Transit Committee
2010 Budget Estimate Highlights

Transit Accomplishments Toward City Strategic Plan – To Date

Measured against the City Strategic Plan approved in 2007, the City has succeeded in many areas:

• Developed the 2008 Transportation Master Plan
• Identified the future Rapid Transit Network Plan and held extensive public consultations
• Initiated the Downtown Ottawa Transit Tunnel (DOTT) planning and environmental assessment
• Developed a Fleet Management Plan that resulted in the double-decker bus trial, adding 177 hybrid buses to the fleet, and increasing accessible buses to 75 per cent of the fleet
• Completed a Strategic Branch Review for Transit Services and established 11 key policy standards to improve the customer experience and quality of service delivery
• Increased the quality and safety of public transit through many initiatives, including:
• Customer surveys
• Mystery shopper program
• New marketing plan
• Maintenance process improvements
• Comprehensive monitoring of bus availability and on-street service reliability
• New security protocol for enhanced response by Transit Operations and Transit Law
• Refreshed the Transit Vehicle Emission Strategy to stay current with emerging technologies
• Reviewed bus fleet maintenance standards and processes to achieve 90 per cent fleet availability

2010 Transit Budget Highlights

The Transit budget provides for the consolidation of growth of the transit system following the 2008-09 transit strike. It also provides for a fare increase that will achieve the Council-mandated movement toward 50/50 sharing of costs between taxpayers and transit users. The estimates include a substantial expenditure to deal with pension funding liability.

The 2010 estimates include a list of options for discussion that may decrease or modestly increase the overall budget.

The budget estimates ensure that the City can move forward on continuously enhancing public transit, at a sustainable cost to both taxpayers and transit users.

In general, 2010 budget pressures stem from contract agreements including the arbitrated settlement of the 2008-2010 contract with ATU Local 279, providing service to an expanded transit system in order to serve new and growing communities, increasing demand for service on many existing routes despite the general economic downturn, inflationary increases, fuel cost stabilization, and mandated payments. These pressures are partially offset by savings found through corporate reorganization and service excellence initiatives, and by provincial infrastructure stimulus funding.

Some key highlights of the operating budget include:

• A continuation of the planned 5.7 per cent increase in service hours (64K hours) to a total of 2.7M service hours, based on September 2009 service changes and no new service for 2010.
• A projected ridership increase of 1.7 per cent for 2010 excluding the effect of the decline in ridership as result of the strike.
• A fare increase in July of an average 7.5 per cent, reflecting the third and final year of Council-mandated movement, under the fiscal framework, toward 50/50 sharing of costs between taxpayers and transit users. This will raise an additional $4.8M in passenger revenue.
• Growth in the number of available Para Transpo trips by an additional 2 per cent, reflecting continuous growth in demand for Para Transpo service as the population ages.
• A required increase in employer-funded pension plan payments of $8.1M, as a result of the current economic conditions.
• Included in budget options is a possible further increase in Para Transpo trips, and funding to initiate a university student pass.
• Fare enforcement will be re-established in order to protect revenue.
• Transit Services will focus on stabilizing the organization by finalizing the integration of employees transferred from Stores, Fleet and Facility Maintenance and by completing the review of the Bus Fleet Maintenance standards and processes to achieve 90 per cent availability of the fleet.
• A $9.4M efficiency target for 2010, which will be accomplished through improved scheduling, Fleet Maintenance reorganization and fuel savings.

2010 Transit Budget Estimate Numbers in Brief

Proposed Operating Budget
In thousands ($000)

Proposed Capital Budget authority of $257M, including:

• $80M for design work and property acquisition for the LRT system and rail yards.
• $35M to build the Southwest Transitway from Baseline to Norice.
• $34M to purchase 43 buses for growth of the service in 2011 once the economy rebounds.
• $30M to add 37 new replacement buses to the fleet, resulting in an improvement in the average age of the bus fleet from 6.7 years in 2009 to 6.2 years by the end of 2011.
• $5M to construct the pedestrian overpass over Hunt Club Road to South Keys station.
• $1.6M to implement the downtown transit network improvement project to improve platforms and provide real-time bus arrival information to passengers.

Next Steps

During late October and early November, each of the City’s standing committees will review and discuss program area budgets relevant to their mandates. See 2010 Budget Estimate Documents for exact dates for each committee and the relevant draft budget estimates.

The Transit draft budget estimates will be tabled and debated at the Transit Committee meeting on November 6. Anyone wishing to register as a delegation at Transit Committee can call Joel Monfils at 613-580-2424, ext. 26837 or by e-mail at joel.monfils@ottawa.ca.

Key budget dates following the Transit Committee meeting include:

November 17, 2009: All Committee draft budgets rise to Audit, Budget and Finance Committee

December 9, 2009: Consolidated 2010 draft budget tabled at Council

January 25-27, 2010: Committee of the Whole consideration and approval of the 2010 Budget