Transit strike cost city $5.9M: auditor

Alain Lalonde said the walkout by OC Transpo drivers, which halted service for 58 days, ultimately cost taxpayers $5.9 million.

"Although expenses were reduced during the strike, the significant amount of lost revenue resulted in an overall cost to the city," he said in a statement.

The city lost $27.4 million in net revenues, but only reduced net expenses by $21.5 million, the auditor said in his report, tabled Wednesday morning.

The biggest expenditure reduction during the strike, which stretched from Dec. 11, 2008, to Feb. 1, 2009, was $17 million in labour costs.

Once service was restarted in February, the city offered free rides for a week as well as half-price cash and ticket fares and free weekend trips for the rest of the month.

Full service was restored on March 23.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas last year, some businesses – particularly those in the downtown area and in malls attached to transit stations – reported traffic decreased by as much as 50 per cent.

The Rideau Centre's Cindy VanBuskirk said last December that 47 per cent of the mall's customers rely on public transit.

-- By Peter Kovessy