By Pepper Parr
March 5th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
During the closing minutes of the Audit Committee yesterday afternoon Ward 6 Councillor Paul Sharman took an interesting poke at a service he isn’t particularly keen on: transit.
Among the many thing the City Auditor does is confirm that the city is getting value for money. Councillor Shrman picked up on this saying: “I’m fascinated by some aspects of this, especially the value for money audit, which I think is terribly fitting for the concerns we have from the public at the moment about the increase in our budget over the last three years, and people feeling very concerned that about property taxes have gone up significantly when perhaps we’re not picking on the biggest budget items in the organization.
“Shouldn’t the value of the spend be influential in the decision on what we’re going to whether we’re going to do a value for money audit on something or not?”
Maciej Jurczyk, the City Auditor responds. “Could we do a value for money over, you know, Recreation, Community and Culture, and I don’t mean to pick on on my colleagues from that department, but that is a massive endeavor that would be a full year audit with multiple auditors required to do to deliver a value for money audit over an entire department such as that. So this was more of a more targeted scope of work. And that’s, that’s, I guess that’s a short answer for that, for that.”
Sharman follows up with: “ I do have a very specific question. It’s about probably the biggest budget item we have, which is $37 million a year to for the transit department. And what we know about that is we get about $6 million back in fares. There’s some advertising money, but we’re especially essentially subsidizing buses and a few riders.
“We know that perhaps only 3000 community members from Burlington ride the buses every day, which means that 98.5% of taxpayers in Burlington and their families do not use our busses.
“So on that basis, the question for me is, should we not be doing a value for money audit on our transit system, simply because it has the potential to yield significant results?
Maciej Jurczyk: “I don’t want to presuppose what the outcome of any audit would be if it were transit operations or any audit. So I don’t want to suggest that there would be any impact from doing an audit at the end of the day, if it’s the will of audit committee to direct an audit over transit operations, or or any, any business unit within the city, that is your prerogative, and I’d be willing to, not willing, I will accept the staff direction to to perform that audit. I suppose I could leave it at that.
Mayor Meed Ward was sitting beside Councillor Sharman during the short jab from Sharman. She didn’t say a word about transit being a key part of the service the city provides and that it will be essential if the city is to get people out of their cars to give the environment a bit of a break and to help with the gridlock that is all too common during rush hour traffic.
Mayor Meed Ward watching Councillor Sharman take his first step in killing the current transit service. She chose not to say a word about one of the city services she has promoted fiercely during her time as a member of Council.
Looking forward to how the Bfast people respond to this.
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[…] Sharman wants transit audited on a value for money basis. […]
I believe the price to operate our bus transit service is not a cost effective way to utilize our tax dollars.
I’ve lived in Burlington since 1971, and have never seen a full bus. At most I’ve seen perhaps a dozen people.
Two years ago our City purchased several more buses. I don’t remember the budget dollars to pay for them–I do remember I was shocked at the price!!!!!-especially since these huge vehicles are never even close to one third full.
I made a suggestion at a meeting that we should consider purchasing smaller buses, like they utilize in Oakville.
That went nowhere.
I believe an Audit – a cost-benefit analysis should be undertaken before we’re into millions spent unnecessarily, meanwhile these monstrous buses use plenty of fuel and spew fumes into our environment – and just to transport a minimal number of riders. I for one don’t expect the ridership numbers to increase.
[…] City Auditor didn’t see any merit in the Sharman argument. […]
The system has a million or more dollar bus carrying just over one passenger on average who is subsidized between 12 and 15 hundred dollars per year. We have a new transit boss. Lets hope she can bring in a new more cost effective system while maintaining the handicapped program.
Jim Barnett
The states are normal for any major city. Transit requires extensive funding due to maintenance, fuel, drivers, staff, etc….transit is always subsidized by the home city, otherwise no one would take the bus for $40 a ride . What a waste of time and money!
We live in Hamilton but occasionally take Burlington Transit’s Plain Roads bus into Burlington. It’s good. We’ve noticed that BT’s service in our view is steadily improving in service and quality. It’s likely to become more popular as ever-increasing vehicle congestion will become even more problematic in Burlington, which we often call “Car City.” It’s disappointing to see where Councillor Sharman appears to be heading. A wrong turn for a city that should continue to invest in transit.
In light of strong mayor powers, I could ask the question of each councillors value for money. The city is not in the business of making money. It is an essential service and must be treated that way. The costs are the costs. Does he want to eliminate this service? Personally, the bus system should be operated at the regional level so that it can be leveraged better between municipalities.
Is cost per passenger the right metric for determining the value of a transit service?
Would the same measure be used for ice rinks, swimming pools, bike lanes, parking garages?
Improve the transit system and maybe more people will is the bus.
To mis-quote Samuel Johnson.
When a man knows he has to get re-elected, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
At a cost of over $12,000 per passenger it would make sense to look at other alternatives.
I wonder if an audit could report on how many times that a councillor takes a bus or bicycle to work.
Thank You Councillor Sharmen.
I’m so tired of seeing empty buses holding up traffic on Burlington streets.