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Brampton Transit experienced an increase in ridership due to the influx of international students and temporary workers. (Alexis Wright\/The Pointer)<\/p>\n
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A look at the transit company\u2019s ridership page<\/a> shows that in 2025, ridership sank 13.1 percent, to 37.9 million trips from 2024. A closer look at the numbers also reveals that ridership numbers for 2026 are lower than those of 2025. Brampton Transit collected $121 million in fare revenue in 2024, according to the City of Brampton\u2019s 2025 Transit Revenue Audit Report<\/a>. The report does not provide a comparable full-year 2025 fare-revenue total.<\/p>\n As of the end of September 2025, the system\u2019s revenue-to-operating-cost ratio stood at 52 percent, compared with 54 percent for all of 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n On April 27 of this year, the City suspended four routes<\/a>. This includes the 33 Peter Robertson, 26 Gardenbrooke, 55 Elbern Markell and 56 Kingknoll, citing \u201clow ridership demand.\u201d The City, in a staff report on the 2025 Second Quarter Operating Budget Forecast<\/a> in October of 2025, placed the blame on Ottawa\u2019s cap on international students.\u00a0<\/p>\n The report states that the Transit system was \u201cprojecting a net deficit of $8.8 million driven by $17.7 million in revenue shortfall due to reduced ridership resulting from the federal government\u2019s cap on international study permits and temporary residents.\u201d Mayor Brown also echoed these sentiments<\/a>, placing the blame squarely on the federal government\u2019s policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n What the City has done about it is to have a hiring freeze, $25,000 buyouts for its least senior transit staff<\/a>, a fare increase of about five percent in February and suspended routes.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Transit system has been experiencing some turbulence recently. In April 2025, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1573 voted 98 percent in favour of a strike mandate after rejecting the City\u2019s contract offer<\/a>, accusing management of \u201cbad faith bargaining.\u201d The Union said they were blindsided by the Argo\u2019s announcement, which broke publicly within the same window as the stalled negotiations. Andrew Salabie said the union needed \u201cthe employer to see us where we are\u201d.<\/p>\n However, a new three-year ATU Local 1573 contract was ratified that avoided a system-wide strike, with roughly three-quarters of members voting in favour<\/a>. Salabie called for the City to prioritize \u201cbadly needed infrastructure and new buses,\u201d and pointed to the long-delayed third transit maintenance facility as a persistent bottleneck even as ridership was, at the time, still climbing.<\/p>\n Mayor Patrick Brown and council quietly approved a $10.9-million contract with private on-demand operator Argo Transit<\/a>. This is a company that has been operating for less than a year. A subsequent freedom-of-information request returned 1,492 pages of documents, 86 percent fully redacted and a further 6 percent redacted past readability, including the final contract itself.<\/p>\n Caledon followed suit<\/a>, days before The Pointer\u2019s freedom-of-information appeal over Brampton\u2019s Argo deal reached Ontario\u2019s Information and Privacy Commissioner. The story documented how residents caused backlash on social media over the loss of Route 55 and others, and detailed how the City has continued to withhold basic information about Argo\u2019s ridership and the terms of its contract.<\/p>\n Researcher and policy expert on infrastructure and transportation Jonathan English says the federal international student cap is \u201cprobably most of the story\u201d. Thanks to the increase in international student permits, Brampton had a large concentration of students and newcomers who were reliant on Brampton Transit to travel to work and classes.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 2025 deficit is being covered from reserves, which English says is the right tool for a temporary dip. \u201cThat\u2019s what reserves are for,\u201d he said, provided riders come back.\u00a0<\/p>\n English, however, remains optimistic about the state of Brampton Transit. He stressed Brampton\u2019s success predated the international student boom. For the past 15 years the system has attracted riders with better service, which justified more service. Even after the drop, ridership, he insists, is above where it was before improvements. He says historical evidence shows service builds ridership, and not population alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Service reductions, according to English, can drive riders away from using transit more than fare increases. (Alexis Wright\/The Pointer)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe availability of service is by far the most important determinant of transit ridership,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, he is also very much aware of what can happen when Brampton Transit makes service reductions. He said reducing services can drive riders away more than \u201cmodest fare increases\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you start cutting service significantly, then you will have a negative feedback loop of reduced service driving riders away, which will prompt further reductions in service, etc,\u201d he said. \u201cSo you really, really don\u2019t want to get caught in that kind of loop.\u201d<\/p>\n English believes the decline is simply \u201ca bump in the road\u201d that \u201ccan be overcome\u201d.<\/p>\n Mayoral candidates for Brampton also addressed what they would do differently in situations like this, if elected. In written statements, they outlined their plans for Brampton Transit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Brampton mayoral candidate Wesley Jackson says the transit system\u2019s problems are specific, and the fixes should be as well. He said he would begin by a route-by-route review of passenger loads, missed trips, delays and buses passing riders because they are full, rather than reacting to the citywide ridership decline.