Elections
The City of Hamilton has committed to doubling transit ridership by 2020. Do you support this goal? If so, how would you realize it?
Responses to the question: "The City of Hamilton has committed to doubling transit ridership by 2020. Do you support this goal? If so, how would you realize it?"
In This Page:
1 Candidate Response (top)
| Ward 01 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Brief Response | Full Response |
| McHattie, Brian | Yes | I strongly support this target and was part of seeing the 100 rides per capita goal set during the preparation of Vision 2020 in 1993.
Fundamentally, Council needs to commit a larger share of the property tax levy to transit, funding this through a combination of a) re-allocating funds from other operating budgets (as much of the difficult costs are operating, that is the ongoing costs of new bus drivers versus the capital costs of buying the new bus) such as road repairs; b) tolling the Red Hill Creek Parkway (could start with trucks only and go from there), and c) lobbying other levels of government to provide operating costs for transit (and reinstate capital funding for bus replacement via the Province who have just cut back on that program). I suppose it goes without saying that we need to avoid any fare increases as they routinely reduce ridership numbers, especially with the double whammy of no new service. In the short term, I have requested that $3M from Provincial Gas Tax originally allocated for capital costs (noting that Prov Gas Tax is our only source of transit operating funding from senior levels of government) be replaced by $3M in Federal gas Tax funding (that can only be used for capital costs): this will come forward in the 2011 City budget process. We received a report on priority transit service options back in August of this year and the $3M would go a long way to solving the bypass issue on the east-west Main/King line and other needs. That report also speaks to the IBI report on transit rationalization outlining the tens of millions of dollars required to meet the 100 rises per capita goal. Transit offers many benefits (air quality, lessening road congestion, GHG reduction, safer streets with fewer cars etc.) and is one of the best examples of an elegant solution: accomplishing many goals with a single action. |
Response Summary (top)
| Brief Response | Count | % of Total |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | 1 | 100.0% |
| No | 0 | 0.0% |
| Maybe | 0 | 0.0% |
2 Candidate Has Not Responded (top)
| Ward 01 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Greco, Tony | ||
| Paquette, Raymond | ||
