Here's how better transit could help thousands of people through this economic crisis

This column is an opinion by David Brake, a a researcher, journalist and activist living in St John's. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

With the ongoing financial squeeze on households in Newfoundland and Labrador, the government should be looking for long-term ways to help people weather the storm.

There is understandable pressure to avoid spending on anything new. Provincial policy makers should recognize, though, that a major push to improve public transit would be one of the most cost-effective ways of improving the quality of life of people on a tight budget.

Many of those in urban areas mainlythe northeast Avalon Peninsula and Corner Brook could benefit. The immediate savings per household for those who could stop paying to run a car would be $5,000 a year or more.

Big improvements could be made for a few million dollars a year and would be supported by federal funding which has so far gone largely untapped.

The provision of free Metrobus bus passes for those on income support in the region has been welcome but the key will be to make buses cover a big enough area with a convenient enough service to appeal to a much broader range of people.

Chicken, meet egg

There's a "chicken and egg" problem. Relatively few people use the transit that is available because the network does not provide an attractive and effective service.

Only eight per cent ofMetrobus bus stops have shelters. Only students at Memorial University's main campus in St. John'shave an indoor public space convenient to wait for bus connections. There's no downtown bus station.

And even before the latest lockdown pushed the date forward,buses were scheduled to go to a "summer service" in April, meaning they will arrive only every hour or, at best, every half hour until September.

The service is under-resourced because money spent on transit is seen as an expense that serves only the poorest.

But it doesn't have to be this way it's not just major cities that can support decent transit. A 2019 report found Metrobus was providing area residents with fewer hours of service per person than 10 other comparable Canadian cities like Moncton or Saint John, and users were taking 50 per centfewer rides per capita than the average.

City is cutting, not expanding

The plan to improve bus service in that report projected a more attractive service costing $1.7 millionmore annually would attract an extra 600,000 trips in 2023. But that plan is on hold:St John's has actually cut the Metrobus budget by $500,000 instead.

Better service would make transit more mainstream. Because we have space on the buses we run, costs would go up very little with each additional passenger who comes on board an improved service.

Car purchase decisions are long-term ones, however, and changing habits is not easy. The public would have to be confident that there's a long-term commitment to a high-quality transit system if it is going to be successful.

That is why provincial involvement is crucial. The province has no transit policy and the only mention of it in the Liberal government's Way Forward is to note in passing that the municipalities are responsible for it.

There is no plan for public transit that covers the whole northeastAvalon, and incredibly it's nobody's responsibility to make one. Of the three main parties, only the NDP mentioned transit in itsmanifesto this year. This must change.

In the northeastAvalon, buses are run by a commission dominated by St John's. But the city has less than half of the peninsula's population. More than 40,000 peoplelive in Paradise and Mount Pearl alone, and theyhave very limited bus service.

Their councils don't have the resources to plan and support public transit on their own. They pay the full cost to run the buses to Metrobus even though a wider reach makes the whole system more viable.

And as we have seen recently, transit service improvements can come and go depending on the political winds from city hall.

Time for the province to step up

The province needs to help to fund and organize regional planning and oversight of the transit system in the northeast Avalon.

It is also better positioned than St. John's to encourage transit use by bringing together other potential partners like Eastern Health, regional high schools, MUN and the College of the North Atlantic. It is only fair that it helps the city as it will gain many of the side benefits from better transit like increasing public health and helping newcomers to the province and tourists to get around.

In much of Canada, the provinces match or exceed municipal spending to support transit. Until recently N.L.only gave funding because the federal government requires matching funding for cities to access its programs to buy and replace buses. The pilot scheme to provide income support users with free bus passes costs $1.5 million a year, but it's still a fraction of Metrobus's $20-millionbudget.

The federal government has recently announced $15 billion of aid for transit including a permanent $3 billion a year fund to support it starting in 2026. But the funds allocated to us won't be released here without provincial help, and the city can't buy new buses and plan significant expansion outside its borders without provincial support.

In recent years, after decades of neglect,numbers of Metrobus users had been rising. But although the pandemic didn't change travel patterns here as much as other places, it has taken a toll.

Even before the latest lockdown, transit numbers in St. John's were down about one-third from pre-pandemic times, and ridership will take time to recover.

New movement patterns seem likely to emerge if more people are working from home.

Now is the time to start planning better transit to help Newfoundland build back better after this crisis.

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