Higher bus fares versus higher taxes

It would cost the average Ancaster household less than $2.50 a year to avoid an HSR fare hike that would add over one hundred dollars to the expenses of a regular adult bus rider. Differential transit taxes mean a Hamilton home of similar value would pay just over $11 a year to keep bus fares at their current levels (see table).

The proposed twenty-cent-a-ride fare hike has sharply divided councillors. It is intended to raise $1.9 million which is about 4.2 percent of the $45 million in property taxes collected for HSR services this year.

An Ancaster home valued at $300,000 currently pays $58 a year for the HSR. A similar priced home in the former city of Hamilton pays $266 a year with households in the other former municipalities falling in between these two extremes – Waterdown $60, Dundas $65, Stoney Creek $85 and Glanbrook $114 (see table).

About 15 percent of households are rural and they neither receive HSR service nor pay any taxes towards its operations. All households receive DARTS service and share equally in its costs. The variable tax rates in the urban areas are a carryover from before amalgamation ten years ago when the former suburbs purchased transit service from Hamilton.

Comments

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I don't even live in Ancaster and find this incredibly stupid. Municipal taxes went through the roof when the province mandated surrounding communities join up into the greater city of Hamilton. Now all those Ancaster residents who are part of Hamilton in name only are yet again expected to pay for Hamilton's shortfalls. Talk about throwing a golden goose down Hamilton's financial bottomless pit.