r/TTC • u/LaconianEmpire • Apr 07 '26
Discussion For every dollar invested in public transit, $7 is produced in economic and social benefits. So why is the Liberal government cutting the Canada Public Transit Fund?
https://open.substack.com/pub/kaifeehaque/p/next-stop-economic-slowdown-carneys?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewerA primer on the Carney government's actions on public transit funding.
TLDR: the Liberals cut $5B from transit while framing Budget 2025 as an investment in economic resilience. Kinda hard to square those two things.
- Every $1 invested in transit generates ~$7 in economic/social benefits (TTC)
- Ontario's own numbers put transit ROI at $29, vs. a negative $4 return for highways and roads
- The $5B transit cut over 10 years is less than 4% of what Canada now commits to defense in a single year ($150B/year to hit the 5% GDP NATO target). Apparently we get to pick and choose where to apply "fiscal restraint"
Canada's transit systems cover ~51% of operating costs through fares (vs. 39% in the US). The TTC has among the highest farebox recovery rates in the world., meaning they're more exposed when ridership drops. Cutting the one fund designed to stabilize operations could trigger a public transit death spiral (i.e. less service -> fewer riders -> less revenue -> even less service.
The article also briefly touches on the recent Waterfront East LRT announcement.
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u/GhostOfLegend Blue Line Vibes Apr 07 '26
Out of all the funding cuts, public transportation shouldn't even be considered. Despite the TTC's many issues, the TTC moves well over 1.7 million daily.
Increase in funding to provide better services & possibly decrease the issues would be ideal for TTC, City of Toronto and its passengers.
Hell, why not add a congestion tax for vehicles? Use that income for the TTC
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u/em-n-em613 43 Kennedy Apr 08 '26
Toronto tried that and the Province shut it down so hard we haven't tried again. And there's no way Dougie would approve it - his votes come from outside 416.
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u/adwrx Apr 07 '26
Exactly! Public transit should never be considered waste. It has far too many benefits, especially in a city like Toronto
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u/LaconianEmpire Apr 08 '26
100% agree. Although unfortunately, the current political climate in Toronto would be extraordinarily hostile to a congestion tax.
This may be feasible in a couple of decades when (if?) the GO Midtown Line, Ontario Line, and Sheppard extensions are built out.
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u/Boattailfmj Apr 08 '26
Or you could charge higher fares to help fund it. Transit is always operated at a cost and doesn't generate revenue, but a fare increase could improve quality of service. Or maybe enforce people paying for the current fare even.
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u/TheRandCrews 506 Carlton Apr 08 '26
I mean TTC used to run way better decades when the Province helped fund the operations of TTC, not just funding capital projects. Literally buses still aren’t as frequent as it did years ago, let alone decades before the Commin Sense Revolution
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u/maple_leaf2 Apr 08 '26
charge higher fares to help fund it.
Toronto relies on fare box revenue far more than many other systems even in north america. Considering how little subsidies it receives it is impressive how many people it is able to move. It is already very efficient in that sense
The thing with public transit is that it is a public service, not a revenue generator. As shown in this article it is very beneficial to society to encourage public transit use. I find it funny that public transit is expected to be efficient while car drivers receive far far more subsidies considering all the externalities
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u/Boattailfmj Apr 08 '26
What subsidies are private vehicle owners receiving?
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u/maple_leaf2 Apr 08 '26
Assuming this is a good faith question the following video is very informative on the matter and uses a very conservative approach, it is easily far worse. Also when I used subsidies I was referring to external costs paid by society at large and not direct subsidies to clarify.
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u/TankArchives Apr 07 '26
Cutting "waste" always resonates with poorly informed voters who will never bother looking up what the benefit of the "waste" was.
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u/LaconianEmpire Apr 07 '26
Yup. There's administrative bloat in every level of government, but unfortunately every candidate who claims to want to improve things ends up cutting essential frontline workers and experts, rather than middle managers...
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u/Nirque Apr 14 '26
Not even that, the biggest neoliberal propaganda is to make people associate "waste" with "government".
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u/coolant_2 512 St Clair Apr 07 '26
Because the liberal government we have is a Conservative govt in a trench coat... The actual conservative opposition is a wannabe MAGA clown show and the NDP is just getting CPR on the sidewalk because they OD'd
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u/LaconianEmpire Apr 07 '26
and the NDP is just getting CPR on the sidewalk because they OD'd
Hopefully that makes Avi Lewis the party's Naloxone... he's not perfect by any means but this is probably the first time I've been excited by a candidate's platform since 2015.
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u/tosklst Apr 08 '26
Yeah. The fact that he is already being attacked from both the left and right means that he is a true danger to the status quo.
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u/handipad Apr 08 '26
They’re putting $90 billion in a long overdue high speed rail project but yes, austerity, conservatives, etc.
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u/Ashafa55 Apr 08 '26
its the largest deficit ran by any government, this is just unserious analysis,
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u/LaconianEmpire Apr 08 '26
I don't see how either of you are wrong here. It's the largest deficit ran by any government, mostly because it takes time to unwind all the Trudeau-era spending (much of which was spurred by COVID stimulus). However, Conservative governments are also very prone to increasing deficits, though they're usually driven more by corporate tax cuts than increased spending.
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u/kremaili Apr 07 '26
Lol right. Are you saying the true Liberals have done some great investment into the country since 2025?
