Innisfil, Ontario, which in 2017 decided to subsidize Uber rides in lieu of a public bus system, has been forced to raise fares and cap rides as adoption grows
Innisfil, Ontario, decided to partially subsidize ride-hailing trips rather than pay for a public bus system. Tweets: @turkernational , @citylab , @nachosbracko , @nqrw , @bdtetlow , @sphillipsluethi , @citylab , @citylab , @sean_yyz , @grescoe , @humantransit , @wswmuc , @schmangee , @citylab , @citylab , @mikeboos , @citylab , @mslaurabliss , @citylab , and @citylab Tweets: Kristy Milland / @turkernational : Yet it's only four “routes”, the cost is about $225k per route, and people are now limited to less trips than will take them to work each day. For $270k they could ride as much as they needed to. It seems the costs are now equivalent, and yet service is worse via Uber. @citylab : “I would never get on a bus in Toronto and hear the driver say, 'Sorry, but you've hit your cap.' Uber was supposed to be our bus.” http://www.citylab.com/... Dean Nachos Bracko / @nachosbracko : @Techmeme @mslaurabliss Innisfil rejected $270,000 for buses, spends $640,000 in 2018, and for 2019, it has allocated another $900,000 for Uber. Calls it success. Martha Lauren / @nqrw : “the system was being abused by those in the youth bracket who were using Uber at $3 to go to Starbucks... then go back to school or meet their friends.” Abusing their city's transit system by (checks notes) paying their fare and riding it. http://www.citylab.com/... Barrett Tetlow / @bdtetlow : Nearly 70 percent of respondents to a city survey said that they were satisfied or more than satisfied with the new service—figures that would be the envy of any transitional public transit agency. http://www.citylab.com/... Sandra Phillips / @sphillipsluethi : Great article by @mslaurabliss on Innisfil and Uber partnership. Hugely successful from a user perspective, the city subsidies have increase 6x in only 2years. And instead of that money being reinvested into transit it goes into Uber's pocket. http://www.citylab.com/... @citylab : “Uber was supposed to be our public transit. Now we have to think about whether we can take an Uber or not.” http://www.citylab.com/... @citylab : In a booming Toronto exurb, partnering with Uber was cheaper than starting a public bus system. But when it got too popular, fares went up, @mslaurabliss writes. http://www.citylab.com/... Sean Marshall / @sean_yyz : Fares are up $1/a ride and passengers are now only able to take up to 30 trips a month. Innisfil's experiment with Uber isn't providing real transit. http://twitter.com/... Taras Grescoe / @grescoe : Modest suggestion: put large vehicles (you could call them omnibuses, or"buses" for short) on major arteries, with frequent service and decently-paid drivers...nah, it'd never work. http://twitter.com/... Jarrett Walker / @humantransit : The entirely predictable process by which “microtransit” dies. Demand responsive service has always had this problem. http://twitter.com/... Wilko S. Wolters / @wswmuc : When a town decided to subsidize Uber in lieu of public transport With popularity costs grew, as passenger fares almost never cover the full cost of service 🚌 Mass transit system Users Cost 🚕 Uber transit Users Cost 💥 #futureofmobility https://www.citylab.com/... pic.twitter.com/i6fdcx6Cid Angie Schmitt / @schmangee : People who just aren't very knowledgeable about transit think smaller transit vehicles are going to solve some sort of problem. That is wrong. The big expense for transit providers is labor. Smaller vehicles means higher costs to move less people. https://www.citylab.com/... @citylab : “I would never get on a bus in Toronto and hear the driver say, 'Sorry, but you've hit your cap.' Uber was supposed to be our bus.” https://trib.al/J3a3MgG @citylab : In a booming Toronto exurb, partnering with Uber was cheaper than starting a public bus system. But when it got too popular, fares went up, @mslaurabliss writes. https://trib.al/aQSAFhy Mike Boos / @mikeboos : “The system was being abused by those in the youth bracket who were using Uber at $3 to go to Starbucks, purchase a drink, then go back to school or meet their friends.” Imagine we said this about folks who “abused” public roads and public parking this way https://www.citylab.com/... @citylab : As cities around the world turn to apps as a quick fix for mobility service gaps, what's now happening in Innisfil may be a good example of the risks, @mslaurabliss writes. https://trib.al/v4nbOGL Laura Bliss / @mslaurabliss : In 2017, a town in Ontario decided to subsidize Uber rides instead of paying for public buses. Now, it's capping trips and hiking fares. Riders complain that's missing the point of what public transit is for: http://www.citylab.com/... @citylab : Innisfil, Ontario, decided to partially subsidize ride-hailing trips rather than pay for a public bus system. It worked so well that now they have to raise fares and cap rides. http://www.citylab.com/... @citylab : “Uber was supposed to be our public transit. Now we have to think about whether we can take an Uber or not.” http://www.citylab.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Innisfil made its name in 2017 by rejecting a $270,000 bus proposal and paying Uber per trip instead — a decision that looked cheap until ridership arrived. Spending hit roughly $640,000 in 2018 with about $900,000 allocated for 2019, so the town is now raising fares about $1 per ride and capping trips.
The move lands just months after Uber began positioning itself inside public transit rather than against it, starting with real-time bus and rail information in the Denver app. Innisfil was the flagship for the opposite strategy — full substitution — and its fiscal math is now the test case.
First-order effects
- Innisfil residents who built commutes around the subsidy now pay more per ride and can take fewer of them; critics including Kristy Milland note the caps allow fewer trips than a daily work commute requires.
- The town council faces renewed pressure to revisit conventional transit, since the per-trip bill has already far outgrown the bus plan it rejected.
Second-order effects
- Other small municipalities weighing Uber-for-transit deals now have a documented ceiling: costs scale with every adopted rider, so the model that wins users loses money fastest.
- Uber's municipal business gets a cautionary data point that strengthens the complement play it launched in Denver — integration into existing transit — over replacement contracts that expose towns to open-ended subsidy growth.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, ride-hailing-as-bus-replacement settles into a niche for low-density edge cases while fixed-route service remains the backbone, and sole-vendor dependence on one company becomes a procurement risk cities price explicitly.
- Transit advocates like Jarrett Walker gain a concrete case study that shifts the policy conversation from 'can Uber replace buses' to 'where does each belong in the network.'
The trend: Municipal ride-hailing subsidies are migrating from transit replacement toward transit complement, because per-trip costs scale with adoption in ways fixed-route budgets do not.