City council voted Monday to dramatically overhaul London’s bus pass discount program — taking away a fair bit, giving a lot more and leaving one vulnerable group’s subsidy untouched.

In an at times messy debate, council made several tweaks to a program they hope will now better serve those in need:

The 25 per cent discount seniors have enjoyed for decades will be gone.

The program giving visually impaired Londoners free monthly passes will continue.

City staff were directed to find enough money — possibly as much as $2 million — to give bus pass reductions (to $52 a month from the normal $81) to all low-income Londoners who need one.

The bus subsidy overhaul, now based on income rather than age, is a positive change, Mayor Matt Brown said.

“We (city council) have focused significantly on the most vulnerable members of our community,” he said. “This is a symbol of that.”

The question now, however, becomes: how will they pay for it?

Brown didn’t have an answer Monday night — the budgets for 2017-19 have already been set — but said council “has time” to find funding.

Coun. Stephen Turner was the lone person to vote against the fund-all-in-need policy pushed forward by councillors Mo Salih and Phil Squire. Turner called it “ad-hoc” spending, done well outside normal budget debates.

“The appropriate time to look under the cushions (for money) is during the budget process, not mid-stream,” Turner said, noting several projects were denied during recent budget talks to keep the 2017 tax hike at 2.9 per cent.

“Nobody wanted to go over that magic number of 2.9.”

The existing bus subsidy program that gives the discount to seniors and free passes to the blind has about $550,000 in 2017 funding. City staff last week proposed ending both, and instead doling out the subsidies based on income.

Once politicians decided to protect the blind discounts, that left enough money to give about 1,200 low-income Londoners cut-rate passes. The problem, however, is that staff estimate 6,000 people living in poverty will want one, creating something of a competition.

Squire called that “a little barbaric.” In a radio interview with AM980, Sheryl Rooth of the London Transit Commission dubbed it “the Hunger Games of transit passes.”

What council approved Monday theoretically ends that controversy. But it raises the thorny question of finding enough money within existing city budgets for everyone in need.

Monday’s debate grew complicated at times, leaving several politicians frustrated. At one point, council actually held a vote on whether or not to vote on a related matter (they voted not to vote).

A frustrated Salih called the situation “ridiculous.”

It was also quietly tense: As the mayor spoke, he needed an extension of his allotted five-minute opening. At least two colleagues, Tanya Park and Virginia Ridley, voted against giving it to him.

The revamped subsidy program will be a two-year pilot project, set to start in January 2018.

pmaloney@postmedia.com

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