Stephen Blais will only support inflationary increases to OC Transpo during the next term of council. The two pillars of public transit should be affordability and accessibility.

“We owe it to the most vulnerable members of society to ensure public transit increases are limited to the rate of inflation,” says Blais. “If we continue to make public transit more costly, we will also lose suburban transit riders to their cars.”

Since 2003, Cumberland Councillor Rob Jellett and City Council have increased express transit passes by almost 50%, while inflation has been 11.24%. In addition, adult regular passes have increased by 45%, while the cost of using tickets has increased by 80% during the same time period.

“We need to find efficiencies by reducing the frequency of under used routes,” adds Blais. “I believe residents would find it easier to slightly adjust to changes to the frequency of routes rather than the skyrocketing increases levied by city council.”

It is important to note that Candidate Blais believes in the 50-50 model of financing public transit, whereby taxpayers and public transit users equally fund the system. He also does not believe many routes should be cut but the frequency can be altered to limit increases to inflation for the transit rider.