Transport Committee on Oct. 5th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, everyone.

Welcome to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, meeting number 5. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are studying a national public transit strategy.

Joining us today in the witness chair, from Transport Action Canada, is Mr. David Jeanes, president.

I know that you've appeared before our committee before and know the process. We appreciate your coming on short notice. I'll ask you to present so that we can move to committee questions.

Thank you.

[David Jeanes, President, Transport Action Canada]

Thank you, Chair.

I understand that I'm to speak for up to about half an hour and deal with questions after that. Is that a reasonable amount of time? Or would you prefer that I try to make it a bit shorter?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Normally, it is about 10 minutes.

[David Jeanes]

Oh, it's 10 minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I'll give you a one-minute sign.

[David Jeanes]

Very good.

My name is David Jeanes.

I'm president of Transport Action Canada, which used to be Transport 2000, a non-profit organization advocating for better public transportation. We've been around since 1976. We're also a registered charity.

We strongly support the interest in a national transit policy. We participate in many consultation activities with all levels of government, and we also have experience internationally. For example, some years ago I participated in a very effective conference on light rail, in Washington, D.C., which was jointly hosted by APTA, the American Public Transit Association—the equivalent of CUTA , whom you heard earlier this week—and the Federal Transit Administration.

In Canada, we have no such body. Transport Canada, although it does regulate a very few transit agencies—OC Transpo and STO in the national capital area, and the bus company in Windsor—has no real role that is comparable to the research and policy involvement that the FTA has in the United States.

I want to touch on some major reasons why I think there is a federal interest in public transit. First of all, it's safety. The federal government has been involved in extensive discussion, for example, on driver hours for bus drivers. Although this only applies specifically to the transit agencies that are federally regulated, it is a matter of safety to the public that should be of concern for development of uniform standards nationally.

The next reason is rail safety. The government has extensive expertise in rail safety, and in fact it even provides that expertise to some provincial agencies, such as GO Transit and Metrolinx in Toronto, which don't maintain their own ability, for example, to do railway safety inspections but contract that to the federal government.

Yet the federal government has no overall responsibility for urban transit safety, particularly rail safety. Agencies such as the transit systems running LRT in Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, and the Montreal metro, are essentially self-regulating. This leads to inconsistencies across the country. Worse than that, it raises a very high barrier for other, smaller cities that wish to get into the use of railway technologies in their transit systems. Ottawa, for example, is facing very high costs to establish a railway safety competence that has to be at arm's length from the management of the planned light rail system. We feel there would be a continuing federal role that would be mutually beneficial in an area like this.

In the area of research, Canada has world-class capabilities in transit research. It was already mentioned, by CUTA, that in manufacturing we supply a large percentage of North American transit buses. Of course, you know that we also have a railway industry that has been extremely successful—for example, it supplies a large proportion of the bi-level commuter rail vehicles, such as the GO Transit and AMT cars, to many cities across the United States.

But we are not benefiting from our national needs for developing transit technologies in a way that would benefit our industries nationally. We haven't developed capabilities in the area of developing new light rail or street car systems; we are tending to depend on European research, or, in the case of the Canada line in Japan, buying from Asia.

Commuter rail is part of transit, although, as I've mentioned, it is normally not federally regulated. There are strong arguments that it should be, particularly because our largest cities that have commuter rail systems—Montreal, Toronto, and even Vancouver—could not function without these networks.

Again, there are potentials for those same technologies to be used in other cities across the country, but the barriers to entry for those cities are very high if there is no federal coordination that makes it easier for other cities that want to establish commuter rail systems. Here particularly we are talking about cost-effective reuse of federal railway infrastructure.

You may know that a good part of the Ottawa bus transitway was actually built on abandoned railway lines, as were the Vancouver SkyTrain and the Edmonton and Calgary LRT systems. In Toronto, Metrolinx is buying up railway rights-of-way to areas outside of the greater Toronto area. It is acquiring these lines from the freight railways that no longer have use for them. In Montreal, there are also major projects.

But there are lost opportunities because in many cases the local municipal levels don't have the resources to acquire these railway lines when the freight railways wish to dispose of them. Metrolinx can afford to, but we see a lot of other examples where it cannot be done. In fact, here in Ottawa, we're progressively losing a network of rail lines, radiating in many directions from the city of Ottawa, that were planned by the NCC as a coherent network in the 1950s and 1960s as part of the Gréber plan.

