GO Transit is Canada's first, and Ontario's only, interregional transit system, established to link Toronto with the surrounding regions of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). We carry more than 38 million passengers every year in a network of train and bus services that is one of North America's premier transportation systems. Since 1967, we have provided safe, convenient transportation to the communities we serve. GO Transit is officially known as the Greater Toronto Transit Authority (GTTA).
Our trains and buses serve a population of 4.9 million in an 8,000-square-kilometre area (3,000 square miles) radiating from Toronto to Hamilton and Guelph in the west, Barrie and Beaverton in the north, and Port Perry, Oshawa, and Newcastle in the east. GO Buses extend our service as far as 100 kilometres (over 60 miles) from downtown Toronto. GO offers connections with just about every municipal transit system in the Greater Toronto Area, including the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).
Who funds GO Transit?
As Canada's first interregional transit system created and funded by a provincial government, GO Transit had until recently been financed entirely by the Province of Ontario, which subsidized any operating costs that were not recovered through revenue, as well as all capital costs.In January 1997, the province announced it will hand over funding responsibility for GO Transit to the Greater Toronto Area municipalities (which consist of the City of Toronto, and the Regions of Halton, Peel, York, and Durham) plus the neighbouring Region of Hamilton-Wentworth. In exchange, the province would assume certain other funding responsibilities from municipal governments.
We recover most of our costs through revenue, consistently bringing in 80% or more of what we need to operate. Our annual subsidy requirement, operating and capital, is $106.58 million for 2000. In January 1998, the GTA municipalities and Hamilton-Wentworth began to fund GO Transit, cost-sharing all operating and capital subsidy under a formula devised by the province.
One year later, on January 1, 1999, a new municipal agency created by the province came into being: the Greater Toronto Services Board. The GTSB is composed of elected politicians from the GTA municipalities, including regional chairs, mayors, and councillors. GO Transit transferred over to the municipal sector as an arm of the GTSB on August 7, 1999 thus completing the process that had begun with the funding change of 1998.
The following table compares the population
and subsidy paid in the three cities and a per capita comparison
of the subsidy in each case.
Summary.
Conclusion.
City
Population
Subsidy
Subsidy per head
Auckland
1,100,000
$20,000,000
$18.00
Toronto
4,500,000
$106,000,000
$24.00
Melbourne
3,300,000
$1,400,000,000
$424.00
If a similar per capita subsidy were paid for
the provision of infrastructure in non metropolitan areas, it
would mean an extra $16,000,000 annually to East Gippsland
Shire.
In Australia, the "cost of doing nothing"
as referred to in the extract from Auckland’s strategy plan
quoted above, is assumed to be a cost to the whole State when, in
fact, it is a cost to the metropolitan area only. The lack of
public transport to service Auckland and its suburbs is seen in
its proper context, a cost to the city and its surrounding
regions. The construction of the freeway system in metropolitan
Melbourne is a highly significant factor in attracting business
and commerce away from the country. In turn, it shifts people
from the country to the metropolitan area, reducing the political
influence of country areas. There is no justice in forcing
country people to contribute to the cost. On the other hand,
country highways carry food and raw materials vital to the city
and are part of the national infrastructure.
It is quite apparent from the foregoing that in
countries with which we have close ties it is the practise for
users and ratepayers to carry infrastructure costs in large
cities. While the terms of reference deal with public transport,
it is equally obvious that the same issues arise with road
funding. It seems more logical that the users/beneficiaries
should fund roads used by thousands of vehicles per day, and that
it is those at the end of a dusty unmade road that are more in
need of taxpayer assistance.
It is difficult to establish how much is spent on
roads by the Melbourne City Council but it appears that the
Council collects about ten times the amount from parking fees
than it spends on roads. If this is the case, then suburban
motorists are paying City Link to use the roads that get them
into the Central Business District and then pay the City Council
to park on roads that the taxpayer and not the Council pays to
construct.
The diversion of taxpayer funds to subsidise
metropolitan infrastructure has a snowballing effect. It reduces
the true costs for businesses and householders in the city and
adds to the costs of businesses and householders in the
non-metropolitan area. It appears likely that suburban businesses
are also subsidising their CBD competition.
A table published in the Herald- Sun 10/2/2000
gives a comparison of average annual rates in the city and
country. The table demonstrates that most
country people pay as much or more for greatly inferior services.
The average for country municipalities is $955 compared with the
metropolitan average of $989. If the Melbourne City Council is
excluded, the average metropolitan rate drops to $801.
