City’s transit costs less than Lethbridge
While officials agree the sample size is small, comparison shows Medicine Hat is finding some efficiencies where others might not
The Medicine Hat Transit system, which was targeted in a 2016 public survey that asked for places to cut costly, inefficient city services, actually stacks up well against Lethbridge in a new limited study that goes to council next week.
According to the latest in a series of benchmarking studies, the local system costs less per citizen to run than the city of Lethbridge’s operations, has more riders per bus, but collects slightly less revenue from fares.
Council’s public service committee heard Monday an overview of the report, which is the latest in the Alberta Municipal Benchmarking series.
Coun. Julie Friesen, the chair of committee, said the information was interesting but more analysis is required.
“We’ve struggled with transit in Medicine Hat, we all know that,” she told the committee. “Sometimes you get caught up in an opinion that’s not quite true, but every city in Canada, even major ones where you would think there’s (ridership) capacity, are struggling with issues of costs.”
The Alberta Municipal Benchmarking Initiative was launched several years ago on a voluntary basis, with municipalities reporting costs and service levels and then reviewing comparisons to determine best practices.
For transit however, only three took part, including Medicine Hat, Lethbridge and Banff, which operates a system to bring visitors to the townsite in Banff National Park.
Committee member Coun. Kris Samraj says it’s difficult to make judgments with such little information available.
“It’s a pretty small sample size,” he told reporters after Monday’s meeting. “It’s hard to come to a conclusion with just two (comparable) cities involved.”
Local administrators also stated the study, which compared costs and figures from 2012 to 2014, requires an amount of scrutiny, but it appears the local system performs well.
“Medicine Hat appears to be very solid compared to Lethbridge,” said Howard Snodgrass, the city’s general manager of community development. “For the population serve, we look fairly good.”
Considering just the local transit system — not special transit that serves the disabled community — Medicine Hat spent $6.7 million in 2014, or $111 per resident.
Lethbridge spent $11.6 million, or $125 per resident.
During the final year of the study in 2014, Lethbridge had about twice as many buses and stops, and covered about the same portion of the city’s geography, while Lethbridge has about 50 per cent more citizens.
As for fare revenue and cost recovery, Medicine Hat brought in $1.08 million in revenue, equal to about 16 per cent of costs in.
In Lethbridge the same year, revenue totalled $2.7 million, about 23 per cent.
In late 2017, local administrators unveiled a plan they said would reduce transit spending by $650,000,
That near 10 per cent reduction included rearranging routes, lengthening distances between stops, altering hours and cutting non-weekday service on branch routes.
That plan was reversed by council after a month following a backlash from riders.