Transit fares are going up. Why do Canadian cities struggle to keep it affordable?

With transit fares on the rise in a number of Canadian cities, some experts say it’s time to rethink how we fund public transportation.

Calgary hiked fares from $3.80 to $4 per ride earlier this month, and Ottawa just approved an increase of 10 cents, to $4.10. 

Earlier this year, Edmonton raised cash fares from $3.50 to $3.75 in February, while Victoria jumped from $2.50 to $3 in March and Vancouver went up from $3.20 to $3.35 in July.

The rising fares are a reflection of mounting pressures on transit systems.

Energy, maintenance and labour costs are up, while gas tax revenues that help fund public transit are declining, due in part to more electric and energy-efficient vehicles.

Meanwhile, transit organizations are still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, when ridership and fare revenues plummeted. Emergency government funds have dried up and ridership hasn't fully returned to pre-pandemic rates — in April, it had rebounded to 84.2 per cent of April 2019 numbers, according to Statistics Canada.

While this is a global problem, experts say Canada has additional challenges with urban sprawl and generally low population densities making it hard to keep routes in the black.

But while transit operators are feeling the pinch, Canadians are also struggling with rising costs of living, and the more fares go up, the more people can't afford to get around their own cities. 

“The easiest thing to do is to raise your fares to increase your revenue, but what that does structurally to society is really bad,” said Lawrence Frank, urban studies and planning professor at the University of California, San Diego, and president of Urban Design 4 Health, a research and consulting firm that works with government agencies.

Frank says some transit operators in Canada don’t really have a choice under current funding models, because they have to fund a certain percentage of their operations through fares. Passenger fares cover an average of 59 per cent of public transit costs in Canada.

But he says hiking fares threatens to reduce ridership and “price people off the system,” which predominantly impacts people who are low income and have no other options.

Frank, who studied the links between transit use and health at the University of British Columbia, says it’s time to change the framework we use to assess the value of transit, so it factors in health and social benefits that come from greater equity, reduced sedentary behaviour and less air pollution.

His research has found that using transit instead of driving reduces likelihood of obesity and other health concerns. 

“We simply can't have and create sustainable, healthy communities without transit,” he said.