Parking, transit hikes at cross purposes

Opinion

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This article was published 13/12/2017 (2324 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At first glance, it seems like the most illogical of fiscal strategies.

The City of Winnipeg’s 2018 budget, which was passed Tuesday by council, includes two significant rate hikes whose rationales are obvious but whose imposition is as contradictory as it is controversial.

Parking fees downtown will increase dramatically, with the hourly rate for on-street parking set to jump $1.50 on April 1. One of the reasons for implementing higher costs for parking is to discourage single-occupant vehicle use and encourage Winnipeggers to use alternative modes of transportation. Simply put, making it more expensive to park will prompt some downtown-bound drivers to leave their cars at home.

Topping that list of other-modes options, of course, would be public transit. But as anyone with even a fleeting familiarity with civic politics and recent heated debates is aware, the cost of riding Winnipeg’s buses is also about to rise dramatically. Next year, Winnipeg Transit’s single-ride adult fare will jump 25 cents (as opposed to the customary five-cent hike in recent years), to $2.95 from $2.70.

Rock, meet hard place. Increased-cost inducement, meet price-hiked deterrent.

There’s no small irony in the fact the extra-large increase in parking rates — $1.50, as opposed to an originally proposed $1-per-hour hike — includes a late-addition 50-cent charge whose revenues will pre-empt the need to reduce service on more than 22 transit routes. Council floated the idea of scaling back service on low-ridership routes, but amended its proposed budget last week after fierce lobbying from groups opposed to cutting city bus services.

Downtown stakeholders tend to favour the parking-rate hike, because increased “churn” at streetside meters is better for business, but there’s danger of a diminishing-returns result when the cost of parking rises so steeply in a single step.

It has all the earmarks of a lose/lose situation, in which Mayor Brian Bowman’s oft-repeated desire to make Winnipeg’s downtown a more vibrant place (with a pedestrian-welcoming Portage and Main at its heart) will at least be partially dampened by budgetary measures that give city residents a few more reasons to stay at home in the sprawling suburbs.

But before anyone gets too critical of Mr. Bowman and his city council counterparts for endorsing a fiscal plan that’s at cross purposes with itself, it’s worth remembering that civic politicians and administrators received a couple of dollar-draining jolts late in their budget preparation process and were left scrambling to finalize their plan in time for Tuesday’s vote.

First came the province’s announcement that it would no longer honour the long-standing agreement to fund transit on a 50-50 cost-sharing basis, which civic officials said would result in a $10-million shortfall.

More recently, the province also informed the city it intends to end another cost-sharing deal, freezing the funding it provides for ambulance service at 2016 levels for this year and next, creating another red-ink line of $2.5 million for this year and $4.6 million for 2018.

Time was tight, and belts had to be tightened. Mr. Bowman says the overall 2018 budget “builds Winnipeg for the future,” but how much downtown traffic is included in that fiscally restrained forecast remains to be seen.