‘The realm of free transit:’ How the politics of public transit trickle into local post-secondaries

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In an automobile-dependent society that spends millions of dollars on cars each year, the transportation system in B.C. would need to catch up with the vastly growing population, says Marc Lee, a senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

For about 875,000 individuals who use transit every day, “the realm of free transit is the way to go.”

In a report released last year, TransLink recorded a funding gap of approximately $600 million. To bridge this gap, the transportation authority might cut service in half while reducing SkyTrain and SeaBus trips and terminating the West Coast Express. 

The gap is a result of a decline in revenue from fuel taxes due to the increased use of electric and hybrid vehicles. TransLink faced a shortfall of $34 million in fuel-tax revenue in 2023 when compared to 2022.

Other reasons for the dip in funding include inflation and increasing costs of construction, labour, fuel, and maintenance. After the hold on fare increases in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, its continuation – 2.3 per cent each year since then — has been held at levels below inflation from 2021 to 2024. 

To keep up with a growing population in the coming years, Lee says it is wise to not triple the number of cars on the road. Expanding transit, he adds, is the only way to get people out of their vehicles. 

However, the biggest question transit users are often faced with is how to pay for mobility. Public transit is often free to children below 12 years of age and discounted for teenagers and seniors in B.C. 

Lee also highlights a report released by TransLink to introduce a special pass for low-income households, something that can be used before making the system cost-free. 

He says to make transit eventually free, it is important to expand the system first. 

Lee does not own a car and gets around by biking, walking, and transit wherever he needs to be. When necessary, he rents a car or Evo. While he lives in central Vancouver, where transit is reliable, he says some people might not be able to make the same choices. 

“People who may live in a more suburban area may not be able to make that choice as easily, but some people just have to because of the cost of living,” he says. “Not everyone can afford to own a car.”

Transit fares account for 30 per cent of TransLink’s total revenue. U-Pass programs, which post-secondary students pay for as part of their school fees, are included in this revenue. Aside from this, TransLink also receives money from taxes, including the fuel tax, among others. 

“TransLink does actually have a number of revenue tools that it can use to bridge the gap that they’re facing,” Lee says. “But they want the provincial government to pay for it instead … because no one wants to raise taxes, so it’s easier if the provincial government does it instead of them.”

Lee also says in terms of the deficit, a “political game” is ongoing between TransLink and the provincial government. 

Elizabeth Spencer-Spreeuw has been using transit for about 10 years. As a fourth-year anthropology student at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, she says it would be easier if transit was more accessible for her as a person with a disability

Spencer-Spreeuw has to take three different buses to get to school. The bus service and schedules, she says, are sometimes unreliable. 

“I’ve been late to class because the bus just didn’t show up, or two will show up in a row.” 

The commute to KPU usually takes Spencer-Spreeuw two hours every day. While she finds the U-Pass useful since it offers transit to students at a discounted rate, Spencer-Spreeuw says “it feels like it’s free, but I’m actually paying for it.” 

The U-Pass program in B.C., which has been implemented in 10 post-secondary institutions in Metro Vancouver like the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and KPU, is a partnership between the province and TransLink to give students access to transit services at a discounted rate.

Spencer-Spreeuw lives on the route for the Surrey Langley SkyTrain extension, which is anticipated to be complete by 2028, and is looking forward to its completion for a smoother commute. 

Chuang Yuhsuan, a business student at KPU, spends about 40 minutes commuting to the university’s Surrey campus each day. 

She says she would like transit to be made free for post-secondary students since they spend a significant amount of time and money on transit.

The commute is especially difficult for her since she commutes to campus from within Surrey and still spends almost an hour and half on the bus every day. 

Like Lee, David Sadoway, an urban planner, environmental manager, and instructor in the geography and environment department at KPU, does not own a car. 

Having lived in Asia and Europe, Sadoway has seen transit systems around the world. His areas of interest include looking at transit as a solution to climate change at the municipal and local level and comparative urbanism. 

“Whenever I talk about climate change, I inevitably come back to talking about transit, mostly because students see that as a really practical thing,” he says. “They’re aware of it because many students have taken advantage … of the U-Pass.”

Sadoway says many student organizations and associations across the province view the idea of reduced transit fares as a way of getting around owning a car. 

“That is actually a good kind of pilot. We’ve been doing it now for probably 10 to 15 years in the Lower Mainland, and the idea is quite successful.”

Sadoway says there has been resistance in supporting the idea of reduced transit fares at a suburban university like KPU due to the way the city is laid out. Surrey, when compared to downtown Vancouver or the West End where people prefer walking, is laid out in a more “car-oriented” way. 

“That’s a good example of how the politics of public transit sort of play out on a bigger scale.”

This is the reason why more students might be more concerned with the cost of parking and gas than the cost of transit and support the idea of bigger parking lots versus reduced transit fees, Sadoway says.  

A behavioural change is required in society if we need more people to make a shift towards using public transit, he adds. 

Another way to look at the transit problem is to consider the climate crisis, he says, which makes up for 20 to 25 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions in every major city in Canada.

While electrifying the modes of transportation would help reduce this problem to a certain extent, it wouldn’t necessarily solve the layout problem in major cities. This presents a “suburban versus downtown” problem, Sadoway says, which is when growth isn’t centred at the core of the city, but in suburbs.

“If you look at Metro Vancouver, it’s Surrey, Langley, and up the valley. If you look at Toronto, it’s in the Peel Region and York Region. If you look at Montreal, it’s the same thing, it’s Laval and Longueuil,” he says. “It’s the outer areas, not the old, inner city.”

This is why politicians often tend to cater to suburban areas and adopt a “car-driver mentality,” Sadoway says. 

“That’s why the whole ‘axe-the-tax’ push gets a lot of play in certain places in Canada,” he adds. “If we continue to expand and make things cheaper for car drivers and build more roads … we’re really not solving the long-term question about climate change, local air pollution, and livability.” 

While we don’t have the capacity and infrastructure to make transit free overnight, Sadoway says it is important to look into the social behaviour and economics of free transit to phase it in, as is improving the capacity and funding of the transit system in B.C.

“[We] could do it for free, but where are you going to get the funding from? It always goes back to that.”

Sadoway says the government can ultimately move towards free transit in the long term through a series of pilot experiments similar to the U-Pass in post-secondary institutions, which has been “wildly successful” in urban-university settings. 

While there isn’t a U-Pass for faculty at KPU, they get access to discounted parking, Sadoway says, adding universities should also offer employees discounted transit. 

Free transit may make sense on a philosophical and ethical basis, he says, but having it free in a certain part of the city might be more effective in addressing the problem universally and breaking stigmas people might associate with transit. 

“[For] anyone, whether you’re rich or poor, old or young, in this part of the city, [transit] is free. People then begin to see it as a right, rather than a privilege or something you have to demand or beg for.”

When looking at the effects of inflation, transit is often overlooked, Sadoway adds, which is often a basic necessity for some individuals. 

Roads typically make up 30 per cent of the land use in most cities, and getting more people to use transit rather than driving would help create more compact cities and penetrate more transit-oriented development, he says. To do this, transit needs to be made more affordable, safer, and frequent.

“There’s a lot of things that need to change, but all of that needs money and funding,” Sadoway says. “So what we really need is the government to take a concerted approach to this.