The Battlefords Transit System is increasing cash fares for the bus service by one dollar.
The North Battleford Transit System board’s request for an increase was approved by North Battleford city council Tuesday night after they heard a presentation from transit manager Paul Robertson.
According to Robertson’s presentation to council, the transit system has been able to keep the income budget for 2017 and 2018. But he explained income for cash fare and passes has fallen short of their budgeted amount for the past two years.
Last year, Transit budgeted for $60,000 but the actual revenue was $48,797.10. The budget for 2018 is $62,520 but total revenue through the end of October is $41,257.97, with two months of revenue still to come in.
There was a fundraising barbeque this summer to help raise money for bus purchases. Transit ridership is also up 2.8 percent through the end of October.
Despite that, there is still a shortfall, so the cash fare is going up.
“My main aim is to make sure the city doesn’t bear the brunt of the cost all the time,” said Robertson. Also cited at council was the pressure being put on transit’s own reserves for capital replacement.
Councillor Greg Lightfoot, who is council’s Transit representative, shed some further light on the shortgall. One reason he cited was a loss of $12,000 in guaranteed funding from Social Services for subsidized bus passes.
That was taken away in 2017, and replaced by dollars based on the amount of bus passes sold.
“In essence we lost $8,000 in revenue from that alone,” said Lightfoot. “So that was a big hit to our bottom line.”
He added there had also not been a fare increase in the last six years, and the cost of doing business has increased.
“Costs have gone up, wages have gone up, fuel has gone up, insurance has gone up,” he said. Lightfoot added this was a board decision to seek the increase.
In speaking to reporters following the meeting, Mayor Ryan Bater acknowledged “inflationary pressures” were the reason council voted for the increase.
“All of the expenses of running a transit system have been going up in the last six years, and fares haven’t. So really this is a matter of fares catching up to that.”