\u00a0<\/p>\n A headline drop, he argues, hides which routes are overcrowded and which neighbourhoods lack dependable service. He said a 30 percent cut on a route where every bus is full \u201cdoes not allow the city to reduce service on that route,\u201d while a 40 percent cut on a sparsely used one might justify pulling buses off entirely.\u00a0<\/p>\n With regard to finances, he says the 2025 budget \u201cborrowed against reserves and balanced the budget with a promise to find savings later,\u201d and \u201cthe public will not have access to a full accounting until after the election.\u201d If elected, he says, his first target would be to target recurring operational savings, like outside contracting, management salary growth and procurement.\u00a0<\/p>\n He is wary of relying on senior governments. Provincial and federal money should be pursued, he says, but \u201cdependable daily service cannot depend on grants that have not been secured.\u201d<\/p>\n Jackson also said, \u201cselling land or drawing down reserves cannot sustainably pay for an ongoing bus service.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he would direct staff to cost service every 10 minutes or better at peak on overcrowded corridors. Results would be published by route and time of day with quarterly reports to the committee. He would report early departures separately, \u201crather than hidden within an \u2018on-time\u2019 figure.\u201d<\/p>\n He further suggested, if elected, he would prioritize stabilizing existing service, easing the worst overcrowding and setting up transparent reporting. He would keep pursuing rapid transit, including new Z\u00fcm routes and a plan to be bus rapid transit (BRT) ready, but says \u201ccommuters should not have to wait for a major construction project to get a more dependable bus ride.\u201d<\/p>\n Jagruti Bhatt also supports a route-by-route analysis to \u201cput resources where riders actually need them, and publish the results.\u201d In 100 days, she said she would require a route-by-route review of on-time performance, overcrowding, missed trips and pass-ups, and she would add peak-hour service on the busiest corridors.\u00a0<\/p>\n On finances, Bhatt rejects \u201chigher taxes\u201d and \u201cacross-the-board service cuts.\u201d She said she would first review route productivity, overtime, procurement and underused service, then redirect resources toward the routes carrying the most riders. She promises to “aggressively pursue provincial and federal transit funding\u201d and support more municipal money only with a clear business case. She also supports fare capping through PRESTO, which she says would give frequent riders \u201cmore predictable costs.\u201d<\/p>\n She would also support publishing quarterly reports and a public Transit Performance Dashboard with route-level results. She added, \u201cIf targets are missed, residents should see why and what corrective action is being taken.\u201d<\/p>\n Her first year would deliver a reliability audit, a dashboard, targeted fixes on the worst routes and a financial review. She promises \u201cbetter information, clearer accountability,\u201d rather than \u201canother round of announcements without measurable outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n Sandeep Somal is also aware of residents waiting for longer times for buses and seeing buses arrive fully packed. \u201cThat shouldn\u2019t be acceptable in a city the size of Brampton,\u201d he said. He said he would review the busiest routes for overcrowding, delays and missed trips, then adjust schedules and bus availability for peak hours. He also wants more transit signal priority and an east-west corridor with dedicated space for buses and emergency vehicles.\u00a0<\/p>\n He said he would speed up electric-bus adoption and fix the infrastructure storage delays that have held it back. On ridership drop, he says \u201ccutting service to address declining ridership would only make that problem worse.\u201d<\/p>\n Somal supports investing in transit, but promises to not raise property taxes or cut existing services to pay for it. He would look first for savings in Argo, consulting contracts, administration and procurement, and he wants an independent Auditor General.\u00a0<\/p>\n His targets are at least 85 percent on-time performance, buses every 15 minutes or less at peak on the busiest routes, and a 25 percent cut in preventable missed trips in year one. He wants customer satisfaction up 10 percentage points over the term, with quarterly public reports. He plans a 100-day review of the worst routes, with public reporting by six months and a dashboard by the end of the first year.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the end, however, it depends on whether riders can count on the bus. For transit users like Swaby and Chana, that is the question for the vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Pointer sent questions to Brampton Transit General Manager, Heidi Dempster, Mayor Brown\u2019s office and the city of Brampton. The questions asked how Brampton Transit hopes to build ridership, how many transit workers accepted the voluntary buyout package and the projected financial position for 2026. As of publication, all parties have not responded.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Email: [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n At a time when vital public information is needed by everyone, The Pointer has taken down our paywall on all stories to ensure every resident of Brampton, Mississauga and Niagara has access to the facts. For those who are able, we encourage you to consider a subscription. This will help us report on important public interest issues the community needs to know about now more than ever. You can register for a 30-day free trial HERE<\/a>. Thereafter, The Pointer will charge $10 a month and you can cancel any time right on the website. Thank you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For many Brampton residents, the only way to get around town is to take transit. 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