Electrification is a big issue. We are far behind the world standard in electrification of any of our railways. Apart from our urban transit systems and one commuter line in Montreal, we essentially have no railway electrification. Even the United States has extensive electrification of all its light rail systems and its passenger rail network in the eastern corridor. The problem here, again, is that there are many areas of Canada that wish to establish electrification. We know that Metrolinx, in Toronto, is under intense public pressure to electrify. The City of Ottawa is spending a lot of money, with provincial and federal funding support, to establish our first electrified passenger rail transit system. Again, the costs to entry are far higher than they would be if there were a more coherent federal approach to these systems. Some of the political issues we face, for example, in Toronto, could perhaps be avoided if we had a national discussion and national policies related to railway electrification.

Rapid transit to airports is important. The federal Department of Transport actually initiated the plan for the Pearson International Airport rail link, which is now moving forward as a provincial project. And the federal government was a partner with Vancouver in establishing rail transit access to Vancouver airport. But basically we're far behind the world standard in most of the rest of the country. The federal presence is very much on the sidelines or in the background for Ottawa, Montreal, and other cities where rapid transit to airports should be possible.

Rural transit is something that's of great concern to us. There are initiatives being taken by various municipalities, particularly in Ontario and Quebec, to try to develop, initially bus-based transit, but also commuter rail, using railway lines where they are available. In some cases, they are moving towards community ownership of lines that would otherwise be abandoned. This is being considered, for example, in Pontiac and Renfrew counties, west of Ottawa. There's also a strong interest in eastern Ontario, to the east of Ottawa. Again, the problem here is the barriers to those municipalities being able to acquire these lines. There are areas where the federal government can get involved, for example, by agreeing to tax policies that would allow municipalities that are qualified donees under the Income Tax Act to issue charity tax receipts to the railways in exchange for getting the land and the railway tracks. This is an interesting option that deals with the freight railways' need to realize something from disposing of their resources, other than for just scrap, and also makes it possible for municipalities or groups of municipalities to overcome the high barriers to keeping those rail corridors in service.

I want to mention a couple of things that I was reminded of when CUTA was speaking to you. CUTA organized a conference in Ottawa last year, their annual conference, and had a special session devoted to rural transit. It was extremely well attended. In fact, CUTA was surprised at the level of interest in this area.

Just to wrap up, I feel that we could have developed many more national strengths in areas that are of great importance to developing a sustainable transportation system, particularly in light rail. So many of our transit systems are either already using it or are needing to modernize or are embarking on projects with light rail. Yet at the moment we're facing a very fragmented approach. And as I've said, we're not really designing or manufacturing the vehicles for those systems in Canada, except possibly by licensing designs developed offshore. We also are missing some other opportunities, electric trolley buses, for example. We have no national strategy for electric trolley buses. Toronto lost them a few years ago. Vancouver and Edmonton still have them. Again, if there were a federal approach here, this is another technology that could be encouraged and that Canadian industry could respond to.

The last point is on taxation. CUTA mentioned to you the importance of employer subsidized transit passes. We were quite involved with this more than a decade ago with the proposal developed under a project performed by Todd Litman, who is now with the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, which recommended this approach. It differs from giving individual taxpayers a tax credit for their transit passes in that it brings the employers into the picture. It gives employers an incentive—not just to provide free parking spaces to their employees, which carries no tax implications, but also to provide or subsidize transit passes.

I was involved here in Ottawa when Nortel developed what was at the time the world's leading travel demand management program. It was oriented towards getting employees to use transit, walking, and cycling. In fact, no comparable program has yet been developed in Canada with any other major employer. I persuaded Nortel to start selling transit passes through the company cashiers and eventually through the retail stores that were established in major company locations. But the company was not interested in subsidizing these passes because the subsidies would be showing up in the payroll process as a taxable benefit.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Sullivan, seven minutes, please.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, David, for a thorough examination of all the ways the federal sphere could be brought to bear on public transit.

I know your organization is very much in favour of promoting effective and efficient transportation of people, because it protects the environment, conserves energy, promotes effective land use, and supports economic growth. One of the things we've been talking about in the House of Commons recently is economic growth and economic activity.

The Board of Trade in Toronto estimates that $6 billion worth of productivity is lost because people are stuck in traffic. They don't need to be stuck; they could be riding efficient, modern transit systems.

Do you think having a national transit strategy would be an effective way of increasing our economic productivity, our international competitiveness, and improving our quality of life?

[David Jeanes]

Yes, I think so.

