when it is caught

I read an article in Lapresse a few days ago; that is a Quebecois newspaper. The reporter had done an analysis about the transit agencies operational costs as the transport minister who is refusing to give the full 75% of deficit coverage being asked for, and instead, is giving 70%.

Bus drivers and what the reporter described as everyone else being called non-Bus drivers, all earned on average some amount a little over 100,000$. This as compared to an average income in Quebec seems excessive, and yet these drivers and non-drivers are unionized, so there isn't a lot that can be done to reduce their salaries. However, if the bus frequency or bus routes gets diminished to make up for that 5% difference of funding from the government, this would require fewer hours from the bus drivers.

A point raised in the article was asking the question why some buses are still running that are perpetually empty and in a suburb during non-rush hour. This makes it a stress free bus ride for the driver with very little income due to the low number of passengers. From my own experience riding the 201 and the 203 buses somewhat regularly, both suburban buses, often times the total number of passengers on it can be counted on one hand. So I understand the point that the service is exceeding what the funding allows for.

I am still torn about this, however - for the dire emergency that the Climate Crisis is, we desperately need to get individual car ownership off the road and the only way to effectively do this with transit is to make it fast, affordable and frequent. Reducing service now, even if there are some bus routes that are not busy, is the wrong direction to be going.

Also, reducing transit affects mostly the people who are already the most marginalized or least well off and as a social democracy we can't be letting these people suffer any more than they already are.

The transit agencies desperately need a new source of funding so as not to continue to rely on the government to cover deficit spending; and the agencies need to increase and improve the service, incrementally, every year, so as to get a service that really does make a difference in removing cars from the road.