Who knew that a single line item amid over 100 others in the public budget discussion could cause such a stir?
When city councilors were going over the items to be discussed at their meeting on Monday, Nov. 30, line item CFM-11 – stating, “reset student transit rate structure,” – raised more than a few eyebrows amongst Guelph’s political representatives.
When asked by councilors to clarify the line item, new transit manager Michael Anders used words such as, “renegotiate,” “re-examine,” and “look at the terms,” to describe the action to be taken on the current universal bus pass system. Councilors left the meeting under the impression that any kind of renegotiation would only be to bring high school students into the ‘universality’ picture. According to councilors, there was no interpretation that transit staff planned to eliminate the plan altogether.
And then the dialogue began and the truth came out.
It turns out that the concept of ‘renegotiation’ was merely transit’s plan to sugarcoat the real truth behind CFM-11. This was clearly a cost-cutting measure and the 20,000 university students were going to be the ones being asked to dig even a little deeper into our already relatively empty pockets.
Bringing high school students into the foray of universal public transit is among one of the explanations being offered for the policy change, but let’s compare apples with apples here; university and high school students are hardly equal points of comparison. ‘Equalization’ is one thing, but ‘elimination’ is a whole new ball game.
Make no mistake, the concept of a universal transit system is an admirable and ambitious goal, but as this editorial column has done on numerous occasions now, our criticism is not the message, but rather, the method.
The accessibility and affordability of Guelph’s public transit system is among the best, if not the best in a municipality of its size. For years now, the award-winning system has been lauded by outsiders and provided the city of Guelph with a real accomplishment to hang its hat on.
As one city councilor wondered incredulously, “Why would we put that (reputation) at risk? Instead of taking away a working system that is strongly supported by the population that benefits from it, let’s think the other way and think about how we can bring in the rest of our citizens.”
Perhaps we, as students, have an existing deal that during these recessionary times, is just too good to be true. Perhaps our comfort with the existing affordability and accessibility is something that we take for granted.
But regardless of our current attitudes, transit staff’s consideration of eliminating the current system altogether is a ridiculous initiative to save a mere $300,000, especially given the plethora of ‘unknowns’ that could surface if the policy change moves forward.
Among the consequences of eliminating the service that must be considered is the increase in drunk driving, air pollution and the greater density of students that will live close to campus, as well as the necessity of more residential and university parking, and most obviously, the decrease in ridership.
Again, I repeat, this is all to save $300,000, and this figure was determined from Guelph Transit’s belief that eliminating the existing system for university students will only cause a 25 per cent decrease in ridership. Forgive us for being pessimistic, but given the approximately 7, 500 students who have already joined the Facebook group against the initiative, not to mention the thousands of concerned emails sent to city councilors, I think that the 25 per cent figure is among the most blatant understatements we’ve heard. To be frank, Guelph Transit is making inroads to not only alienate its largest customer base, but also to stray from Guelph’s long-term objectives of increased ridership and environmental sustainability. Something tells us that students simply won’t stand for that.