In order to manage the flows of people, you really have to do that. You have to manage it; you have to have standards. For 30 years I worked in the telecommunications industry, where I was involved in developing the flow of data on the world's telecommunications networks. We could not have done that through local administration only. Without the standardization that has led to the Internet—which is an international standardization, not just a national one—and the strong involvement by Canada in the United Nations telecommunications agencies that develop the standards for that system, we would not have the communications network we have today.

I believe that example also applies to our transportation networks. We are seeing significant losses across Canada of redundancy in our rail network. For example, when a line is interrupted by a derailment between Montreal and Halifax, we lose all ability to ship containers from the Port of Halifax to central Canada and the United States, because we are no longer managing our rail networks to provide the capabilities that are needed.

Now that's getting away from transit. I wanted to focus on transit standardization and fostering opportunities for cities and towns and rural areas to develop transit systems. I think the federal government can be a facilitator as well as a regulator.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

That was a good example, the example of the Internet being coordinated by a more senior body than individuals. Over the past little while, we have been trying to figure out what the federal government's role ought to be, given that the provision of public transit is generally a municipal jurisdiction.

Some people here would feel as if they were trodding on toes if they started telling municipalities what they should and shouldn't do. I don't think our idea of a national public transit strategy would go that far. We see it as you do—helping to fund public transit while making sure that the public transit we create is the most modern and most efficient we can provide.

Would you agree that so far the provision of public transit projects has been uneven and haphazard? They're different in different municipalities and use different technologies. Do you think that's partly because the municipalities don't have the capital base to afford a more modern approach?

[David Jeanes]

I don't want to suggest that the federal government hasn't been heavily involved in funding many municipal transit projects; they have. But in general, they've been done as one-off infrastructure projects rather than having any overall coherent policy.

What I've tried to touch on in my presentation are areas that I believe are areas of federal expertise and jurisdiction that the provinces and the municipalities can't afford to create for themselves or areas that are in fact federal responsibilities such as taxation policies. The municipalities cannot even do what some municipalities do in the United States, which is use the retail sales tax to subsidize their transit systems. That can't be done here.

So some of the things I've mentioned with respect to taxation policies either on transit passes or on municipalities acquiring rail lines are things that I think the federal government could have a useful role in and should have policies.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

The other thing we've talked about a lot here is the gas tax and how that is a current piece of the infrastructure puzzle, but it creates an unfairness in that communities that don't have a need for massive public transit spending, because they're too small or don't need public transit, use this funding for other infrastructure, whereas on a per capita basis the same amounts of money, which could easily be used for water and sewer projects in Toronto, tend to be needed for public transit because it's a big chunk of money. So what we're hearing from some experts is that there needs to be a separate public transit piece to this overall strategy.

[David Jeanes]

I was involved in consultation at the provincial level with the Province of Ontario on the mechanisms for dividing up the provincial gas tax rebates, and my feeling and impression was that this exception that you describe was really a question of fairness--not giving up on the policy that the gas tax was intended to pay for transit, but just to say that if this rule were applied without exception, it would, as you say, be unfair to the smaller communities.

But we also feel smaller communities can do many things to provide transit because they too have aging populations. Some of the rural transit initiatives that we've been looking at involve combining school bus services, taxi services, and volunteer drivers, for example. Many volunteer networks are established by hospitals, and some coordination and sharing among these things can in fact start to provide some transit solutions even for very small municipalities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Monsieur Coderre.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I must admit that I have a great deal of respect for your organization and your familiarity with Transport 2000 Québec. I had a good friend at the time whose name was Guy Chartrand, may he rest in peace. He was already on the leading edge when it came to public transit and the like.

I would like to talk a little bit about all of this. Yes, we want to implement a national strategy and we have been discussing it. However, I would like us to check and see if it is feasible.

There will always be cars on the road. In reality, we have to achieve a balance. We have to think about strategies that will change our ways of doing things for the better.

Before looking at the types of transportation, I would like to talk about funding. The Canadian government has already invested in public transit and transportation alternatives. I am among those who approve of such measures. We have often spoken about tax incentives. We have spoken about the famous gasoline tax.

I am now wondering about something. An announcement was just made about the Champlain Bridge, which will lead to a necessary debate on how to fund infrastructure. One aspect of the debate is the toll booth. As a Montrealer, I am already paying for a lot of things. Before setting up additional toll booths, we should think about and debate this issue. What do you think about the toll booth?

