←LONDON DECIDES.
HOW TO VOTE
THE HARD FILES · AN OPTIONS BRIEF, NOT A PLAN

The Transit File

17.5M rides in 2025 · $69.5M city share · a $2.8–3.1B unfunded wish list

This page is a menu of options, not a plan. It walks through the levers the next council could actually pull on transit — finishing the BRT network, buying frequency, changing fares, on-demand service, paratransit, electric buses, land use, and the GO file. For each one it gives the strongest evidence for it and against it, what it cost where it was tried, and the London-scale math, shown in full or honestly marked as not derivable. It recommends nothing.

One structural fact shapes everything here: transit promises lean harder on money council doesn't control than any other file. Ontario's gas tax transfer is shrinking. The permanent federal fund pays for capital only, and caps its share at 40%. No senior-government operating money exists, so every added service hour lands on fares and the levy. That is why every option below says who actually decides it — separating what a councillor can vote for from what they can only advocate for.

Three figures on this page are flagged to move before October 26. The province has not answered the city's $100-million north rapid-transit ask. The electric-bus contract award lands essentially at election time. And the review of who should govern London Transit — currently five councillors, after the citizen commission was dissolved in March 2025 — remains open. Research was completed July 4, 2026, and every claim links to a source. The eight questions at the bottom go to every candidate in the race, equally, through the site's questionnaire, and their verbatim answers will appear here as they come in.

The honest numbers

Where London actually stands — every figure linked to its source.

Where London Transit stands today

  • The ridership arc: 24.9 million trips in 2019, 19.2 million in 2024, 17.5 million in 2025. That is a one-year drop of 1.77 million rides (−9.2%), leaving London near 70% of pre-pandemic ridership (derived). LTC attributes the 2025 drop to declining tuition-pass enrolment as international-student caps hit Fanshawe and Western, not to service cuts, and forecasts revenue falling a further $645,800 in 2026. LTC 2025 Conventional Service Performance Report (PDF) ↗
  • The money: LTC's 2026 operating budget is $123.4 million ($105.2M conventional, $18.1M specialized), and the City of London puts in $69.5 million of it. The 2024 funding mix: 39% fares and operating revenue, 9% provincial gas tax, 52% city. Operating cost per conventional ride in 2024: $5.09 — second or third best in LTC's Ontario peer group. LTC Staff Report #12 — 2026 Operating Budget ↗
  • The provincial context candidates rarely mention: Ontario's Financial Accountability Office found the London economic region received the lowest provincial transit subsidy per resident in the province — $18.00 against a $111.16 provincial average (2022–23) — largely because GO and Metrolinx money is concentrated in the Toronto-Hamilton area. FAO of Ontario — Provincial Transit Subsidies (2024) ↗
  • Fares are not frozen, whatever campaign folklore says. LTC raised fares roughly 18% across the board on January 1, 2024 — cash $3.00 to $3.50, monthly Citipass $95 to $112 — designed to raise about $3.3 million a year. No further increase appears in the 2026 budget, but a fare decision before October 26 remains possible. LTC Staff Report #1 — Fare Strategy ↗
  • The starkest gap in LTC's own reports is paratransit. An average of 18 specialized-transit trip requests a day could not be served in July–August 2025, jumping to 65 a day in September 2025, plus 373 pending subscription requests that could not be taken on. The misses cluster on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. — which is to say work, program, and medical trips. LTC's plan states plainly that trips are "not guaranteed." LTC Draft 2026 Specialized Transit Service Plan (PDF) ↗
  • Two more constraints frame every promise: only 46% of riders in LTC's 2025 survey agree "the bus runs on time" (no formal on-time measure is published), and in September 2025 nine routes were reduced and two express routes suspended over a mechanic shortage and late bus deliveries. Workforce and fleet capacity, not just money, limit how fast service can grow. CBC — September 2025 service reductions ↗
LTC RIDES PER YEAR — TO SCALE
201924.9M
202419.2M
202517.5M

LTC attributes the 2025 drop to declining tuition-pass enrolment as international-student caps hit Fanshawe and Western, not to service cuts. LTC 2025 Conventional Service Performance Report (PDF) ↗

PROVINCIAL TRANSIT SUBSIDY PER RESIDENT — TO SCALE
London$18
Ontario avg$111

Lowest in Ontario, per the Financial Accountability Office figures cited above. FAO of Ontario — Provincial Transit Subsidies (2024) ↗

