Abstract Manager

Public-transit agencies have seen increased budget shortfalls following the COVID-19 pandemic. While provincial governments have stepped in to provide temporary relief funds, such funding streams are being phased out leaving further uncertainty on long-term funding for public-transit operations. Perceptions of inefficient usage of current funding by public-transit agencies has been common amongst elected officials who instead often advocate for optimization and local funding options. The extent to which such discourse is supported by the Canadian public is not well known though. As such, we decided to assess the level of support for increasing public-transit across Canada. Data for this analysis was collected from the 2024 Canadian Mobility Survey (CMS) conducted by the Transportation Research at McGill group. The CMS was conducted in 11 Canadian Census Metropolitan Areas (Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa-Gatineau, Winnipeg, Québec, Hamilton, Halifax and Saskatoon) in Fall 2024. The CMS collected data (N = 23,000) on the support for increasing public-transit funding and the sources of funding to be used for said increase in addition to detailed travel behaviour, attitudinal and sociodemographic characteristics. We found that public support for increasing public-transit funding was very high (65.3-78.6%) for nine regions, while it was moderated in Montréal (55.4%) and Québec City (49.8%). Support for increased funding was lower among respondents who primarily drove to move around compared to those that mainly used sustainable modes, with the largest differences being observed in Québec City (34.3%). Provincial taxes were seen as the best source of funding in 10 regions for all respondents (57.7-70.1%) and for car drivers (55.7%-69.8%) while they were only the preferred source of funding in five regions for sustainable transport users. Sustainable transport users in the other six regions favored car-related taxes instead (68.7%-76.5%). Increasing fares was the least popular option in 8 out of 11 regions overall and was only supported by a majority of respondents when looking solely at car drivers in Québec City (51.0%) and Montréal (50.1%). The use of municipal property taxes was also overall unpopular, with only two regions seeing a majority of respondents supporting it. Notable sociodemographic differences were also observed within and between regions in levels of support for increased funding for public-transit and the sources to be used. Findings from this study can be of use to public-transit agencies and decision-makers across Canada currently aiming to reform funding structures to better support public-transit operation and maintenance.