the city plans to spend $153 million on bus purchases, including 17 new buses this year and 41 in 2016.

This money does not come from the operating budget, which covers the mechanics’ wages. It’s laid out in the capital budget, which involves one-time spending on buildings, roads, bridges and equipment.

 

What does bus rapid transit have to do with this?

Right now, nothing. The completion of the Southwest Transitway is a separate line item in the capital budget from the purchase of new transit buses. No money is being diverted from bus purchases to pay for BRT.

The issue is one of perception: public confidence in Transit has been shaken by this week’s transit slowdown and the public is already leery of BRT’s price tag. This is unfortunate, because transit ridership is up.

 

More people are riding buses?

Yes. While ridership plummeted in the 1990s, it’s back on the rise and increasing faster than the city’s population growth. But that positive trend will stop dead in its tracks if the city cannot reduce the number of overfilled buses and passed-over stops. Having fewer buses on the road this fall does not help the city achieve this aim.

 

How old are the city’s buses, anyway?

Again, 17 are new. And about half of Winnipeg Transit’s fleet — 293 buses — are 10 years old or less. But 151 were purchased in the 1990s, including one 1992 model that remains in service.

— with files from Aldo Santin

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca