City of Ottawa

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by phil235

A huge chunk of those regular transit users have been lost due to cuts, and that is pure lost revenue for the system.

The loss of some of those customers and trips is bad, but the worse public policy outcome is that OC Transpo's best/most captive customers end up having to endure the absolute shittiest service.

I would love our transit overseers to have to do their grocery shopping, as so many of those customers do, on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, trying to squeeze themselves and their purchases onto a 7 on Bank or the 19 on St-Laurent.

Bonus if, as usual, the 7 is being run on a 40-foot bus that is already full before it even gets to the grocery-store-dense parts of the route.

Meanwhile, for the comfort and convenience of suburban east-end 9-5 commuters, we are running something called the E1 at no small expense, to try and shut up the whining.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by phil235

As for covering the fare, you are right it would not cover the full operating costs. But no transit fare does, in Canada at least.

The last time OC Transpo released stats on revenue by route, there were two routes that "turned a profit" at the farebox, and one that was pretty well break-even. They were the equivalents of today's 6, 7, and 11/12.

OC Transpo, naturally, stopped releasing any such statistics, the same as they don't publish detailed ridership stats by route, or on-time performance stats, or anything else that might inform discussions about transit or cause OC Transpo management some mild embarrassment.

And no one who should care, seems to care about the secrecy and lack of accountability.

[bartlebooth]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Not rare but not enough to support the service or it wouldn't have been cut. These trips are a tiny percentage of revenue. The idea a huge chunk of this was lost because busses run less frequently alos seems dubious. For sure cuts and fare increases and Uber/scooters/bike lanes make these less common though I think the latter are biggest factor of the three.

It'd be helpful if you can point to the data that supports this. Like others here, one of my primary uses cases for OC Transpo are short 2-3km trips (and slightly longer sometimes like 4-5km). In fact that's pretty much all I use it for. This is anecdotal so I won't say with any certainty that this pattern is normal across all transit users in this city but I doubt it's rare.

I agree that Uber is probably a huge factor impacting OC Transpo but I know of many folks, myself included, who opt for Uber specifically because OC Transpo runs too infrequently or is not reliable. It's just a faster way to travel past 6PM within the city because of service reductions.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by bartlebooth

It'd be helpful if you can point to the data that supports this. Like others here, one of my primary uses cases for OC Transpo are short 2-3km trips (and slightly longer sometimes like 4-5km). In fact that's pretty much all I use it for. This is anecdotal so I won't say with any certainty that this pattern is normal across all transit users in this city but I doubt it's rare.

I agree that Uber is probably a huge factor impacting OC Transpo but I know of many folks, myself included, who opt for Uber specifically because OC Transpo runs too infrequently or is not reliable. It's just a faster way to travel past 6PM within the city because of service reductions.

My use of OCTranspo is the same but I'm a 5 trip a month person.
I don't know if they have an trip length stats. We know commuters are the bulk of passengers.

Anecdotally. When I take the LRT from Rideau to Lyon or St. Laurent or even with the bus to Westboro it's very rare someone who I board with gets off at a non bus location or gets off after a few stops on the Westboro bus.

[rocketphish]

No, the feds aren't shortchanging the City of Ottawa
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe is setting up higher levels of government to take the blame if property taxes rise significantly in the 2025 budget.

Mohammed Adam
Published Aug 22, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 3 minute read

Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe is getting strong pushback against his attempt to blame federal and provincial governments for the city’s “financial crisis” — and rightly so.

Last week, Sutcliffe torched federal and provincial governments for shortchanging the city by millions of dollars in payment-in-lieu of taxes (PILTs) and transit funding. “It is not an exaggeration to say Ottawa is facing a financial crisis, and I want to be clear that it’s a crisis that is not of own making,” Sutcliffe said. “If we don’t get some answers from the federal and provincial governments in the next 60 to 90 days, we are going to have to make some very tough decisions.”

But if Ottawa is in a financial crisis, it is largely of the city’s making, not the federal government’s, which Sutcliffe is bashing. What Sutcliffe is really doing is setting up higher levels of government for the blame if property taxes rise significantly in the 2025 budget.

Council will resume sitting on Sept. 4 after the summer break, with budget discussions topping the fall agenda. Then on Dec. 11, when council meets to approve the budget, we’ll know if it has learned anything from regularly setting lower property taxes even as inflation increased the cost of running the city.

For years, city hall stubbornly stuck to lower taxes, while neglecting vital services Ottawa needs in order to thrive. Look at our bad roads and you see the consequences that neglect. It’s not all Sutcliffe’s fault, but he shares some of the blame.

Last December, when the council approved a 2.5 per cent tax increase, I wrote a column questioning whether that was sustainable. We all love to pay lower taxes, but I wondered if it would have been better to spread the pain slowly so that down the road, we don’t have to gulp down bigger increases, which Sutcliffe is intimating may be inevitable.

Ottawa increased taxes by 2.5 per cent, when inflation was at 3.9 per cent in 2023 and 6.8 the year before. Compare Ottawa with Toronto, which recently increased taxes by 9.5 per cent; Calgary, 7.8 per cent; Edmonton, 8.9 per cent and Vancouver, 7.5 per cent.

Over the 10-year period from 2014 to 2024, the cumulative tax increase in Ottawa was 26.91 per cent. For Toronto, it was 36.47 per cent; Calgary, 39.3; Edmonton, 39.86; and Vancouver, 56.99 per cent. In Ottawa, we pride ourselves on holding taxes below the rate of inflation, oblivious to the long-term consequences. Now the chickens may be coming home to roost.

Sutcliffe’s complaint is that the federal government hasn’t paid its fair share of PILTs, handing the city $30 million less today than it did eight years ago. According to him, the city is owed about $100 million. Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) records show that Ottawa was paid $122.7 million in 2019; $124.8 million in 2020; $114.6 in 2021; and $119.6 million in 2022. Last year, it was $124 million.

What Ottawa gets from PILTs is no small change, and its financial problem is not because the feds are shortchanging the city. The feds have long had the power to decide the value of their properties and pay PILTs accordingly. If the city feels it has been shortchanged, it should seek redress from a panel that exists for that purpose. If it hasn’t done so, that says a lot. The reality of the city’s financial crisis is largely because it has made bad choices on how it spends money, and has poorly managed some of the big projects, including LRT, that have ended up costing more money.

Yes, the federal and provincial governments can certainly do more for the city, especially helping OC Transpo out of its $140-million annual deficit, and hopefully that will happen soon. But on the big picture, Sutcliffe and council must look in the mirror, because the real culprit may be staring right back at them.

Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa journalist and commentator. Reach him at [email protected]

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/adam-no-the-feds-arent-shortchanging-the-city-of-ottawa

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by acottawa

So you were paying the cash fare before (i.e. you did not have a pass) and you stopped paying the cash fare after a particular round of cuts? And now you are driving to Chinatown or the Glebe?

It’s not about a particular round of cuts, but rather the overall, continual degradation of service and the culture towards providing good service (or lack thereof) that exists within the agency. I don’t need a monthly pass because of fare capping but I routinely come across situations where transit would/should be a good option but is unfeasible due to factors like schedule, delays, time (due to meandering routes) etc.

But if you’re talking about marginal cost of each trip I can tell you anecdotally that nearly every bus in the suburbs outside of rush hour is basically empty, and most buses on the routes I mentioned earlier are nearly full, no matter the time of day or day of the week. OCT sees many of them of captive riders, which is true, but these are diverse neighbourhoods and you’re missing out on trips from the many young professionals who own cars but would rather not use them because it’s a PITA to do so, yet unfortunately taking transit is a slightly bigger PITA.

Edit: Tying it back to the City as I lost track of which thread we’re in, you can’t continue to evaluate transit from a P/L perspective. It’s a cost centre and will be for the foreseeable future, just like in other cities. But it’s hard to measure the trickle down benefit of providing good service. How many Redblacks tickets or tix for other Lansdowne events are being foregone because transit isn’t quite enticing enough? How many tourists who’ve struggled with our transit system are telling folks back home to leave Ottawa off their itinerary? How many business travellers to Ottawa are opting to hang onto their per diem instead of spending it because the transit options near their hotels aren’t good enough? And most importantly, how many Ottawans are sitting their asses at home on the couch instead of going out and consuming goods, services, entertainment, etc. all because transit isn’t up to par? You assume people will just drive or uber but that isn’t always the case, many times they won’t go altogether.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

It’s not about a particular round of cuts, but rather the overall, continual degradation of service and the culture towards providing good service (or lack thereof) that exists within the agency. I don’t need a monthly pass because of fare capping but I routinely come across situations where transit would/should be a good option but is unfeasible due to factors like schedule, delays, time (due to meandering routes) etc.

But if you’re talking about marginal cost of each trip I can tell you anecdotally that nearly every bus in the suburbs outside of rush hour is basically empty, and most buses on the routes I mentioned earlier are nearly full, no matter the time of day or day of the week. OCT sees many of them of captive riders, which is true, but these are diverse neighbourhoods and you’re missing out on trips from the many young professionals who own cars but would rather not use them because it’s a PITA to do so, yet unfortunately taking transit is a slightly bigger PITA.

Edit: Tying it back to the City as I lost track of which thread we’re in, you can’t continue to evaluate transit from a P/L perspective. It’s a cost centre and will be for the foreseeable future, just like in other cities. But it’s hard to measure the trickle down benefit of providing good service. How many Redblacks tickets or tix for other Lansdowne events are being foregone because transit isn’t quite enticing enough? How many tourists who’ve struggled with our transit system are telling folks back home to leave Ottawa off their itinerary? How many business travellers to Ottawa are opting to hang onto their per diem instead of spending it because the transit options near their hotels aren’t good enough? And most importantly, how many Ottawans are sitting their asses at home on the couch instead of going out and consuming goods, services, entertainment, etc. all because transit isn’t up to par? You assume people will just drive or uber but that isn’t always the case, many times they won’t go altogether.

I know what you mean some of the dicsussions overlap.

I will say I don't disagree with any of your points. The amount of money we need to change this is really not in the cards. Even as a downtown dweller I probably don't want to pay another $500 a year in property taxes for better bus service. We are a suburban city and there is no amount of money that can stich them into the network especially outsdie of commuting hours and the service they do have as you say is hardly used. We should therefore be realistic. Let's discuss some realistic ways out of this mess for example a dramtic increase in parking rates and a parking tax on private parking might be a good revenue generator and help encourage transit trips. Straightening routes to increase time and lower costs.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

Again, not rare. I've lived in Toronto and Montreal and those kinds of trips are very common for people in the urban area who don't commute every day. Those people are not going to have a pass, but they do tend to buy a 10-trip card or equivalent to use when they need it (of course that option isn't available in Ottawa because OC Transpo completely lacks imagination).

As for covering the fare, you are right it would not cover the full operating costs. But no transit fare does, in Canada at least. The point is that these types of rides and riders cover far more of the operating costs than a long distance commuter does, and they do it throughout the day. This is less about adding extra buses and more about refocusing transit where it is used regularly and as an all day service and where it is more economically viable.

2km is basically Front to College. Under most traffic conditions a bus is not going to beat a pedestrian by much if at all. I can’t see a lot of people who don’t have mobility challenges or carrying luggage, etc. to pay a full fare rather than walk.

It might be a different calculation in the suburbs

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

I know what you mean some of the dicsussions overlap.

I will say I don't disagree with any of your points. The amount of money we need to change this is really not in the cards. Even as a downtown dweller I probably don't want to pay another $500 a year in property taxes for better bus service. We are a suburban city and there is no amount of money that can stich them into the network especially outsdie of commuting hours and the service they do have as you say is hardly used. We should therefore be realistic. Let's discuss some realistic ways out of this mess for example a dramtic increase in parking rates and a parking tax on private parking might be a good revenue generator and help encourage transit trips. Straightening routes to increase time and lower costs.

I agree a tax-only solution to this problem would be hugely unpopular and unfeasible. I do think you need to start at the very least by looking at property tax increases that actually reflect the city's needs and greater economic conditions, as other CDN cities have done, rather than arbitrarily picking a figure like 2.5%.

That alone won't be enough to fix the system, as years of neglect have compounded the issue. You need to create a business case and part of that case will present itself organically as the city grows, congestion and gridlock increase, and transit goes from being (in suburbanites' eyes) a nice-to-have to a necessity. At that point more nuclear options such as a congestion charge which you've previously suggested will be on the table.

In the meantime, Bank St. is the perfect example of where to start. Eliminate street parking from 7am-7pm + during special events at Lansdowne. There are plenty of side streets to park on along with a largely underused parking garage on Second Ave. We need to look past the short-sighted pushback from BIA's and residents and realize that creating marginal inconvenience to drivers would open the door to massive benefits to transit via low cost measures such as signal priority and bus lanes. From there you slowly increase ridership and the business case continues to build itself for the next round of improvements.

You say Ottawa is a suburban city which is true but you don't have to look that far back, to the period from the 80's to the 2000's where we had great ridership with a smaller population. The last decade of cuts have made it feel impossible to imagine a return to that era but it's possible, albeit through incremental improvements over a long time.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

2km is basically Front to College. Under most traffic conditions a bus is not going to beat a pedestrian by much if at all. I can’t see a lot of people who don’t have mobility challenges or carrying luggage, etc. to pay a full fare rather than walk.

It might be a different calculation in the suburbs

2 km is actually more like Front to Wellesley. Right now (rush hour) Google says that is a 29 minute walk vs a 10-minute drive. Even if a bus is more like 12 minutes, a good number of people will make that choice. Particularly in the winter.

I know this for sure. For a while I had almost exactly a 2 km commute from Bloor and Christie to Bloor and Avenue. I never had a monthly pass, but I’d take transit about half the time. I promise you that people do that kind of thing regularly where transit is frequent.

[DTcrawler]

The City is running a poll until September 13 in preparation for City Budget 2025. Scroll to the bottom of the linked page for the poll link. Ultimately complaining on this forum is pointless unless we actually make our voices heard when given the opportunity.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

2 km is actually more like Front to Wellesley. Right now (rush hour) Google says that is a 29 minute walk vs a 10-minute drive. Even if a bus is more like 12 minutes, a good number of people will make that choice. Particularly in the winter.

I know this for sure. For a while I had almost exactly a 2 km commute from Bloor and Christie to Bloor and Avenue. I never had a monthly pass, but I’d take transit about half the time. I promise you that people do that kind of thing regularly where transit is frequent.

I would think it highly improbable that a bus could get from Front to Wellesley in 12 minute in the winter. It certainly doesn’t align with my experience with Toronto transit. The subway would struggle to make that trip in that timeframe.

It sounds like your Bloor commute would have been entirely by subway (and a shallow subway with little time on escalators), which would not be a good comparison for for a bus in mixed traffic, which would be what Ottawa would have if it focussed on trying to attract very short haul transit users.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I would think it highly improbable that a bus could get from Front to Wellesley in 12 minute in the winter. It certainly doesn’t align with my experience with Toronto transit. The subway would struggle to make that trip in that timeframe.

It sounds like your Bloor commute would have been entirely by subway (and a shallow subway with little time on escalators), which would not be a good comparison for for a bus in mixed traffic, which would be what Ottawa would have if it focussed on trying to attract very short haul transit users.

Yeah, my trips were generally by subway in that case, except later at night or on Sunday mornings. Pretty much the same as the Yonge example. Over 2 km, the type of transit doesn’t really matter. The subway can be more of a pain, depending on how far the climb down is etc.

What I think you underestimate is how versatile transit becomes with good frequency. There are all sorts of people who will choose transit over walking 2-3km if it’s a real option. And not just the mobility challenged. It could be weather that is too cold/hot/rainy/snowy/generally depressing. Or if you are wearing business clothes or going out clothes or you have a heavy school bag or you are uncomfortable walking at night. Or if you are drunk or tired or tired from drinking. And remember that these people generally do their shopping on foot, so they are often carrying purchases. That all adds up to a lot of potential ridership that OC Transpo basically ignores.

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by phil235

What I think you underestimate is how versatile transit becomes with good frequency. There are all sorts of people who will choose transit over walking 2-3km if it’s a real option. And not just the mobility challenged. It could be weather that is too cold/hot/rainy/snowy/generally depressing. Or if you are wearing business clothes or going out clothes or you have a heavy school bag or you are uncomfortable walking at night. Or if you are drunk or tired or tired from drinking. And remember that these people generally do their shopping on foot, so they are often carrying purchases. That all adds up to a lot of potential ridership that OC Transpo basically ignores.

You are hitting the nail on the head. Capitalizing on these types of usage patterns is the key to success for OCT or any transit agency. I can make it work sometimes but way too often it's not feasible. This type of usage is the total opposite end of the spectrum from gov workers who leave their Presto cards in the same lanyard as their work ID cause that's the only time it's needed.