The BRT money, start to finish

  • The network proposed in the 2010s: about 24 kilometres over five corridors at roughly $498 million — $130M city, $170M committed by the province in January 2018 — plus a March 2018 federal allocation to London of $204.9 million under the ridership-based transit formula. Global News — federal allocation ↗
  • What died in 2019: the north leg ($147M, failed 5–8) and the west leg ($72M). What survived: the Downtown Loop (completed 2024), the East London Link (downtown to Fanshawe, full service expected late 2027), and the Wellington Gateway (downtown to Exeter Road, full service expected late 2028). CBC — the 2019 votes ↗
  • Where the senior money went instead, August 2019: the federal government committed $123 million to ten London projects (the province, $103.5M in June 2019) — the three surviving BRT legs plus the Adelaide underpass, 31 expansion buses, traffic signals, cycling and streetscape work. Against the original offers, that leaves roughly $82M federal and $66.5M provincial unclaimed, about $148.5M combined (derived; no official "left on the table" figure exists, so the split is shown rather than one number). CBC — August 2019 funding package ↗
  • What the surviving legs cost now: $174.2 million in overruns across the three corridors, bringing the approved budget to $454 million. In January 2024, council voted 9–6 to shift $6.5M of senior-government money away from the planned $18M Oxford/Wharncliffe intersection upgrade to cover the overruns. On the senior-government share of the $454M, two numbers circulate — $176M (CBC) and $167M (the city's rapid-transit page); this page reports both. CBC — the $174.2M overrun and the Oxford/Wharncliffe shift ↗
  • One readiness fact for launch-year expectations: the system will open without all-door boarding — no rear-door fare payment, no fare inspectors — and a Stantec readiness report called the resulting impact on time spent sitting at stops (dwell time) significant. CBC — BRT readiness report (April 2026) ↗

A $2.8–3.1 billion wish list, unfunded

  • Council approved the Mobility Master Plan 10–2 on July 22, 2025 (nays: S. Stevenson, P. Van Meerbergen; absent: Cuddy, Peloza, Hillier). Its targets, set in April 2024: by 2050, raise walking, cycling, and transit from 23% to at least 32.5% of trips and cut the personal-vehicle share from 61% to 52.5%. council minutes, July 22, 2025 (PDF) ↗
  • The plan's own capital table (2025 dollars, to 2050): roads $2,100–2,200M, transit $550–650M, cycling $170–190M, sidewalks on major roads $20M — roughly $2.84–3.06 billion, explicitly labelled initial estimates "subject to Council approval through future multi-year budget processes." In plain terms: unfunded. The same plan says transit hours must more than double by 2050. Every transit promise this fall is a claim about which slice of this list gets real money first. Mobility Master Plan, final (PDF, 144 pp.) ↗
  • The plan was edited on the way through, and the record matters in at least one ward. At the April 1, 2025 council meeting, the motion to remove Huron Street from the cycling network failed 5–10 — Huron survived as a medium-term cycling project (14–1) — while the Taylor, McNay, and Gammage routes were removed 10–5 (opposed: Peloza, McAlister, Trosow, Franke, Ferreira). The same meeting restarted the Wonderland Road environmental assessment around six general-purpose lanes (9–6). council minutes, April 1, 2025 ↗

Who runs the buses right now

  • For most of its history London Transit was run by a commission dating to 1951: seven council-appointed members, two or three of them councillors, operating as "the agent of the City of London," with council approving the funding envelope but the board controlling operations. LTC — commission information ↗
  • That ended in March 2025. A governance review was already underway — a ~$300,000 consultant, with a scope that included possibly dissolving the board. Then three board members abruptly quit, and on March 25, 2025, councillors voted 9–6 to eliminate the citizen commission and appoint five councillors to run London Transit directly, pending the review: Councillors Skylar Franke (chair), Corrine Rahman (vice-chair), Steve Lehman, Sam Trosow, and Mayor Josh Morgan. CBC — councillors take over London Transit ↗
  • The plain consequence: the people who set transit fares and service plans right now are five elected officials. The review of whether that becomes permanent, reverts to a citizen commission, or becomes something else was still open when this research closed. (A reported end date for the interim arrangement could not be verified and is not published here.) The next council inherits an unresolved question about who should run the buses. CBC — the governance review ↗

The unanswered $100-million north ask

  • The city's budget submission to Queen's Park asks for $100 million in capital for a north rapid-transit route up Wharncliffe and Western Road to a Masonville hub — deliberately different from the Richmond Street route rejected in 2019. Mayor Morgan put north first on ridership ("the Masonville node is one of the busiest transit nodes that we have in the city") and says the ask seeks "a partnership where we share the costs equally even if they do change over time." Western political scientist Martin Horak's counterpoint: "There was committed money, the city turned it down and the situation is now a little iffy." CBC — the north BRT ask (Jan. 21, 2026) ↗
  • As of this research pass, no provincial response has been reported. An answer before October 26 would change the arithmetic of every BRT question on this page — treat the ask's status as live. CBC — the north BRT ask (Jan. 21, 2026) ↗

What senior governments actually send

  • Provincial operating help arrives through one channel: the Ontario Gas Tax program. London's 2025–26 allocation is $10,158,287 — and shrinking (2022–23: $11,052,415). LTC applies the full amount against conventional operating costs. Ontario — 2025-26 gas tax allocations by municipality ↗
  • The permanent federal program, the Canada Public Transit Fund, gives London a Baseline allocation of $51,060,830 over ten years — about $5.1M a year from April 2026. Two hard strings in LTC's own reading: operating costs are ineligible, and the federal share is capped at 40% of eligible capital. Stacking across CPTF streams for one project is not allowed. The Zero Emission Transit Fund is closed; London received a $320,000 planning grant from it, and no capital. Canada Public Transit Fund — baseline allocations ↗
  • Read those numbers against the wish list. Guaranteed senior money for London transit is roughly $10M a year of shrinking provincial gas tax plus $5.1M a year of capital-only federal baseline — against a Mobility Master Plan carrying $550–650M of transit capital. Everything larger is competitive, negotiated, or not yet answered. That gap is the honest context for every "the province should pay" answer this fall. LTC Staff Report — Canada Public Transit Fund update ↗

The option space

What cities try for this. Evidence for, evidence against, real costs, and who actually decides — for every option, identically. We don’t pick one. That’s the candidates’ job.

