[This is a transcript of the portion of the 2009/03/10 AM980 'Jim Chapman Newshour' segment in which he ranted about LTC]


There's an interesting editorial in the London Free Press today, London's largest English-language daily newspaper by Paul Berton... It's called 'Point Of View.' And the headline says 'Lavishing TLC On LTC would benefit our city' and Paul talks about the need to put more money into public transit...

I'm not opposed to public transit, I just think it's problematic, and here's why... Here is the problem with public transit. The public doesn't want to use it. And it really is a problem.

"Oh no, Jim, they want to use it, they really do! The LTC does a great job, as Paul points out they're very efficient..."

I don't know if they're efficient or not. To be honest with you, I don't know.

He said "they're very efficient, one of the best-run operations of it's kind in the province" and it wouldn't surprise me, Larry Ducharme's a pretty smart guy. So that does not surprise me. I wouldn't take issue with that.

"They recently hiked fares by 8% and got a 5.6% increase in the city's transit allocation and still can't keep up with the growing demand."

Now here's what I don't understand. Transit riders pay 58% of the LTC's operating costs...and that's held out to be a good thing. That's more than Hamilton, Ottawa and York Region for example.

Paul goes on to say London Transit is underfunded. Underfunded? I have to stop for a second and think about that.

So, what you're saying to me on the one hand is that public transit is a good idea because it saves the price of... you don't have to buy a car... saves the cost of parking, repairs and insurance.

Never mind the roads because the buses are tough on the roads too. But, I guess one bus is probably less harmful to the road than the 20-30 cars... I don't know about that. Take roads out of the equation for a second.

So if people are saving all this money, why are they so resistant to fare hikes? Why are they so resistant?

The LTC and Mr. Berton here are calling for serious increases in the amount of money that the city gives to subsidize the service. In other words, to pay part of your ticket to get on the bus.

They don't subsidize your car. If you want to drive your car you pay the full pot. And that's okay, I understand that. I'm prepared to pay the full pot to drive my car. I'm prepared to do that.

The issue of pollution - well, I know that we work very hard to make new cars as pollution-free as possible but we're still not there. Is it a problem? On hot days in the city it's a problem, I agree. But that's part and parcel of living in a modern city. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to improve it we should and we are and we should do more, but reality is that we are what we are and we have to live with that.

So, they want... the City... the City should seriously increase it's support of London Transit because London Transit says that their demand is just getting to be too high... can't keep up with growing demand. 

Well, I don't understand exactly... what you mean you can't keep up with growing demand and yet... people of London are paying 58% of the bus ride. Well, make them pay more. Raise the rates!

How much does it cost to get on the bus? I don't even know, I haven't been on it in years. Is it a couple of bucks?

[ed: interjection by unknown staff] "We did the story the other day. I think it's around $2.75."

So make it 5 bucks. Make it 5 bucks. "5 bucks! Are you out of your mind? For a bus ride? Make it 5 bucks. Oh, he's really lost it now!" 

Five dollars to take the bus. Is that too much money? Well, stop and think about it. If that's what it costs... and let's say for the sake of arguement... we're going to do a little pretend math here because we don't have the numbers... but we're going to assume that it's $2 to take the bus... and if that's 58% so that's 60% for the sake of arguement... so that means you divide 6 into that and that gives you 12... so, what's the actual cost? 3 bucks, for the sake of arguement. 3 bucks. So why isn't the fare 3 bucks? "Oh, well people won't pay that. They won't take the bus." Well, what'll they do then if they don't take the bus, will they get back in their cars? Maybe they do.

Well, if they've still got their cars, why are we subsidizing them to take the bus for heaven's sake?

If the bus is for people who don't have cars, then that's one thing. But if they don't have a car then they're saving all that money, aren't they? The price of a car, parking, repairs, insurance... So, why can't they afford to pay for the bus? Why should I subsidize somebody on the bus? Why should you subsidize them?

"Well, you know Jim, there are a lot of people who can't afford a car and the buses are the only way to get around."

I don't have a problem with that. But they are not the people who are being brought forward from the public transit supporters. Public transit supporters say we all should be taking public transit, we all should be on that bus. Leaving our cars at home or, better than that, selling our cars, not having a car at all. Take public transit, what do you need a car for?

Need to visit Aunt Nelly in Tillsonburgh on Sunday? Rent one for the day. Way cheaper than owning one.

So, this is the thing that troubles me about calls for funding for public transit ... there seems to be a dichotomy there. There seems to be a lack of a clear picture of who the customer is.

Is the customer the individual who cannot afford personal transportation? Or is the customer someone who for other reasons are trying for other reasons to get out of their personal transportation? 

If it's the former, if it's to provide transit for people who can't afford a car, then that's one issue and should be looked at and ... [ed: garbled] ... is it our responsibility to subsidize those people.

There are after all bicycles.

Let them eat cake!

Are there no workhouses?

You know, that whole line of arguement.

So, why should we subsidize them?

And here's another thing. There's a number of people at City Hall who don't want to see any more parking available downtown ... [ed: this next bit was mumbled and said very fast but I've done the best I can do with it] ... You can't find a parking place in the core during business hours. Maybe on the street because people come and go to the stores ... but in the lots for long-term parking, you can't get a spot in downtown London you can't get one ... massively or massively under-supplied. So the public transit people at ... City Council ... supported them ... don't want to do anything about that because they think it will push people into public transit.

Well the problem is ... there's I don't know how many square feet in downtown London, about a million square feet ... [ed: more mumbling] ... 700,000 ... I think there's 700,000 empty square feet of office space in the core or something like that. We fill half of that ... [ed: we who?] ... fill 300,000 of that ... the City requires 4 spots per thousand ... do the math ... we're out hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of spaces ... we don't have ... if the LEDC were successful ... they're out there trying to bring business downtown and Mainstreet London and the Downtown London Business Association all trying to bring businesses downtown ... if they're successful in doing that we're going to have a car parking crisis that people have never seen! but many of the people at City Council believe we shouldn't be driving our ... [ed: unintelligible] ... car. 

It's the lefties again, it's their mantra. We should ... public transit ... we should be putting more money into public transit, people shouldn't be driving their cars downtown. That solves the problem and we don't need more parking.

Well, it doesn't solve the problem for you. We'll be back in a minute.

[ed: discussion of this topic ends]