Line 1 is what it is as far as alignment, station spacing, station depths, etc. It's still a very useful line for popping a neighbourhood or two over east or west. Slashing off-peak frequency is the real kicker that will drop it off many people's list of options.

Issues with bus service is more than just frequency (although frequency and reliability are by far the main factors). Routes keep being redesigned to meander and try and touch every nook and cranny instead of following relatively straight paths to speed up travel times. I know Ottawa's street geometry has been cited as a challenge but you still have a good skeleton with E-W corridors like Somerset/Wellington/Richmond, Rideau/Montreal, Gladstone, etc. and N-S you have Bronson, Bank(!!), Elgin/Main, etc.

[rocketphish]

Financial 'fair share' — Ottawa and other cities deserve a better provincial funding model
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe worked out a 'new deal' for Ottawa with the province back in March. Heralded as a 'big win' at the time, it now looks more like a baby step.

Joanne Chianello • Ottawa Citizen
Published Aug 29, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 4 minute read

For the last three weeks, we have been hearing about how the City of Ottawa is on the precipice of a dire financial crisis. Get ready for plenty more of the same.

As council gears up for its fall session, at the top of its to-do list will be putting parameters around how staff draft the 2025 budget. But before they do that, council is expected to be briefed on a wide number of complex fiscal issues: from the long-term financial outlook for transit, to the city’s contention that the federal government is shortchanging us regarding payment-in-lieu-of-taxes for their buildings. All this may happen as early as next Wednesday’s council meeting.

These updates will undoubtedly show that we are in trouble. And expect many calls for the province and feds to step up and “pay their fair share.”

As indeed they should. For years, municipally minded organizations, leaders and advocates have been arguing for an updated blueprint that spells out which level of government does what — and who pays for what.

Consider how, for the last quarter-century, Ontario is the only Canadian jurisdiction where local government is responsible for managing social services. Our cities are also on tap to deliver and co-fund a host of health services, despite “health” being a definitive — constitutional, in fact — provincial responsibility.

And while the province does provide funding for these services, it’s never enough. In Ottawa’s 2024 budget, for example, this city’s property taxpayers will be paying for local childcare costs to the tune of more than $19 million. That’s after accounting for all provincial transfers, user fees and other revenue.

To deliver long-term care, the property tax roll is providing $30 million. And for housing, more than $130 million.

These are only a few of the services that are essential in helping make a city a bit more inclusive, compassionate and livable for all. But they are being funded by a property tax system created two centuries ago to pay for roads and pipes (and schools, on behalf of the province).

And so, mayors fight for more funding, with varying degrees of success. Mayor Mark Sutcliffe worked out a “new deal” for Ottawa with the province back in March. Heralded as a “big win” at the time, it now looks more like a baby step.

Which seems to be the way of these one-off deals. No one faults any mayor for accepting whatever funds may come their way, or for fighting for more for their own city. Should the province pay for more of Ottawa’s LRT, the way it has for Toronto, Mississauga and Hamilton? Of course! But asking for our “fair share” from issue to issue, project to project, crisis to crisis, is not a sustainable way to finance a modern city.

As the nation’s capital, and the province’s second-largest city, Ottawa should be leading the charge in advocating for a new fiscal deal for all of Canada’s cities. (To that end, it might have been a better look for the mayor not to have held his city-in-financial-freefall news conference on the same day his colleagues from the Ontario Big City Mayors group made their public plea to the province for a more strategic approach to the homelessness crisis.)

At the same time as they make the case for a modernized funding model, municipalities need to show that they are doing their part to run their own shops responsibly. For Ottawa, that might mean updating our seven-year-old long-term financial plan for capital projects, especially as staff recently revealed that we are $3 billion short for what we are planning to build in the next decade. Or better managing the light-rail file, with far more transparency. Or even coming up with a responsible succession plan for senior staff: in the middle of a housing crisis, we are now two years without a permanent head city planner.

Sutcliffe didn’t create Ottawa’s fiscal crisis, but he and his council colleagues didn’t help. Nor did many previous councils. For years, politicians approved budget increases that were more about meeting campaign promises than matching the real needs of this city.

That’s about to change. Grappling seriously with urgent challenges — fiscal, societal, structural — can no longer be kicked down the road. But Ottawa shouldn’t be facing these problems alone. It’s time to forge a real partnership among cities that are fed up with the status quo that’s long been inadequate and has now become indefensible.

