"It's a funny thing about public transit," mused the Winnipeg businessman, "but some people seem to think they lose face if they ride on a bus. They find it a bit of a struggle to afford to operate a car, but for fear of losing prestige they won't ride a bus."
Then he added: "Yet you'll find more and more senior executives are riding the buses these days."
This is the kind of paradox that places the job of running a public transit system high on the list of most-frustrating occupations. And who knows — perhaps some kind of mass psychology is the answer to the serious problems confronting the Greater Winnipeg Transit Commission and virtually every other such system on the continent.
The (unreadable) is simple — too many empty seats on the buses. How to lure more passengers into them, though, is a far from simple question that just has to be answered if public transit is not to wither into uselessness.
Within the next few weeks officials of the GWTC will march before the Municipal and Public Utility Board with the unenviable task of justifying an action that in itself seems sure to add to the withering process — an increase in bus fares.
And not only do they feel compelled as businessmen to take this step — they are compelled by law to take it. The statute which gave birth to the GWTC provides that if the system records a deficit it must straightaway apply for higher fares — even though passenger loads are bound to fall off as a result.
When it considers the fare-boost application, the Utility Board will be given a picture of a healthy-looking transit system — plenty of up-to-date rolling stock travelling over even-lengthening routes through ever-denser population areas, fare-boxes swallowing more revenue than ever before.
But that record transit revenue is due solely to fare increases — the fastest and most direct method of keeping people off the buses. And it hasn't been enough to keep the system in the black — witness last year's $183,000 deficit.
Revenue has been climbing fairly steadily in the past 10 years, from $6.6 million in 1947 to $7.8 million last year. Yet it hasn't been able to overcome the drop in passenger load in the same period — from 102 million to 71 million. This, of course, in one of the best periods of population growth in the city's history.
Where have the bus passengers gone? They have been wooed away from the transit system by a variety of influences which have had their effect on far more areas of society than transit buses. Among the influences:
The passenger loss has continued in the face of vigourous efforts on the part of GWTC to keep up with metropolitan growth. One example is enough: Many Winnipeggers will rememer when the Wilton turn-around was the end of the Corydon line; now it's pretty well the midway point on the ride downtown.
The system's equipment is good and it runs it over a route that is up to "metropolitan area" standards — majority of the metropolitan area within a quarter mile of a bus line. Its frequency of service is felt to be "pretty good" in view of the passengers carried. The present fare structure is in line with that of other comparable systems.
The GWTC has worked hard, too, at stepping up efficiency by maintenance and administration. A major factor here was centralizing operations at GWTC building on Main St. South. Another, of course, has been the efficiency gained through disposing of the heavy-maintenance street cars.
GWTC officials point with satisfaction to the results. Despite rising costs for a variety of items, the budget for all transit departments outside of traffic has risen from $1.7 million in 1952 — last year of private operation — to just $1.8 million last year.
Expressing the same fact in terms of man-hour consumed in various departments per 1,000 miles travelled, the efficiency increase is ore readily grasped. Here is a comparison between last year's man-hour consumption compared with 1952 (in brackets):
Equipment maintenance, 50.8 (67.3); way and structures, six (14.9); electrical distribution, 4.3 (5.2); total for operating departments, 186 (218.6); miscellaneous (offices, schedules, etc.), 17.1 (20.8). Total for all departments, 203.1 (239.4).
What more can be done?
The obvious efficiency move would be to look over the routes and dispense with the unprofitable ones, but that move is highly impractical. Last year, only eight of the GWTC's 36 lines showed a profit.
All seven trolley-bus lines and one motor-bus line — Portage-North Main-Mountain — made money, ranging from about $345,000 for the motor bus line to about $6,000 for the Salter trolley line.
All the other motor-bus lines lost money, ranging from about $120,500 for the Talbot-Grant to about $1,000 for the West Kildonan bus.
But one area in which the GWTC is certain it can and should find relief is in the field of municipal taxation. The Greater Winnipeg municipalities owning the system impose a seat-mile tax on the system as well as a vehicle tax of $200 per trolley bus and $50 per motor bus. A bill to abolish the seat-mile tax will be brought before the current Legislature session. If it passes, it will certainly ease the pressure because if it had been abolished a year ago the GWTC would have shown a profit for 1956.
Some municipalities have also argued that the provincial government should assist by refunding its tax on gasoline used by GWTC vehicles — on the basis that they largely travel over municipal, rather than provincial thoroughfares.
The other important financial aspect of a municipally-owned transit system is whether the system should be subsidized. The GWTC's legal "straightjacket" whereby the system must not budget for a deficit — and if one occurs must follow it with a fare-increase application — specifically rules out subsidy.
But some municipal men have strongly argued against this position. Transit, they say, is of vital importance to the area as a whole — not just to the bus rider — so why should not the citizens at large help support it through subsidy rather than impose ever-increasing costs on the people who have no other alternative than to ride the buses.
The principle, they continue, is in practice right now inasmuch as the profitable bus routes are paying the shot for the lines losing money. Not only that, but the GWTC benefits the whole area by promoting retail sales, preventing "rotting" of the downtown business area and offering "standby" transportation to the citizens who are forced to use it on isolated occasions.
"A subsidy is an evil," admits D. I. MacDonald, GWTC general manager, "but it may be the lesser of two evils — lesser than permitting service to deteriorate."
One thing is certain — subsidization would be beneficial to the central transit problem, the problem of passenger loss. It would at least guarantee that no passenger would quit the GWTC in a huff because his fare had been raised.
But neither subsidy nor relief from taxation offers a positive solution to that central problem. It does nothing to reverse the trend to automobile travel, which if it continues, will continue to drain passengers from the buses. And if a smaller percentage of the population is using the service, the willingness of the taxpayers at large to support it as a "vital need" will surely diminish.
Outlined elsewhere on this page are some of the positive measures which have been implemented or envisioned to revive the popularity of public transit. The Greater Winnipeg Transit Commission will be studying these measures and alternative ones as though its life depended on them.
And it does.