There is evidence that the ratepayers of Melbourne
are reluctant to carry the costs of the infrastructure that adds
value to their properties. Half of the cost of the Underground
Rail loop was to be paid for by metropolitan ratepayers but that
project was barely completed before "the city" started
to complain. Legislation was soon amended to greatly reduce this
proportion from 50% to 25%. I have been unable to establish
whether any contribution is now paid. The Underground Rail Loop
was a massive gift from taxpayers to the Central Business
District.
The West Gate Bridge was initially funded by tolls
but this scheme was soon ended. There is some concern in rural
areas that the City Link project is heading down the same
track.
In fact, the subsidy to public transport in
Melbourne on its own exceeds by a substantial amount the total
revenue raised by rates from metropolitan residents.
Apart from the advantages that this transference of
wealth gives city business over their country based competitors,
there are spin-offs adverse to rural industries. New Zealand
dairy farmers do not have to contribute to the cost of providing
public transport in Auckland but Victorian dairy farmers are
compelled to do so for Melbourne. Yet New Zealand dairy products
compete with Victorian products in the supermarkets of Melbourne.
Australian farmers also have to compete with Canadian farmers on
global markets. In some cases, this becomes competition in
Australian shops. They also have to compete with European farmers
where there are many forms of assistance, like British farms that
do not pay any rates on land or buildings used for agricultural
production.
It is clear that governments over many years
have diverted billions of dollars of taxation revenue to fund
infrastructure for the capital city. A substantial part, if not
all, should have been paid for from rate revenue. Many of the
municipalities that benefited have not had, for many decades, one
unmade road or footpath, one wooden bridge or culvert, or over
half their area designated as public land. Within easy reach,
residents have libraries, museums, sports grounds, schools and a
great array of other taxpayer funded facilities, which have added
value to their properties but they have made no contribution as
ratepayers. On a value for money basis, country ratepayers fall
dismally behind their city cousins in what they get for the rates
they pay.
Until recent years, subsidies for rural water and
sewerage and the construction of irrigation storages and
channels, provided some small offset for non-metropolitan
residents. Despite all the rhetoric about "user pays",
"a level playing field", "economic
rationalism", "full cost recovery" and similar
jargon, it is apparent that these theories are applied ruthlessly
in the country by the government but are substantially modified
if there is an adverse impact in the city.
One of the consequences of these policies, which
are vigorously pursued whichever side of politics is in
government, is that a redivision of electorate boundaries in the
State of Victoria will soon add two more seats in the
metropolitan area at the expense of the country. Well may they
ask: - What do you see as the future of this country in the
second century of federation? It is an increasingly bleak outlook
for country people. It is strange that, in a nation that prides
itself on giving everyone a "fair go", there is a
system that is forcing more and more of its citizens to live in
big cities and then throws responsibility on those who remain in
the country to try to redress the economic imbalance.
Distance and space are part of the privilege of
living in a large landmass like Australia. These elements are not
man made - they are part of the geography - they are part of the
attraction of living in Australia. The cities are artificial and
their problems are created entirely by the people who live in
them. They are the problems of congestion, pollution, crime, etc.
These are the same problems of every city on the planet. Like
other cities, ours should pay the price to solve the problems
they create. Cities are happy to accept the benefit from
economies of scale; they should also pay the costs.
Employment services.
This submission does not deal with the enormous
amount of employment generated by government, both commonwealth
and state, in the metropolitan area. This is most likely the
single largest contribution to the stimulation of the growth of
the city. If it is in the national interest that the decline of
non-metropolitan areas of Australia should be arrested, it can
only happen if both State and Commonwealth governments actively
pursue policies to massively increase employment opportunities
outside the capital cities.
A tragic consequence of the government's
policies of stimulating the cities is the division that has been
created between city and country. Although both sides of politics
claim that Victoria is a multicultured State, the fact is that in
most rural areas only four or five percent of the population was
born in non-English speaking countries. It has probably been in
that vicinity or even higher ever since the discovery of gold in
1851. In a number of metropolitan electorates, the percentage for
whom English is not their native language, is over 50% and the
average for the whole State is about 17%. Some substantial
migrant groups are virtually unrepresented in Victoria outside
Melbourne. It is no wonder that most rural people question the
need for funding for multicultural affairs.
This attitude is misinterpreted as being racist
when the real problem is that government policies have not
encouraged migrants to become involved in all facets of
Australian life, including regional and rural Australia. Country
people are worried that future governments will be increasingly
isolated from the opinions of the people who live outside the
Capital cities.
Structural change is an evolving process. It
would be nonsense to hang on to outmoded and inefficient methods
and expect to compete with those who adopt modern practises. The
construction industry is not expected to dump its excavators and
backhoes and revert to pick and shovel. The banking industry and
municipalities should not be expected to go back to archaic
methods either.