Public transit ridership numbers in recent months have surpassed pre-pandemic levels, resulting in an unexpected revenue boost, the City of St. Albert says.
“St. Albert Transit continues to see a positive rebound of ridership to pre-pandemic levels,” city spokesperson Pamela Osborne said. “Ridership for the two-month period of May and June of this year actually exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
“Mid-year projections indicate that revenue will exceed the budgeted estimate of (about $2.95 million) by nine per cent.”
Despite May and June seeing the highest ridership numbers in more than three years, Osborne said overall ridership is still 10 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.
Aiding the recent ridership bump, Osborne said, is the consistent usage of commuter routes, especially the 201 bus, which begins at St. Albert Centre and loops downtown Edmonton before returning back to the transit station near the mall.
“Route 201 continues to see the highest overall ridership in the system as this route operates year-round, seven days per week,” she said. “During post-secondary school terms, the combination of Routes 203 and 204 see the highest ridership.”
St. Albert Transit recorded nearly 500,000 individual riders in just the first six months of 2023. During the same time period in 2022, Osborne said the city recorded 256,000 individual rides, although pandemic health measures were still largely in place at the time.
The roughly 495,000 individual rides between January and June this year surpasses the total ridership number between January and mid-November last year, when the year-to-date total was just 445,900.
St. Albert Transit generated $2.9 million in revenue in 2022, which was about $471,000 more than the city expected to generate for the year, as the Gazette previously reported.
The low expectation for revenue last year was because transit ridership was still well below pre-pandemic levels when the 2022 budget was drafted and finalized.
City 'monitoring' new federal transit fund
Last week the federal government released a report highlighting feedback it received on a potential $3 billion “permanent public transit fund,” which was first announced in 2021, although details have yet to be solidified.
The report includes feedback from municipalities from across the country, such as the City of Edmonton and the City of Vancouver, as well as provincial governments and industry groups.
“Through the engagement events and written submissions, five key themes emerged that will help set the foundation for the design of permanent public transit funding in Canada,” the report states.
The five themes range from ensuring the fund provides predictable funding, to ensure the fund makes investments “to address pressing social, environmental, and economic challenges” in public transit systems.
“In these engagement sessions, we heard that the foundation for successful public transit systems is reliable funding,” the report reads. “Many provinces, territories, and municipalities identified a preference for broad and flexible transfer-based funding programs to support local infrastructure priorities and investments.”
Osborne said any transit funding from higher levels of government is appreciated by the city.
“The City of St. Albert has long advocated to other orders of government the need to establish long-term, predictable and adequate funding for transit services, as it is key to delivering on social, economic and environmental outcomes,” she said.
“The Edmonton Metropolitan Region is well-positioned to leverage a program such as this, as regional transit priorities are identified in the (Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board's 2022 Transportation Priorities Report), including items like the North St. Albert Park and Ride.”
“While specific details are still forthcoming regarding allocations associated with an additional $3 billion per year across Canada starting in 2026-27 through the Permanent Public Transit Fund, funding from other orders of government that support current and future transit infrastructure needs is appreciated,” Osborne said.
“We will be monitoring details of the program closely.”
Funding through the new transit fund is expected to become available beginning in 2026-2027, although it's currently unknown when further details of how the fund will work will be announced.
