Winnipeg Transit’s weekday ridership has plummeted 9% so far this year compared to 2015, according to a report going to the city’s finance committee Thursday. But Transit continues to blame gasoline prices, weather and just about everything else for the decline instead of looking at the quality of its own service.

“Compared to 2015, sampler passenger counts indicate weekday ridership has declined by 9%,” says the report. “Ridership is influenced by many factors such as gasoline prices, demographics, weather, etc.”

The decline is also part of a national trend that’s been felt in cities like Calgary, Ottawa and Toronto, Transit points out.

Yes, but not 9%.

Ridership in Ottawa has dipped 3% so far this year. Calgary’s is down 4%. Winnipeg’s decline is more than double that.

It’s impossible to say with any certainty what is causing fewer people to take the bus. The introduction of the ride-sharing service Uber to some cities has been blamed. But Winnipeg doesn’t have Uber – yet.

The downturn in Calgary’s economy has been cited for its ridership decline. However, Winnipeg’s economy is not declining. It’s growing at a moderate rate. And gas prices? That’s a bit of a stretch. Sure, if prices at the pump fell sharply enough, it might affect decisions about driving a vehicle over taking a bus. Bus gas prices in Winnipeg haven’t plummeted over the past year.

And most of the ridership declines have occurred this year because ridership rose 1% in 2016 compared to 2015. So if weekday ridership is down 9% compared to 2015, the decline is probably closer to 10% compared to last year. That’s a massive loss of riders. And it’s already having a huge impact on Transit’s bottom line. While the city likes to blame the province for Transit’s money problems this year because the Pallister government froze Transit’s operating grant, ridership declines are also contributing to the revenue losses. So far this year, Transit is projecting a revenue decline of $5.6 million due to a drop in passenger fares.

What’s interesting is Transit doesn’t mention anything about service quality, or lack thereof, as a possible reason for ridership decline.

Transit officials admitted in 2015 that bus congestion was affecting ridership, as more and more buses filled to capacity were forced to bypass bus stops. The congestion was due in part to a shortage of buses. While ridership grew from 2005 to 2015, the city didn’t expand its bus fleet accordingly to keep up with demand. Instead, it dumped $138-million into the first phase of Bus Rapid Transit, which is doing nothing to increase ridership and has turned out to be a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money.

Transit doesn’t publish detailed, publicly-available data on its service quality, like what percentage of buses are running on time, bus cancellations or the frequency with which buses by-pass bus stops. If it did, we might get some insight into why ridership is falling as much as it is. While ridership is affected by a myriad of factors, frequency of service, travel time and punctuality are still the primary ones. If buses are continually late, don’t show up, take too long or frequently bypass stops, people are going to be less likely to use the service.

Transit is going to have to figure this out. Because it’s now losing millions of dollars a year in foregone revenue, which can’t be made up through fare hikes. Transit can only increase fares so much before that, too, contributes to declining ridership.

And who knows, maybe rising fares already have. An adult monthly pass is now $90.50. With scheduling problems and bus congestion as bad as they are, riders don’t always get great value for that money.

There doesn’t seem to be a sense of urgency at city hall over this, though. They’re still too busy blaming the province for ending the blank-cheque funding they used to get for Transit.

But at some point they’re going to have to take a good, hard look at why Winnipeggers are turning away from Transit in such large numbers.

A 9% decline in ridership should be a massive wake-up call.