NDP should heed own advice, bring back 50-50 funding

Transit riders have a love-hate relationship with our “people’s limousine.” For many, it’s their only means of mobility. Others ride because they believe urban life is better when people use public transit rather than choking the roads with single-occupancy cars.

At the same time, one of life’s mid-sized stressors is peering into the distance on a cold, snowy Winnipeg morning to see whether your late bus is yet on the horizon and, when it appears, whether it’s full to capacity and going to roll past. It’s the kind of thing that pushes you back into the car, if you have access to one.

We could make a big dent in this daily anxiety, help pay transit workers fairly and do our part to stave off climate disaster by restoring a tried-and-true funding scheme: the 50-50 model. This shared-cost model, in which the provincial government pays half of transit operating costs over and above service revenues, was brought in when I was a kid waiting to board the bus with my parents in the 1970s.

The Progressive Conservative government of Gary Filmon initially ditched it in 1993. New Democrats reinstalled it in 2007, with then-Lt.-Gov. John Harvard announcing in the 2006 throne speech: “Manitoba is committed to increased provincial funding for transit operating costs in Thompson, Flin Flon, Brandon and Winnipeg, restoring the 50-50 funding partnership that was in place prior to the cutbacks of the 1990s.”

This program was not just for Winnipeg and it can work for every municipality, First Nation, tribal council and rural municipality that wants a transit system.

When the PCs cut it again in 2016, opposition NDP MLAs rightly railed about it. Here’s Wab Kinew in question period in 2018, tallying the consequences of the cut: “Hundred-dollar bus passes, less bus routes, 25-cent higher fares: when will this government get its act together, listen to the city leaders and restore the 50-50 transit funding arrangement?”

The Kinew government’s initiative to provide free transit for 11- to 17-year-olds across a handful of municipalities is a good move. It will help families make ends meet and make public transit a more attractive option for young Manitobans.

However, without more buses on routes, drivers behind wheels and mechanics maintaining the fleet, we are likely to see those young Manitobans become increasingly frustrated with transit. Transit’s success depends on satisfied riders now, who will go on to increase system ridership in the future.

Moving around isn’t a frill. It is a fundamental requirement for accessing education, jobs, groceries, political participation, medical care and social interaction. Public transit in the province is a troubled lifeline for many, getting them — with some uncertainty — to work, school, university or the doctor’s office.

We need a reliable option to get around apart from our cars. As of 2024, of the 10 largest Canadian municipalities, only two have higher rates of automobile commuting than Winnipeg. Transportation makes up more than a third of our total greenhouse-gas emissions in the province and Manitoba is in a small club, along with Alberta, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories, whose emissions have failed to drop since 2005.

If we are serious about climate, we have to get serious about transit.

The return of 50-50 funding, starting with existing municipal spending levels, won’t put Manitoba transit riders in the league of luxury. On a per capita basis, Winnipeg spends about two-thirds of what Edmonton does on transit operating and about one-third of what Ottawa spends.

Rebuilding our transit system is doable — calculations from Climate Action Team Manitoba show that a 50 per cent increase to operating expenses, along with a 25 per cent increase in fares from increased ridership, would cost about one-quarter of what the NDP spent by cutting the gas tax in 2024.

As anyone who’s spent time in a city that has really invested in transit can tell you, riding can be a joy. Who wouldn’t rather sit comfortably while a skilled pro does the driving, reading your book or being immersed in a podcast, arriving when you were supposed to arrive rested and relaxed?

This isn’t generally the transit experience in Winnipeg, but it could be.

Restoring the 50-50 model isn’t a cure-all for Manitoba’s transit systems. But it can be used to make meaningful improvements that are good for climate, good for transit workers, good for riders and smart for cities. When they were in opposition, the premier, the finance minister and many sitting MLAs repeatedly called for the restoration of 50-50. They were right then and they need to act on their own advice now.

Mark Hudson is a professor in the department of sociology and criminology at the University of Manitoba.