Joanne Chianello, a senior adviser with StrategyCorp, is an award-winning former journalist who covered Ottawa City Hall from 2010 to 2023 for the Ottawa Citizen and CBC Ottawa.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/chiane...eserve-a-better-provincial-funding-model

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

Issues with bus service is more than just frequency (although frequency and reliability are by far the main factors). Routes keep being redesigned to meander and try and touch every nook and cranny instead of following relatively straight paths to speed up travel times. I know Ottawa's street geometry has been cited as a challenge but you still have a good skeleton with E-W corridors like Somerset/Wellington/Richmond, Rideau/Montreal, Gladstone, etc. and N-S you have Bronson, Bank(!!), Elgin/Main, etc.

The opposite has been true over the past decade or so: OC Transpo has been, overall, de-meandering its routes, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

Meandering routes are bad, for sure, but as long as this city keeps approving street layouts that make meanders mandatory, despite decades of experience telling us that those kinds of street layouts are bad, actually, what are we gonna do?

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

The opposite has been true over the past decade or so: OC Transpo has been, overall, de-meandering its routes, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

Meandering routes are bad, for sure, but as long as this city keeps approving street layouts that make meanders mandatory, despite decades of experience telling us that those kinds of street layouts are bad, actually, what are we gonna do?

It's not only the street layouts. In order to get the Transit tax there are minimum requirements for service. As others here point out frequently we all benefit from transit users. I agree truly rural residents should get a pass but exurban suburbs where they are driving to the city certainly shouldn't. Changing that is difficult with the exurbs looking at a huge tax increase and councillors willing to die in a ditch over it. Sutcliffe does have strong mayor powers though and could change that rule not so much with the purpose of raising taxes but saving some of the wasted dollars on those routes.

[rocketphish]

City council backs mayor's Fairness for Ottawa campaign amid bleak financial outlook
Without a doubt, the most challenging part has been transit.

Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen
Published Sep 04, 2024 • Last updated 3 hours ago • 5 minute read

City council threw its support behind Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s “Fairness for Ottawa” campaign Wednesday after hearing a long and detailed accounting of the city’s financial outlook, particularly the red-soaked books of OC Transpo.

Council voted unanimously in favour of a motion to support the campaign and to petition the federal and provincial governments to pay their fair share of the city’s costs.

“This is about fairness. It’s simply about fairness,” Sutcliffe said. “As a council, it’s absolutely critical that we are united in our call to other levels of government.”

As she introduced the nearly two-hour staff presentation, City Manager Wendy Stephanson described the past several years as “amongst the most challenging the city has ever faced.”

Without a doubt, the most challenging part has been transit. In just a year since council’s last detailed briefing on OC Transpo’s financial future, its projected deficit over the next 25 years has grown by $2.3 billion. In a September 2023 briefing, OC Transpo’s deficit was forecast to be $6.6 billion by 2048. On Wednesday, Deputy Treasurer Isabelle Jasmin said that projection had grown to $8.9 billion.

The culprit? A single stroked-out line on OC Transpo’s balance sheet labelled “Federal Permanent Transit Funding” that a year ago the city thought would be worth $2.3 billion.

“The situation we’re in is the equivalent of buying a new house based on a salary that you were expecting to earn and a mortgage you can afford and then losing your job and living on a reduced income when at the same time interest rates are going up,” Jasmin told councillors.

For the LRT to make economic sense, OC Transpo forecasted a ridership of 112 million in 2023. The actual ridership in 2023 was 64 million, just 57 per cent of what’s needed. While other cities have seen ridership rebound after the COVID-19 pandemic, OC Transpo use hasn’t recovered largely because of the continued work-from-home policies for federal public servants.

That’s a double hit since those commuters pay full fare while many of the riders who have come back are students and other groups that have discounted fares. Overall, the decline of ridership cost OC Transpo $100 million in revenue in 2023 alone.

Fare freezes in 2020 and 2023 added another $430 million hit on expected revenue. In addition, the city’s below-inflation rate tax increases of 2.5 per cent for the past two years were less than the 3.5 per cent increases OC Transpo predicted and was banking on.

Meanwhile, the city is hamstrung by deals it struck with the federal and provincial government in which each would pay one-third of LRT construction costs. But, when costs ballooned and revenues plummeted, Ottawa residents were left holding the bag. While other cities negotiated deals where senior levels of government would carry all or nearly all of the cost of transit, Ottawa residents were stuck paying for more than half of its LRT.

