As a result of reduced gas sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s gas tax program includes supplemental funding of $80 million. This money will go towards ensuring that municipalities can continue to support their transit systems to allow residents to get to and from where they need to be, and safely.
“Many of our suburban and rural residents in Ottawa are returning to their workplaces in person after nearly three years of working from home. This investment in public transit made by our government will help ensure that workers, students and all residents have access to an improved system serving all parts of Ottawa,” declared Goldie Ghamari, MPP for Carleton.
“Public transit is a key driver of economic growth in Ontario, helping people get to where they need to go, whether it is to work, school, or run errands,” said Caroline Mulroney, Minister of Transportation. “As more people return to public transit, our government is providing municipalities with the funding they need to accommodate growing ridership, while ensuring they can continue to deliver safe and reliable transit service for people in their communities.”
The funding for the gas tax program is determined by the number of litres of gasoline sold in Ontario the previous year. Municipalities that support public transit services in their community will receive two cents per litre of provincial gas tax revenue collected.
As a part of this program, which will distribute more than $379.5 million to help support 144 communities in 107 municipalities across the province, Ottawa will be receiving additional funding towards public transit services.
The funding for Ottawa is $37,804,511, which will go towards improving and expanding Ottawa’s public transit services by possibly extending service hours, purchasing transit vehicles, adding routes, improving accessibility, or even upgrading local infrastructure.
“Our government is supporting the City of Ottawa with nearly $38 million of funding to improve bus transit by adding more routes or extending services,” said Dr. Merrilee Fullerton, MPP for Kanata-Carleton. “Given the tremendous growth in the west end of our City, I will be connecting with our local city councillors to draw their attention to this significant financial support and to ask that they do what they can to improve bus transit services to Kanata residents and businesses.”