Proposed transit fare hike may die before council vote

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This article was published 07/03/2012 (5204 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg Transit’s proposed fare hike looks even less likely to proceed after the latest exchange between Mayor Sam Katz and the provincial government.

 Following a public works committee vote earlier this week, a slim majority of city councillors are poised to rescind a November 2011 decision to raise transit fares by 20 cents this June to raise $3.56 million this year toward the completion of the Southwest Rapid Transit Corridor.

 Today, Katz told reporters a vote would not even be necessary to kill the transit-fare hike if the Selinger government confirms, in writing, that it will not allow the city to devote all the proceeds from the fare hike to a rapid-transit kitty. A city-provincial transit-funding agreement allows the province to do this.

 Premier Greg Selinger’s office promptly pledged to send over such a letter to Katz’s office. “They should be receiving a letter today,” said a spokesman for the premier, who has called the hike unfair to transit users.

 This means the transit-fare hike may die before a March 20 council vote on the 2012 operating budget.

 This would not, however, settle the question of how the city will fund the completion of the southwest corridor, whose second phase will cost $270 million to build a busway, according to Winnipeg’s Transportation Master Plan. The cost of upgrading both phases of the corridor to light rail would be $700 million, the plan states.

 The first phase of the corridor, a 3.6-kilometre busway running from Queen Elizabeth Way at The Forks to Jubilee Avenue at Pembina, is slated to open on April 8. It was built at a cost of $138 million, with Ottawa covering $28 million and the city and province splitting the remaining $110-million tab.

 Phase One includes a bridge over Osborne Street and a tunnel below the Fort Rouge railyards. A total of eighteen Winnipeg Transit routes will use all or part of the busway.