Finish the BRT network

Build the rapid-transit corridors council killed in 2019, starting with the north — the city's live $100-million ask at Queen's Park for a Wharncliffe/Western Road route to a Masonville hub. The 2019 north leg was priced at $147M; no official engineering estimate for a full north leg exists today.

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCE
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • The closest comparison is York Region's Viva rapidways — BRT in mid-size Ontario. Year one posted +10% ridership on Highway 7 and +62% on Davis Drive, with transit travel times 15–39% faster. Metrolinx — Viva rapidways results ↗
  • Waterloo's ION LRT is the regional showcase: the region credits the central transit corridor with almost $5 billion in new development, 19 million-plus passengers, and corridor municipal taxes 75% above 2011 — with the caveat that the development count starts in 2011, eight years before the trains ran. Region of Waterloo — ION at five years ↗
  • The broader evidence is positive but not automatic: the U.S. national study of BRT development outcomes found station areas gained development share "for most but not all systems." National Study of BRT Development Outcomes (PDF) ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • Corridor capital does not guarantee riders. Mississauga's $528-million Transitway, completed 2017, lost about 91% of its ridership in the pandemic and was still declining year-over-year in 2024 — under 3 million riders January–September against 3.3 million-plus the year before — with standing criticism of its design and location. INsauga — does anyone use the Transitway? ↗
  • Construction disruption is London's lived experience: a Wellington Road pizza-shop owner's customer base was "cut in half" during Gateway construction, and there is no mechanism under the Municipal Act to compensate business losses. CBC — businesses during BRT construction ↗
  • The senior-money risk cuts both ways. The 2019 record shows committed money can die at council (5–8), and Mayor Morgan's own argument — that 2019's fixed contributions would have left the city holding overruns — shows senior "matches" don't cover rising costs. The $174.2M overrun on the legs that did get built is the local base rate. CTV — the $174M overrun ↗
  • The capital-versus-service trade is real even though the pots differ: $100 million of capital equals roughly 15 years of LTC's 50,000-hour annual service-growth package at $6.6M a year gross (derived — capital and operating dollars come from different programs, but this is the trade councils actually argue about). LTC Staff Report #2 — costed growth scenarios ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • York Region's rapidways: about 34 km and 38 stations for $1.8 billion in 2017 dollars — roughly $53 million per kilometre (derived), against London's entire remaining BRT budget of $454 million. York Region Rapid Transit Corporation ↗
  • Waterloo ION: 19 km for about $818 million plus roughly $50 million in estimated overruns — and its ridership has its own arc, 4.3 million in 2023 falling toward 3.6 million by late 2025. Ion rapid transit — Wikipedia ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

The 2019 north leg was $147M. Statistics Canada's non-residential construction price index rose about 42% from early 2020 through Q3 2025, so a comparable scope would run roughly $205–210M today ($147M × ~1.42 — derived, order-of-magnitude only; the proposed route is different, and no official estimate exists). The city's actual ask is $100M from the province toward whatever the full number turns out to be. ICBA analysis of StatCan construction price index ↗

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCECouncil starts the project and owns the local share; LTC operates. The capital hinges on the province (the unanswered $100M ask) and federal CPTF streams (40% cap, no stacking, operating ineligible). A councillor can vote for the route and the local share; the money that makes it real is advocacy.

More buses, more often

Grow (or reshuffle) annual service hours into a high-frequency core network — 15-minutes-or-better on main corridors — before or instead of corridor capital. The best-known implementations are Houston's 2015 network redesign and Auckland's 2012–2018 New Network.

