Rough ride over bus service unfair to rural folks

Will Verboven points out small-town taxpayers help support city transit.

It seems some city folk who are against government support for rural bus service are blind to the reality of who pays for all those fancy city buses and LRT trains.

The reality is urban transit services are supported by billions of taxpayer dollars through subsidies and capital cost grants by three levels of government. Could you imagine the public outrage if governments demanded that urban services be made to run on a full cost-recovery basis (including capital costs), or they would be reduced or terminated?

Most city folks feel that government-supported transit is an entitlement right for living in cities. That urban transit support, incidentally, is supported by rural and small-town taxpayers.

Yet, if there is a suggestion that support be considered for transit service to rural areas, there are howls of protest that it will be a bottomless pit for taxes.

It all drips with hypocrisy. What is even more condescending is the insinuation that people living outside

of big cities have made that decision and are stuck with the consequences.

Well, thank goodness those folks made that decision. They are the ones who do the farming, ranching, logging, mining — they are the ones who service energy facilities and pipelines — all of which generates the real wealth of Alberta.

The last time I looked, there were no potato fields or oil wells in downtown Calgary, but there seemed to be room for subsidized buses, trains and bike paths.

One notes callous comments about too many hospitals in small-town Alberta as another needless government expense. Many of those hospitals were rationalized years ago into smaller primary medical facilities, but regardless, there is the assumption that by closing rural medical facilities, that sick and injured people in those areas will also disappear.

On the contrary; they end up in city hospitals, further aggravating a system that is already beyond capacity.

I expect unfortunate city folks who find themselves in industrial or recreational accidents whilst in the countryside would be most grateful to see their injuries attended to in those rural medical facilities.

The Greyhound bus issue is nothing new, and one wonders why they did not terminate their services long ago, being they use an outdated business model. One suspects that their termination action may change if governments promise them millions in subsidies.

The reality is that using luxury 50-passenger buses, an expensive unionized labour force, maintaining bus terminals, local agents and a top-heavy corporate structure is a recipe for financial disaster, just as it was for the passenger train service that buses replaced 60 years ago.

Greyhound is an old legacy company that seemingly cannot adjust to changing market conditions — but others can. One notes that Alberta’s Red Arrow bus line and nimble operators like Prairie Sprinter have found a way to thrive, at Greyhound’s expense no doubt.

No one in the countryside is demanding big subsidies to maintain status quo bus services that few use. But they do want to be treated fairly when it comes to comparable city services.

What needs to be considered is how government can support on-demand bus services using appropriatesized vehicles in sparsely settled areas. Service doesn’t have to be every day — people are quite capable of adjusting to a schedule that reflects demand.

Maybe the government should consider tax incentives, capital cost writeoffs, fuel tax rebates, or whatever, as their contribution toward supporting rural transit. That would still pale in comparison to taxpayer support of urban transit.

How about a task force of actual bus operators to come up with a support plan they feel will actually help and encourage more entrepreneurs to get into the rural transportation business?

Surely with incentives, technology and innovation, a resolution is possible, but discriminating against rural taxpayers because of where they live by denying them services and support programs is fundamentally wrong.

Verboven is an agriculture opinion writer and agriculture policy consultant.