Second, is it not time to plan financial measures or what we call dedicated funds, where the money is dedicated to something or we ensure that the money we spend is truly dedicated to a specific purpose?

Finally, with regard to dedicated funds, is it better to have a Canadian infrastructure fund and devote part of it to public transit or is it better to have a fund dedicated exclusively to public transit?

That is what I wanted us to address first.

[David Jeanes]

Can I respond in English? It is easier for me.

I think that in general road pricing is an important tool. It won't be appropriate in all cases, but particularly where you're talking about a large new piece of infrastructure.... I remember that in 1967 the La Fontaine tunnel in Montreal was built and was established as a toll tunnel for a considerable number of years. I don't know whether the tolls eventually paid the cost--perhaps not--but that approach was used. We've seen Highway 407 as a toll road around Toronto, which seems to be working quite effectively and delivering some benefits, though it has also been controversial.

But what we have seen are other schemes not used in Canada, such as the congestion charging in central London, where a specific objective was not only to reduce the number of cars passing through the centre of the city but also to in fact speed up the movement of the automobile traffic that was there, to allow taxis to effectively move twice as fast through the city centre, and to fund a substantial increase in the number of buses. There was a case where that wasn't a tax grab: the congestion charging was specifically used to fund the transit improvements that were necessary to replace the lost capacity by excluding car drivers who were not prepared to pay.

As for tolls, although they may be difficult to impose, as they require a very high level of technology to do them effectively, as with Highway 407 or with the London congestion charging, I think it can be done, and in some cases it will be important. Obviously, the cost of replacing the Champlain Bridge, as you mentioned, is going to be very high. If it can be done sooner, and if those motorists who benefit directly from that can be involved in the financing of it, then I think that's probably a good thing.

I hope that responds to your question.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Yes, that's a good start. The fact is that if we have a recession, and clearly if we have some economic problems, we will have to find a better way to fund and to make sure that when we're funding, we're funding appropriately, right?

[David Jeanes]

Yes, and it's not only for the Champlain Bridge. We know that it's not only for highway bridges all over Quebec, which have been scrutinized closely, but for bridges in the rest of Canada as well.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Here's my concern now, then. We can talk about private-public partnership; it can be difficult, but it's a valid point. We can talk about tolls and all of that. But if you want to have a really efficient national strategy, it means that you have to reinvent a deal with all the stakeholders to make sure that we're all singing the same tune. How can we respect the jurisdiction, play the role that we should under our own jurisdiction, and make sure that we are efficient without having problems?

If we have a toll bridge on Champlain and you have some other bridge, like the Jacques Cartier Bridge, or the Mercier Bridge, which is also owned by the federal government, at a certain point does it mean that if we're not putting some other toll bridge there, people will take that bridge and it will create some other issue? How do you manage realistically to have a real national strategy and work on those kinds of issues that are very concrete and specific?

[David Jeanes]

I think perhaps that is a problem that is self-correcting. If people desert the toll bridge to use the Mercier Bridge or the Jacques Cartier Bridge and those bridges become very congested, then there will be more incentive for people to pay the toll. This is what we are seeing in Toronto, where Highway 401 is still there and it's still free, but people can choose whether they will pay the toll and drive on the alternative route.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Here's my last question. We spoke a lot, and rightly so, about the respect for the rural and the urban approach. There is also an issue of flexibility: you have people who are working at three o'clock in the morning and are living some specific problems socially, or we're improving the transit process, or we have to change ways. What's your point of view on that?

[David Jeanes]

Well, obviously you cannot deliver high-capacity rapid transit at all hours of the day, so you cannot fully meet that market with only one mode. Therefore, it's best to try to find a multimodal solution.

In eastern Ontario, there's an interesting approach being taken by the town of Casselman. In collaboration with VIA Rail, they are moving towards being able to establish commuter rail service to and from Ottawa, but that will be complemented by the ability, outside of the hours that will be served by rail, to still get back to Casselman on one of the highway buses they operate. The same park-and-ride lot in Casselman serves both the VIA Rail station and the highway buses they operate. So you can find cheaper ways there.

In the case of Nortel, which I've mentioned, we established a transitway level of bus service during the peak hours, but off-peak there was at least a basic bus service every half hour serving the Nortel campus out on Moodie Drive. Those kinds of things will become of interest as the Department of National Defence establishes itself as the new owner of that campus. But it's a similar kind of problem: you must provide service--

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

You won't use the F-35 for that one.

[David Jeanes]

No, no.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Okay.