■ CITY DECIDES
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • Houston METRO's 2015 System Reimagining, a near-budget-neutral redesign, added 4.5 million boardings (+6.8%) in year one — Saturdays +13%, Sundays +34% — with the honest breakdown that local bus alone was +1.2%, weekday bus slightly negative, and rail +16.6%. Kinder Institute, Rice University ↗
  • The research says service is the strongest lever an agency controls. A 25-agency North American study (2002–2015) found revenue service kilometres a main driver of ridership. The standard elasticity references put service expansion at 0.6–1.0 and frequency around 0.5, against roughly −0.3 for fares. A dollar buys more ridership as service than as fare cuts. Boisjoly et al., "Invest in the ride" (2018) ↗
  • The local demand signal exists: LTC's 2024 budget ask cited 92% of routes reporting passenger loads over seat capacity, and "full bus" drive-bys were recorded throughout 2025. CBC — LTC budget coverage ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • Redesigns create losers, and Houston is the cautionary half of its own success story: low-income communities lost 12 routes while non-low-income areas gained three ("They've basically created a transit desert in low-income, minority areas"), with longer walks and added transfers for the riders least able to absorb them. Houston Press — the redesign's losers ↗
  • You can't buy hours you can't staff or maintain: LTC's 2021 "perfect storm" driver shortage suspended five routes, and the September 2025 mechanic shortage plus late bus deliveries cut nine more. Money is necessary, not sufficient. CBC — September 2025 reductions ↗
  • Operating money is the scarcest kind — the federal CPTF explicitly excludes it — and London's recent record is deferral. LTC asked for 25,000 growth hours in the 2024–2027 budget, the mayor's draft funded none, and council restored a partial package 8–7 ($18M over four years for 18,000 hours). At ~2.5% annual growth, that is below the Mobility Master Plan's own more-than-double-by-2050 trajectory. CBC — council restores partial transit funding ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • Houston's redesign was delivered "without increasing the operating budget by much" — the model's point is reshuffling before expansion. Auckland's south rollout posted +19% boardings in four months, but about three-quarters of that was transfers; growth in actual journeys was around 4%. Redesign numbers need careful reading everywhere. Human Transit — Houston and Auckland results ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

LTC has already published London's price list (2024 dollars, annualized): 22,000 added hours costs $2.4M gross / $2.1M net of fares; 35,000 hours $4.6M / $4.0M; 50,000 hours $6.6M / $5.8M. That implies roughly $111 per service hour gross, about $95 net, with fares offsetting ~14% (derived from the table). These figures exclude fleet capital — the 50 expansion buses sit inside a separately reported ~$244M ten-year fleet need. LTC Staff Report #2 — 2024-2027 growth scenarios ↗

■ CITY DECIDESThe option council most fully controls: LTC (currently five councillors) proposes, council funds through the levy, and fares offset about a seventh of each new hour. No senior government helps with operating costs — which is why this lever is both available and chronically underfunded.

Cheaper fares, or free rides

Cut the price of riding: for everyone (fare-free), for target groups (subsidized passes; London already funds five such programs), or automatically once you ride enough (fare capping). The Commission — currently five councillors — sets fares; council sets the funding envelope.

■ CITY DECIDES
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • Fare-free genuinely moves access: in Kansas City's 2020 zero-fare experiment, a University of Kansas study found 17% of riders started riding because it was free and about 40% rode more. Tallinn, Estonia (the best-known residents-only case, running since 2013) saw usage rise 14% in year one, with improved low-income mobility. University of Kansas — KC zero-fare study ↗
  • The closest Ontario comparison worked: Orangeville's fare-free pilot roughly doubled ridership (100,000 rides in 2019 toward an expected 263,000 in 2024) and was extended to 2027 — because the forgone farebox was only ~$150,000 a year on a $1.2M budget. The caveat is the point: London's farebox is roughly 260 times Orangeville's, and none of this scales linearly. Orangeville Citizen ↗
  • Targeted relief is the model already running: the city (not LTC) funds five fare-subsidy programs — free children's and vision-impaired tickets, discounted senior tickets, youth passes, and the $72/month Income-Related Transit Pass — for just over $1.5 million a year, with uptake rising fast enough that staff flagged costs heading toward $1.7 million. CBC — the rising cost of transit subsidies ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • Kansas City is also the collapse case, and both halves belong in the record: when the backfill money ran out, council brought back a $2 fare in April 2025 AND cut frequency on most routes — riders ended up paying again on a worse network. Fare-free without permanent replacement revenue is a loan against the service budget. KCUR — fares return, frequency cut ↗
  • The elasticity arithmetic is stubborn: fare elasticity is around −0.3 (a 10% fare cut buys ~3% more riders) versus 0.5–1.0 for service. Even Tallinn's own researchers credited only 1.2 percentage points of its 14% usage increase to the fare change itself; the rest came from expanded transit lanes and frequency. Cats, Susilo & Reimal — the Tallinn evaluation ↗
  • LTC's own stated position on fares as social policy: "It is beyond the mandate and expertise of London Transit to effectively resolve broader social and community issues related to income distribution." Whoever wins inherits that institutional stance and decides whether to override it with levy dollars. LTC Staff Report #1 — Fare Strategy ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • Kansas City's zero-fare policy cost about $8–9 million a year in foregone farebox, and it ended in fares plus service cuts when the money ran out. Orangeville's cost ~$150,000 a year — and survives. The difference between the two stories is almost entirely the size of the hole. MARC — zero-fare impact analysis (PDF) ↗
  • Fare capping is the cheaper cousin: Brampton makes rides free after 12 trips a week on PRESTO, GO discounts after ~41 monthly rides, and the TTC adds monthly capping in September 2026. LTC runs its own smart card, its Fare Strategy report contains no capping analysis, and whether its platform can support capping is not publicly documented. Brampton Transit — fares ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

The 2024 fare structure was designed to generate about $39.2 million a year — what full fare-free must permanently replace, plus unquantified capacity costs for the extra riders it attracts (not derivable). Replacing $39M of farebox on the levy would be a more-than-50% jump on the city's $69.5M transit contribution (derived). Targeted versions are orders of magnitude cheaper: the existing five-program subsidy line is ~$1.5M a year. LTC Staff Report #5 — Fare Adjustment Impacts ↗

■ CITY DECIDESEntirely local: the Commission (currently five councillors) sets fares, council sets the envelope, and the existing $1.5M subsidy line is the precedent for buying fare relief with levy dollars. The constraint isn't jurisdiction — it's the $39M hole and what fills it, permanently.

