Increased senior fares, more paid parking at LRT lots suggested in Calgary Transit review

An outside review of Calgary Transit has come up with a number of suggestions which could net the city close to $6-million a year.

Two of the big recommendations are increasing non-low income senior fares from $95 annually to $65 a month, which is more in line with youth fares.

The other is having more reserved paid parking spots at LRT park and ride lots.

When it comes to the increase to seniors’ passes, Mayor Naheed Nenshi tells City News it will influence people’s behaviour or worse, see them not go out because they can’t afford to.

“The only place where it costs us money to have another passenger is when the train or the bus is completely full,” he said. “If we can spread out travel and have people travel during off-peak [hours] that’s a benefit to the whole system.”

Nenshi says the proposal is too much of an increase too fast, but he agrees they do need to start moving non-low income senior fares closer in line with youth fares over time.

“The only question I still have there is whether we can additionally offer a discounted program for seniors who are taking transit not during peak hours, because if the buses and trains running anywhere aren’t full, the marginal cost of having someone else there is not very much,” he said.

Coun. Andre Chabot says the recommendation amounts to a 788 per cent increase to one particular user group.

“This is a very small thing that we offer to seniors and if we raise the fee by that much are we still going to have the same level of participation from our seniors?” he asked. “I don’t think so.”

He suggests they should look at the low-income senior pass, which he points out at just $35-per-year, doesn’t even pay for the paper work to issue them.

“A modest increase there is something that should be considered,” said Chabot. “But ultimately, looking at the fare itself at $3.15 right now, if we raised that to $3.25, what would that raise in revenue across the board look like?”

A decision likely won’t be made until the fall, at the same time as the Age-Friendly Strategy Implementation Report is presented, though it could come up again later this month.

As for additional park-and-ride fees, Nenshi calls it a big mistake saying even though the city will make more money; it penalizes people for taking transit.

That will be reviewed as early as next week.

The committee did pass recommendations to outsource transit fleet maintenance.