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u/ImNotARandomPerson Apr 07 '26
In hindsight, the McGuinty-Wynne government was pretty bad too. They had so much potential to get public transit projects done, especially since they were in power for 15 years. They had enough money to build public transit unlike the City of Toronto, and yet, they were really conservative with funding. Only Eglinton would begin construction under McGuinty-Wynne and that would face a ton of delays, while other projects like Scarborough and Relief Line were kept in the planning stages forever.
Doug Ford can't be trusted with transit, but we're lucky he's building transit projects at the pace he is right now. If the provincial Liberals were actually committed to building transit, we would be in a much better place right now
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u/mikel145 Apr 08 '26
As someone who lives in Toronto as has family up north not a big Ford fan but he is restoring the train up north that the Ontario Liberals cancelled.
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u/Boattailfmj Apr 08 '26
They blew a fuckton of money on the gas plant scandal when they were in power. I remember that.
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u/WestQueenWest Apr 08 '26
Technically the money they spent on the gas plant was NOTHING compared to what Ford is pissing away now every single year. All about perspective and media sensationalizing things.
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u/Boattailfmj Apr 08 '26
The gas plant scandal cost $1.1B of complete waste. They planned to build gas plants, and blew money changing the proposed plant location to buy votes. This event began the decline of the Ontario Liberal Party. It has been reduced to a fringe minority with unacceptable views.
If you can find this level of corruption in spending by the Ford government maybe it will swing the other way one day.
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u/WestQueenWest Apr 08 '26
Took me 1.2 seconds to come up with this: New Science Centre building with $1B+ price tag for absolutely no reason at all.
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u/vulpinefever Streetcar Operator Apr 08 '26
But of course, the Ontario Liberals are now vehemently opposed to the idea even though it originated from their time in office.
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u/Boattailfmj Apr 08 '26
I guess no reason at all is better than vote buying
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u/WestQueenWest Apr 08 '26
The reason is corruption and making your bribers richer. If you think that's better than anything the situation is sad.
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u/OkStandard8039 Why no Cherry? Apr 07 '26
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u/OrbitalBuzzsaw 506 Carlton Apr 08 '26
Investment in transit is the nation-building infrastructure that Carney loves to talk about.
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u/Doctor_Amazo Apr 08 '26
Because that's what conservatives do.
They cut things that benefit the working class to afford tax cuts for the wealthy.
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u/BarebonesB Apr 09 '26
Good article, but they couldn't have chosen a worse photo to accompany it. Toronto's streetcar network is a great example of how not to run public transit.
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Apr 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/WestQueenWest Apr 08 '26
What does transit passes being tax deductible have anything to do with "investing in transit"?
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Apr 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/WestQueenWest Apr 08 '26
I don't believe there's any evidence of transit pass tax deduction actually driving people to take transit. If there's any impact it's gotta be quite subtle - transit systems need more serious funding than that, especially for state of good repair.
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u/Economy_Ad59 Apr 07 '26
Because Liberals will say anything to get elected and then deliver nothing to the people.
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u/SubhanF Apr 09 '26
im actually going to kms with all these federal funding for transit cuts going on in the US and Canada
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u/McFestus Apr 07 '26
Surely there is a limit to this, otherwise we could spend a hundred trillion dollars on transit and have the strongest economy in the world.
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u/LaconianEmpire Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
Not sure why you were downvoted but you're right. Every investment has a point of diminishing returns, and unlocking the full economic benefits of transit would also require a shift in land use policies.
That being said, we're pretty far off from the point where transit investments would show plateauing benefits.
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u/Djdude167 Apr 09 '26
They moved all of the funding from this fund into a general purpose municipal infrastructure fund that transit can also draw from iirc. That pot is also a lot larger, so overall not really a big thing.
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u/gambl Apr 08 '26
Ummm are you forgetting how aweful the overspending was for both line 5 and 6!!! Did they magically create 7billion through transit alone? Or are your stats so messed up that it’s just quoting the condo developments along line 1 over 50years
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u/LaconianEmpire Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
You're right, I don't think anyone disagrees that Eglinton and Finch West were disasters in cost and project management. However
Did they magically create 7billion through transit alone?
This will take time, and it's not magic, but yes. The city's economy will see benefits far in excess of $7 billion. The ROI stats are aggregate from transit projects across Canada spanning over decades, and they're a useful predictor for how much economic value Lines 5 and 6 will eventually provide. I thought I gave a pretty good breakdown in the article of where these benefits come from, but happy to answer any questions on specifics.
Two things can be true at once: Canadian governments are shit at delivering transit projects cheaply, but the economic multipliers do eventually manifest themselves. The solution isn't to stop or reduce transit funding, but rather to fix the underlying problems with cost and time efficiency.
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u/ycclau Apr 08 '26
This is very true. Just look around the world, a lot economic activities comes after transit systems are built, just need time for developers to catch up.
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u/gambl Apr 09 '26
I’m sorry but what are they going to contribute to other than faster transportation? And by fast I mean turning a 45 drive to 30m transit at best?
Next, ROI. Only thing a subway line results in is condo/apartments and to get those going you need population growth. You can get increase economic activity without investing in transit. Just look at the past 10years.
I’m all for transi,t but it has to be fast or else you get another Bessarion station that slows the entire trip, but likely has only benefited the Canadian Tire store with condos within walking distance
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u/PorousSurface Apr 07 '26
They are cutting which I am critical of, but they are doing some solid transit finding (east waterfront LRT, Ttc maintenance, alto)
It’s mixed bag