On-demand vans instead of empty buses

App-booked, flexible-route shared vans replacing or topping up fixed routes where buses run nearly empty — industrial parks, late nights, new subdivisions. LTC has already studied the terrain: its Industrial Service review of routes 30, 36, and 37 assessed dial-a-ride, employer shuttles, and industrial trippers, all requiring employer partnerships.

■ CITY DECIDES
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • Under narrow conditions it works: Belleville's 2018 conversion of a nearly-empty fixed night route to on-demand saw monthly ridership rise 300% and riders per vehicle-hour go from 6 to over 30, at about $4.25 per ride — with the caveat that the figures are vendor-published (an independent University of Toronto rider survey exists alongside them). Pantonium — Belleville results (vendor-published) ↗
  • It is now a normal Ontario tool at regular fares: Durham Region Transit and York Region both run on-demand zones inside their regular networks — though neither publishes per-trip operating cost, which is telling in itself. Durham Region Transit — On Demand ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • Innisfil is the canonical Ontario warning: its subsidized-Uber model saw the per-trip subsidy rise from $8.70 (2022) to $10.56 (2023), the town's bill hit $1.8 million in 2024 ($400,000 more than the year before), and record ridership drove costs UP, forcing trip caps and a 2026 restructure. The structural point: on-demand gets more expensive per rider as it succeeds — the opposite of fixed-route economics. InnisfilToday — record rides drove up costs ↗
  • At big-city scale the numbers get worse: LA Metro's microtransit subsidy has been reported around $43 per ride, and TransitCenter's standing critique is that microtransit costs agencies far more than an average bus route. The fair framing (Jarrett Walker's): it is a coverage tool for places fixed routes can't justify — not a ridership tool. Governing — microtransit's drawbacks ↗
  • The comparison every proposal must survive: LTC's conventional operating cost is $5.09 per ride. An on-demand pitch that can't beat that number in a specific zone, or justify exceeding it, is a service cut wearing an app. LTC 2024 Annual Report (PDF) ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • The honest range where tried: Belleville ~$4.25/ride (replacing a near-empty night route; the best case, vendor-reported), Innisfil $10.56/trip subsidy and climbing (general service; the warning case), LA Metro ~$43/ride (big-city zones; the worst case). Where a London pilot lands depends entirely on what it replaces. BarrieToday — Innisfil's 2026 restructure ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — NOT DERIVABLE FROM PUBLIC DATA

Not derivable. LTC's Industrial Service review found routes 30/36/37 struggling against the agency's 50% cost-recovery threshold and sketched three flexible models, all needing employer partnerships — but no London per-ride cost exists until LTC costs a specific pilot. A candidate proposing on-demand service owes voters the zone, the service it replaces, and the per-trip cost ceiling at which they'd shut it down. LTC — Industrial Service review, final report ↗

■ CITY DECIDESLTC's service plan and buying decisions (established vendors run Brampton, Hamilton, York, and Belleville deployments); council funds the envelope. Fully local — the discipline required is honest per-trip accounting, not permission.

Fund the paratransit gap

Fund specialized (door-to-door, pre-booked) transit so demand is actually met. The gap is in LTC's own reports: 18 unaccommodated trip requests a day in July–August 2025 rising to 65 a day in September, plus 373 standing subscription requests it could not take on — concentrated in weekday work, program, and medical hours.

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCE
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • The legal floor makes this a genuine choice: Ontario's accessibility regulation (O. Reg. 191/11) requires fare parity, hours matching conventional service, and no trip caps — but it does not require that every requested trip be accommodated. A candidate can legally preside over 65 unmet trips a day; the ballot question is whether they choose to. O. Reg. 191/11 — Integrated Accessibility Standards ↗
  • The demand is not an outlier problem: LTC already delivers more specialized service than its Ontario peers — 0.4 hours per capita versus a 0.3 peer average, 0.7 trips per capita versus 0.4 — and still cannot meet demand. On the published numbers this is a growth file, not a mismanagement file. LTC 2024 Annual Report (PDF) ↗
  • The cheapest paratransit trip is the one that becomes a regular-bus trip: LTC's own plan notes specialized demand falls in summer "as the weather-related barriers associated with the use of accessible conventional service diminish." Snow-cleared stops and accessible regular routes are a paratransit-demand lever at a fraction of the cost of dedicated vehicles. LTC Draft 2026 Specialized Service Plan (PDF) ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • The unit economics are the hardest in transit: London's specialized service runs roughly $52–58 gross per trip (derived — the $18.1M 2026 budget against ~310–348K annual trips; LTC publishes no per-trip figure) versus $5.09 per conventional ride, roughly 10 to 1. Meeting every trip request is an expensive promise and deserves to be costed as one. LTC Staff Report #12 — 2026 Operating Budget ↗
  • Growth is already funded and the gap persists anyway: the multi-year budget added 10,000 specialized hours in each of 2024–2026, with 8,000 more in 2027 — and September 2025 still saw 65 unmet daily requests. "More of the same ramp" has a documented record of not closing the gap. LTC Draft 2026 Specialized Service Plan (PDF) ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • Toronto's Wheel-Trans ran $25.98 per trip against a $0.35 conventional subsidy in OHRC consultation-era figures (early 2000s — date them accordingly); North American paratransit now averages roughly US$45–50 per trip in industry reporting. London's derived $52–58 is not out of line; it is what this service costs everywhere. OHRC — para-transit programs consultation ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

