July 18, 2016

Pachal's 2016 Transit Report Card

2016 Transit Report Card of Major Canadian Regions

  • Montreal transit leads in the nation
  • Metro Vancouver maintains “A” grade

Public transit is a critical component of the transportation network of major Canadian urban regions. How, though, do our transit systems perform?
While this information is available, it hasn’t been easily accessible to the average Canadian. This is why Nathan Pachal, with the help of urban planner Paul Hillsdon, launched a Transit Report Card of Major Canadian Regions last year.
Pachal 2“This is what technical reports should aspire to: lots of comparative data distilled into easy-to-grasp results that’s easy to read,” Gordon Price, director of the City Program at SFU states.
“People are very passionate about transit,” say Pachal, “and that leads to very strong opinions about transit service providers. Unfortunately, many of these opinions are based on purely anecdotal evidence. These transit reports card, however, provide an evidence-based evaluation of transit service.”
New in this year’s report card is a section tracking national median metrics. The operating cost of providing transit service slightly increased between 2013 and 2014 due to inflationary pressures (2014 is the most recent year for which complete data is available.)
Transit service hours also slightly decreased which resulted in a slight decrease in passenger trips per capita. Passenger Trip Intensity slightly increased at a national level meaning that transit agencies in Canada’s major urban regions have become more efficient.
“Investing in transit service is of critical importance,” Pachal states. “In 2014, investment in new transit service hours did not keep up with population growth. With a new federal government, there has been renewed interest in investing in public transit projects. Equally important is investment in on-going operations costs.
This, of course, takes the leadership of provincial and local governments.” Montreal was the only region in Canada to see an increase in its grade as its operating cost per service hour came in line with other regions in Canada.
The Montreal region is by far the best performing major region in Canada. Metro Vancouver was the only other region to maintain its “A” grade. TransLink continues to provide the most efficient transit service of the regions evaluated. While TransLink has the highest operating cost per service hour, because it is also one of the most efficient agencies, it has a lower operating cost per trip compared to the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area.
Nathan Pachal was the founder of South Fraser OnTrax and transit commentator. He was elected to Langley City Council this year. 
 
Pachal 3

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Comments

  1. Vancouver’s report card seems to single out “Passenger Intensity” as having improved due to recent efforts to optimize service as if that’s an unabashed good thing. But there’s a downside – shifting bus service so that it focuses on the high volume routes comes at the expense of coverage. So it denies or degrades the service available to many people.
    Jarrett Walker’s “Human Transit” blog explains the dichotomy here: http://humantransit.org/2009/12/yet-another-transit-isnt-green-because-of-empty-buses-story.html

  2. It would be a much better, more useful, ranking as outlined above if Pachal had put in two metrics such as % of population within 800m of 15min or less 16hr per day transit and within 1km of both of any transit. He completely misses the coverage side, (e.g. social justice, transit accessibility, etc.) of public transit.
    This is the public sector. The public sector has goals other than making as much money as possible with as little cost as possible like the private sector. Financials are important, and it is one of the sticks the CTF uses to discredit Translink. However, if you aren’t measuring all of the goals of the service, only a subset of them, then you’re distorting the public’s view of the system’s effectiveness regardless of any claims you make in TV interviews or on podcasts. This ranking is not entirely fair-minded and biased towards a neo-liberal world view as a result.

    1. Are you sure? I do not think that the law that Translink operates by describes any societal philosophical obligations you imagine. Correct me please, with legal reference, if I am wrong.

        1. Yes, I looked through the Act. It does not mention any obligations related to social-justice or accessibility, as I suspected. So Nathan’s commentary stands, without the need for subjective embellishments or tabulations because these are outside of TransLink’s mandate – as says the law.

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