There’s nothing else like it in Canada.
Since the early 1970s, Manitoba’s provincial government has covered a full 50 per cent of the operating costs for Winnipeg’s public transit system. That means that half of the money required to make transit actually run — salaries and benefits, maintenance, fuel, bus parts — is guaranteed by the province.
“It actually gets at what transit really is,” Joseph Kornelsen, chair of Function Transit Winnipeg, told DeSmog Canada about the arrangement. “Emphasizing that kind of funding is actually how other jurisdictions should be doing it.”
But the setup is almost certainly about to end (Read more…) the passage of Bill 36 by Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative government.
To be sure, Winnipeg will continue to receive funding from the province. But none of it will be specifically earmarked for transit, leading some transit advocates to express concern that routes and frequency of service could diminish significantly.
In short: Manitoba is about to join the rest of Canada with uneven, ad-hoc and underwhelming transit funding.