The 2026 specialized budget is $18.14M in expenditures against $932K in revenue — about $17.2M net on the levy (derived), implying roughly $103 per service hour gross ($18.14M ÷ ~175K hours; derived, order of magnitude only). A candidate promising to close the gap owes voters two numbers: the daily unaccommodated count they consider acceptable, and how many added hours at ~$100+/hour they will fund to reach it. LTC Staff Report #12 — 2026 Operating Budget ↗

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCECouncil funds the specialized envelope and LTC allocates hours; the province sets the legal floor through AODA/IASR (parity, no trip caps — but no right to every trip). The gap above the legal floor is a pure council choice.

Switch to electric buses

Replace diesel buses with battery-electric. Correct the common premise first: LTC has zero electric buses in service as of mid-2026. The live program is a joint purchase of 10 battery-electric buses plus chargers; the RFP closed October 2025 and the contract-award recommendation was expected in Q2 2026 — a decision landing essentially at election time, with only 50% of the cost (the city's share) confirmed as funded.

□ SHARED — CITY + FEDS
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • The operating case, per the federal lender financing the transitions: the Canada Infrastructure Bank says lifetime fueling and maintenance costs "could be up to 50 per cent lower than a diesel bus," with roughly 115 tonnes of CO2 avoided per bus per year. Note the CIB is an interested party, and its loans are repaid only from actual savings versus diesel. Canada Infrastructure Bank — Ottawa ZEB investment ↗
  • The peer wave is real and financed: TTC is buying 340 battery-electric buses with a joint $700M city-federal package; Ottawa closed CIB financing of up to $380M; Brampton up to $400M for 450 buses; Calgary $165M. London deciding to electrify would not be London going first. CIB — Brampton 450-bus investment ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • Edmonton is the Canadian cautionary tale: 60 Proterra buses, the manufacturer bankrupt by 2023, one November 2023 morning when only 16 of 60 could roll, failures on range, battery life, and durability, $1.3M-plus in fixes — and a city claim against Proterra that grew to $82 million. Technology and vendor risk on this file is not hypothetical. CBC — Edmonton's Proterra fleet ↗
  • LTC's own strategy carries the cost case against: full-fleet conversion needs ~20 extra buses just to hold current service, $13.4–15M in charging capital, garage grid connections from $100K to $10M — and roughly $16 million more per year than like-for-like diesel, about 2.4 times the entire 50,000-hour service-growth package (derived). LTC — ZEB Implementation Strategy ↗
  • Meanwhile the actual 2026 fleet decision went the other way: LTC's 2026 bus orders are 100% diesel — 29 buses for $27.9 million — and the federal Zero Emission Transit Fund is closed; London received a $320,000 planning grant from it and no capital. Half the e-bus pilot's cost has no identified funder. LTC — 2026 bus replacement and expansion programs ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • The unit prices, from LTC's own purchase process: $25.96M for 10 e-buses and 6 chargers — about $2.6M per bus all-in — versus $926,859 for a 2025 diesel 40-footer. The same $26M buys roughly 28 diesel buses (derived). That is the trade on the table, in London's own numbers. LTC — zero-emission bus procurement update ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

The pilot is $25.96M for 10 buses and chargers, half unfunded, with the award decision landing around the election. Full electrification per LTC's strategy: ~$16M a year above diesel, ~20 extra buses, up to $10M in grid work — against a fleet that separately needs 220 new buses (~$244M) over ten years for renewal and growth. Proceed, pause, or redirect is a real three-way choice, and each branch has a named price. LTC — ZEB procurement update ↗

□ SHARED — CITY + FEDSCouncil approves LTC's capital envelope and the city's 50% is the only confirmed money; the federal side (CIB loans, CPTF capital at a 40% cap, the closed ZETF) determines whether the other half exists. A councillor votes the local share; the business case lives or dies on federal programs.

Build homes where the buses run

Zone for density along corridors, cut parking minimums, and approve towers at stations — so the transit London has, and is building at $454M, has riders. This is the one option with no capital price tag: its cost is administrative and political.

