Mayors' Council rejects idea to expand free public transit to up to age 18 | Daily Hive

Compass Card reader on a TransLink bus. (Shutterstock)

Since September 2021, free public transit across British Columbia has been expanded to more youth — up to age 12, instead of the previous limitations of kids under five years old.

TransLink and BC Transit agreed to expand free public transit to more school-age children when the provincial government spearheaded the initiative by subsidizing the full estimated cost of lost fare revenue, which is $26 million annually combined for both public transit authorities.

But if free public transit were to be further expanded to ages 13 to 18, TransLink estimates it would need to find about $30 million annually in additional subsidies to cover its additional fare revenue losses — not including the BC Transit portion.

Youth ages 18 and under already benefit from concession fares, which carry a 12% to 35% lower cost for single-trip rides and a 40% to 70% lower cost for monthly passes, compared to adult fares.

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“It’s a goal of the region and the province to change how people travel in this region,” said New Westminster Mayor Patrick Johnstone during last week’s TransLink’s Mayors’ Council meeting, asserting that a “cultural shift” is needed to reach the goal of reducing private vehicle usage and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions.

Johnstone likened the idea of free public transit for most teenagers to the creation of the low-cost, unlimited-use U-Pass two decades ago for University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University students, stating that the program got him used to traveling by public transit.

“Once you get hooked on using public transit, once you learn to navigate this region using public transit, and to realize how incredibly reliable it is, it changes your patterns and you become a transit rider, and you become a transit rider potentially for life,” continued Johnstone.

During the meeting, New Westminster’s mayor moved a motion seeking permission from the Mayors’ Council to formally ask the provincial government to provide subsidy funding to expand free public transit to up to age 18 and commit long-term funding for the existing program of up to age 12.

After the deliberations, a majority of the Mayors’ Council defeated Johnstone’s motion, effectively rejecting the overarching idea, which is also in response to Vancouver City Council’s approval last month of a motion by OneCity Councillor Christine Boyle on the same matter.

TransLink vice president of planning Sarah Ross told the region’s mayors that a better strategy would be to expand lower-cost fare programs that specifically target individuals with low incomes, suggesting age does not necessarily determine someone’s ability to pay the fare.

She said expanding free public transit to up to age 18 would “not be consistent with established regional policy direction, and would have significant impacts,” given that “fares even at a nominal charge help to allocate scarce resources to support public transit services.”

Ross also noted that based on the results of other public transit authorities that have experimented with free fares, the increase in public transit ridership comes largely at the expense of walking, cycling, and carpooling, which is likely to also occur in Metro Vancouver.

Currently, TransLink and BC Transit bus drivers and operators determine someone’s eligibility for being within the youth age range for free public transit based on whether they look young enough.

Ross asserted it is much easier to accurately visually judge whether someone is 12 years old or younger, compared to the task of separating older teenagers ages 13 to 18 from young adults, which may result in significant additional revenue losses beyond the estimated $30 million from misuse and fare evasion.

Brent Asmundson, a Coquitlam city councillor and a recently retired TransLink bus driver of 33 years, agreed, stating such a policy would “make it almost free for everybody.”

“As a former bus driver, it can be almost impossible for somebody to detail whether a passenger is 18, 19, 21, or 24 years old by their looks, so that’s the only thing you have. You’re going to make transit lose a lot more revenue because a lot of people will take advantage of it, and you can’t ask for ID. It causes a lot of other issues that you may not see as somebody sitting at this table.”

The other area of concern for such a policy is it would sacrifice TransLink’s ability to improve and expand its service levels, which is the key determinant for whether someone takes public transit.

Subsidies for expanded free public transit could come at the expense of further planned improvements to service levels and infrastructure.

“We know the biggest driver to whether or not someone can take transit is the quality of the transit service. Is it fast, frequent, and reliable? That’s the biggest driver of choice of people if they’re driving or taking transit. Transit is already significantly cheaper than owning and operating a car,” said Ross.

“In order to achieve the significant cultural shift, we need to make transit really super convenient — the most convenient choice for people, particularly for people taking long trips, and we need to make walking and cycling the most convenient for people trying to take shorter trips.”

Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, who is the chair of the Mayors’ Council, added that “the single greatest thing we could do to get more young people on transit, certainly in Port Coquitlam, is to have a bus that comes more than once every hour.”

“We’re having a discussion about something we have no control over,” added West.

Delta City Councillor Dylan Kruger suggested “making transit free will not have the desired effect that we’re looking for if transit service is still inadequate in significant parts of our region, especially south of the Fraser… Significant parts of this region including Delta and Surrey and Langley continue to be significantly underserved by transit. The best way to get more people to use transit is to improve access to transit infrastructure, and to do that we need money. Everyone at this table has seen our projections for declining revenue.”

West expressed concern that this would compete with TransLink and the Mayors’ Council’s existing requests to the provincial and federal governments for significant funding for improved services and capital projects.

Even if the provincial government were to provide free funding for expanded free public transit for older youth, said West, the subsidy will likely not last forever, as such provincial funding is typically only limited-time, with the costs eventually passed back to TransLink. During the deliberations, it was suggested that the existing free public transit program for youth ages 12 and under, currently funded by the province, will face this reality at some point.

This past spring, while speaking at a Greater Vancouver Board of Trade event, BC Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Rob Fleming said the provincial government would like to see TransLink pick up the tab for some of its own projects and initiatives, as its financial situation recovers over the coming years.

For example, said the minister, the provincial government is already covering TransLink’s share of the costs for building the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension of the Expo Line, and the federal and provincial governments have provided TransLink with a total of $1.3 billion in pandemic-time operating subsidies to date, including the provincial government’s most recent infusion of $479 million to cover forecasted revenue shortfalls between late 2023 and 2025.

This latest operating subsidy infusion was received by TransLink after the Mayors’ Council made an urgent dire plea in February 2023 in a bid to avoid major cuts to public transit service levels starting later in 2023.

TransLink’s Transport 2050 10-year priorities between 2025 and 2035 carry an estimated cost of over $20 billion, including a 50% increase in bus services across the region by 2035, with an aim to implement 30% of the increase by 2027. This includes more RapidBus routes and the rollout of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) services, and the transition to battery-electric bus fleets, as well as the SFU Burnaby Mountain gondola and UBC SkyTrain extension. The actual implementation of these projects is highly dependent on funding from the federal and provincial governments.

The forthcoming new and improved service levels under the 10-year priorities will increase TransLink’s annual operating costs by $1.2 billion — a 50% increase over its existing annual operating budget.

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