Speaking to reporters after Wednesday’s meeting, Sutcliffe said the presentation underscored the need for his Fairness for Ottawa plea.

“Other levels of government support transit funding in other cities in ways that they do not support Ottawa,” he said.

“We have to address those challenges in our own internal work — which we are doing — but we can’t do it alone. We need the help from other levels of government and need to be treated fairly as a municipality and as Canada’s capital.”

City staff also laid out a list of euphemistically titled “Levers to Affordability”: short-term “levers” such as higher transit fares, a review of discounted fare policies, paid parking rates and “service alignment;” and long-term “levers” including development charges, sale of development rights and air rights on city land near transit stations, plus a new transit master plan.

But transit wasn’t the only bad news for councillors on Wednesday. Expanding on the mayor’s complaints earlier in the summer about how the federal government was stiffing the city on payments in lieu of taxes — PILTs — city staff staff did a deep dive on the issue. The city says that over the past five years it’s owed nearly $100 million on PILTs from federal properties, National Capital Commission lands, Crown corporations and some diplomatic properties. If the city has to make up that shortfall, it alone would mean a property tax increase of five per cent, city Chief Financial Officer Cyril Rogers told councillors.

If nothing changes, the city projects it will be shortchanged between $252 million and $445 million over the next decade in payments from roughly 1,000 PILT properties.

On the positive side, the report showed the work that had been done to cut city expenses. Administrative costs in Ottawa have been reduced to 5.3 per cent of the total budget compared to seven per cent in 2016, Stephanson said. Cost-cutting this year resulted in more than $153 million in savings, the equivalent of about a 7.5-per-cent tax levy, she said.

But, even as city council was boosting its argument for more federal money, the federal political scene shifted Wednesday with news that the NDP was ending its supply-and-confidence agreement to support Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal agenda.

Sutcliffe was asked how that might affect his Fairness for Ottawa campaign.

“I can’t make decisions based on what’s happening at the federal level,” he told reporters. “I can only appeal to whatever government is power to give Ottawa our fair share of support and funding.”

The federal government’s plans to shed many of its Ottawa properties “could be the biggest change to our downtown in a century or longer,” Sutcliffe said.

“Whoever is in government needs to partner with us on a transition plan. One of the reasons I felt there was an urgency to deliver this message in August was that we know that, some time in the next year or 14 months, there’s going to be a federal election. I didn’t want to wait around to be talking about this.”

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/city-council-backs-mayors-fairness-ottawa-campaign

[Richard Eade]

So, the Mayor and Council basically say “We don’t need more money. We’ll do everything with less. Therefore, we only need a 2.5% property tax increase – even though everything we do has gone up by 10%.”

Then they complain that they are not getting enough money from upper levels of government to do all the things that they want to do. That’s rich.

I’m with Sudds on this. The City needs to get its act together. This Mayor has been a disaster. I declare a Mayoral Crisis!

Any money that comes from upper levels, has already had a slice removed for their ‘handling’ of it. Having the Federal or Provincial government tax us, then take a cut, then pass it on to the City is crazy. The City itself needs to charge property taxpayers what it costs to provide the services.

Remember when this Mayor-to-be said that he was going to look at every line in the budget; that there had to be lots of slack there? Well, what ever came of that?

It has been said time and time again; the City needs to get back to basics and charge the property taxpayers the real cost of them.

What would you consider to be CORE SERVICES for the City? Mine are (in no particular order):

• Garbage and recycling, pick up and proper disposal;
• Roads, creation and proper maintenance of them;
• Public Transit, create and operate a usable, efficient, and reasonably-priced system;
• Planning and Zoning; so that the city grows in a desirable way;
• Emergency Services, to handle policing, fire, and medical calls without undue delay;
• Provide, and man, appropriate Recreational facilities at a reasonable cost to users; and
• Actively Beautify the city.

[J.OT13]

Sutcliffe has been a disaster. The only "efficiencies" he found was in public transit, cutting funding to events (like the Tulip festival, wasn't this guy supposed to be the tourism mayor?) and the secure bike parking budget.

Taxes should absolutely go up with inflation. I remember Sutcliffe almost calling McKenney a radical because they wanted to raise taxes by a whole 3%.