■ CITY DECIDES
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • The framework is already built: parking minimums were removed in 2022 in the Downtown, Transit Village, Rapid Transit Corridor, and Main Street place types; station-area zoning approved in September 2024 allows up to 45 storeys downtown, 35 in Transit Villages, and 25 on rapid-transit corridors; and council voted unanimously on August 29, 2023 to permit four units as-of-right on residential lots — a vote that came just before, and helped land, Canada's first Housing Accelerator deal ($74M, signed September 13, 2023). City of London — PMTSA zoning review (PDF) ↗
  • The standard evidence says proximity works: Ewing and Cervero's meta-analysis — the field's benchmark citation — finds transit use most strongly linked to how close people live to transit and to street-network design. (The same study's honest half: every built-environment elasticity is 0.39 or less, and raw density alone is a weak lever. Use both halves.) Ewing & Cervero — Travel and the Built Environment ↗
  • It is already arriving on London's corridors without subsidy: a pair of 32- and 30-storey towers with 568 units has been proposed on White Oaks Mall parking frontage, "right on the under-construction BRT route." CBC — White Oaks towers proposal ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • Zoned capacity is not built units, and London's own record proves it: the London Plan targets 45% of new units inside the built-area boundary, and the city missed its 2022 intensification target by half. Nothing about approving heights compels anyone to build them — and no count of fourplexes actually built since the 2023 as-of-right change has been published. CTV — intensification target missed by half ↗
  • The timeline mismatch is structural: density takes decades to become ridership, and density without service is car-dependent density. The city's own climate materials concede the municipality directly controls only ~4% of community emissions while its land-use and transport decisions influence ~70%. Influence, not control, is the honest verb for this option. City of London — climate engagement materials ↗
  • The political cost arrives even in the easiest cases: the White Oaks towers sit on mall parking on a BRT corridor — as unobjectionable as intensification gets — and the ward councillor still prefaced support with "I know not everyone will agree with me." Candidates promising corridor density should be asked about the first tower vote, not the principle. CBC — White Oaks towers proposal ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • Vancouver's Canada Line passed 100,000 riders a day three years ahead of projections amid the Cambie-corridor rezoning — the strongest Canadian demonstration that corridor land use and ridership feed each other when both actually happen. Daily Hive — Canada Line ridership ↗
  • The provincial floor already binds London anyway: PPS 2024 (in force October 2024) sets minimum station-area densities of 160 residents-plus-jobs per hectare for BRT corridors. Some of this option is no longer optional — the live question is whether council approves at the floor or above it. PPS 2024 summary of changes ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — NOT DERIVABLE FROM PUBLIC DATA

Not derivable as a dollar figure, by the option's nature: the zoning is enacted, the parking minimums are gone, and the capital cost is zero. The scale question is counting, not costing — corridor units approved and built per year — and the city publishes no zoned-capacity-versus-built-units tracker. The checkable candidate commitment here is a voting rule for corridor towers, not a budget line. London Plan — official plan ↗

■ CITY DECIDESCouncil alone enacts zoning under the Planning Act; the province constrains from below via PPS 2024 minimums, and appeals go to the Ontario Land Tribunal. The only option on this page a council majority can execute without asking anyone for money.

GO trains back to London

Rail or bus service connecting London to Toronto and Kitchener beyond Via Rail's existing corridor service. Jurisdiction first, because it decides everything: Metrolinx and the province decide service, CN owns the track east of Kitchener, and London can lobby and fund station-side improvements — at most. The 2021–2023 GO pilot began and ended by provincial decision.

□ PROVINCE DECIDES
THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾
EVIDENCE FOR
  • The province is actively extending the corridor toward London: Metrolinx bought 53 km of CN's Guelph Subdivision for $76M in 2014, its October 2025 agreement with CN targets two-way hourly service to Kitchener, and daily GO round trips reached Stratford on July 6, 2026. The realistic ask has shrunk from "restore the pilot" to "extend Stratford service one more segment." CP24 — GO service returning to Stratford ↗
  • Regional advocacy machinery exists and London sits inside it: the Western Ontario Wardens' Caucus runs a standing connecting-southwest-ontario campaign, and Mayor Morgan says he doesn't care who runs the train: "I don't care what the name of the train is, frankly... it is the rail service that is important." Western Ontario Wardens' Caucus ↗
EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS
  • The pilot's record is the strongest argument that a bad train is worse than no train: roughly 300 weekly trips on average in year one (about 60 boardings a day systemwide, per a Metrolinx report obtained by FOI, more than half of it redacted), with riders citing the ~5 a.m. departure, no weekend service, and a four-hour trip on track limited to about 50 km/h. Via Rail does London–Toronto in 2h09–2h36, roughly six times a day. CBC — the FOI'd Metrolinx pilot report ↗
  • The hard constraints have not moved: Kitchener–London remains CN's line, Metrolinx's current CN agreement targets hourly service to Kitchener — not beyond — and Alto, the federal high-speed rail project, is Toronto–Québec City only; southwestern Ontario is outside its scope. No amount of London council resolve changes those three facts. Alto — frequently asked questions ↗
  • A telling gap in the local record: no formal 2024–2026 London council motion demanding GO's return was found in this research. Candidates campaigning on GO trains should be asked why the current council never formally asked — and whether they would move the motion themselves. Global News — Via returns, GO exits ↗
WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE
  • What corridor control costs when the province wants it: Metrolinx paid $76 million for 53 km of CN track to Kitchener in 2014. What the intercity-bus alternative costs the province: Community Transportation grants max out at $1.5M. Since Greyhound's 2021 exit, FlixBus, Megabus, and Onex serve London–Toronto commercially. Transit Toronto — the Metrolinx CN purchase ↗
AT LONDON'S SCALE — NOT DERIVABLE FROM PUBLIC DATA

