Londoners to rally for free transit

Local transit advocates are gathering in downtown London on Monday to rally and march for free public transit.

The rally garnered a fair bit of attention online, with a Facebook event showing more than 100 people marked as going with another 1,300 marked as interested.

The rally kicked off at 3 p.m. Monday at the corner of Dundas and Richmond streets with only around 15 people in attendance.

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Among those advocating for free transit is Ari Vangeest, a master’s candidate at Western University, who is studying fare-free transit.

In a blog post on medium.com, Vangeest laid out his argument for how London could provide fare-free transit without the need for provincial or federal assistance.

Fare-free transit refers to a model of public transit where riders do not have to pay a fare for each individual ride. This cost could be offset, Vangeest argues, with either a tax or a buy-in system for transit use.

“The three groups that primarily take public transit are young people, seniors and low-income people… Those three groups would greatly benefit from a system such as this,” Vangeest added.

There is little chance those at Monday’s rally will get their free transit wish in time for Christmas.

The city is currently locked in a months-long budget process that’s left city councillors with plenty of tough decisions and Londoners facing a tax increase. A finalized budget is set to arrive in early March.

The London Transit Commission is also facing troubles of its own at the budgeting table.

After more than a decade of steady fare rates, the LTC is set to hike fares in 2020.

In the meantime, the Doug Ford government’s cancelled increase of the provincial gas tax left a hole in the LTC’S budget. This left the LTC with a higher-than-expected budget request for the City of London.

2:00 Free youth transit axed for Greater Victoria