Not derivable — no public costing exists for a Stratford-to-London extension, and the spending decision would be Metrolinx's and the province's, not London's. The city's honest toolkit is motions, intergovernmental advocacy through WOWC, and city money for station-side improvements. That is the full list. Kitchener line — corridor ownership ↗

□ PROVINCE DECIDESMetrolinx and the province decide service; CN owns the track; Via and the federal government run the actual current rail service. A London councillor can vote for a motion and station-side spending — everything else is advocacy, and candidates should be graded on whether they say so.

What a costed answer looks like

Any candidate can say this issue matters. These questions ask for numbers and mechanisms — every candidate gets them, equally.

  1. The city has a $100M ask at Queen's Park for a north rapid-transit leg to Masonville. Do you build it, at what city share, or do you say no and name what you would do for that corridor instead?
  2. LTC's own price list says 22,000 new service hours cost about $2.1M a year and 50,000 cost $5.8M. Which route gets your first new hours, how often would the bus come, and what pays for it?
  3. London's farebox brings in about $39M a year, and Kansas City's fare-free experiment ended with fares back and service cut. If you promise cheaper or free fares, name who rides free, what it costs, and what permanently replaces the money.
  4. Last September, 65 paratransit trip requests a day went unserved, and the law does not require meeting them all. What daily unmet number do you accept, and how many added hours will you fund at about $100 an hour?
  5. LTC's $26M electric-bus pilot buys 10 buses and chargers; the same money buys about 28 diesels, and half the cost is unfunded. Proceed, pause, or redirect, and where does the missing $13M come from?
  6. Council has already zoned for towers up to 45 storeys around BRT stations, and the first proposals are arriving. When a corridor tower faces neighbourhood objections at committee, how do you vote, and if it's case by case, name your criteria.
  7. Five councillors have run London Transit since the citizen commission was dissolved in March 2025, and the governance review is still open. Who should run the buses long term: council, a citizen commission, or something else, and why?
  8. GO trains reached Stratford in July 2026 and stopped there; CN owns the track to London and Metrolinx decides service. What exactly would you ask the province for, and what would London put on the table to get it?

What your ward is wrestling with

This file lands differently on every street.Jump straight to your ward’s own issue list:

DON’T KNOW YOUR WARD? FIND IT BY ADDRESS →
WARD 1WARD 2WARD 3WARD 4WARD 5WARD 6WARD 7WARD 8WARD 9WARD 10WARD 11WARD 12WARD 13WARD 14
CLAIMS WE COULDN’T VERIFY — SO THEY’RE NOT ON THIS PAGE ▾

These circulate in coverage of this issue but could not be traced to a source that loads and says what’s claimed. We’d rather show you the gap than publish the number.

  • An official current cost estimate for a full north BRT leg — only the $100M ask exists; the $205–210M on this page is an inflation-index derivation, not an engineering number.
  • LTC's fully-allocated average cost per service hour — only the marginal ~$111/hour is derivable from the published growth table.
  • A single official "money left on the table in 2019" figure — only the derived split ($204.9M federal allocated vs $123M claimed; $170M provincial vs $103.5M) is supportable.
  • Route-level ridership for the Downtown Loop corridors or Route 2 Dundas — no corridor-level ridership is published.
  • The interim council-run commission's reported end date (Nov. 14, 2026) — one student-paper source only; the official LTC page shows five councillors and no end date.
  • A formal LTC on-time-performance metric — the only public reliability number is the customer survey (46% agree buses run on time).
  • The capacity cost of full fare-free in London (extra buses and drivers for induced demand) — fare-free is presented as ~$39M/yr of farebox replacement PLUS unquantified capacity costs.
  • Whether LTC's smart-card platform can support fare capping — no public document addresses it.
  • Any city or LTC costing of fare-free transit for youth or seniors — council interest is verified; no costing was ever published.
  • Kansas City operator-assault or security claims as a driver of the fare-free retreat — widely asserted; the verified drivers are the funding shortfall and the council ordinance.
  • Whether LTC applied to the federal ZETF capital stream and was refused — LTC says only that the fund is "no longer available."
  • Per-trip operating costs for Durham Region and York Region on-demand services — fares are published, unit costs are not.
  • Per-train London-only GO pilot rider counts — only the FOI'd ~300-weekly-trips systemwide average is verified.
  • A formal London council motion (2024–2026) requesting GO service restoration — none was found.
  • London's zoned-capacity-versus-built-units gap — including any count of fourplexes actually built since the 2023 as-of-right change.