Monthly ridership on the Union Pearson Express hit a record high this summer, marking a positive milestone for the airport train service that initially struggled to attract customers when it launched three years ago.

But while ridership is better than ever, Metrolinx said this week it couldn’t tell the public how much the train is costing taxpayers to operate.

And the new Progressive Conservative government declined to commit to publishing the numbers, despite the fact that when the party was in opposition it criticized the former Liberal government for not releasing UP Express operating costs.

According to Metrolinx, the provincial agency that operates GO Transit and the UP Express, in June more than 417,000 passengers rode the line, which cost $456 million to build and connects Pearson airport to Union Station downtown.

The ridership figures represented an increase of 20 per cent compared to June of last year, and were a record high for a single month.

The agency attributed the spike in part to 60,000 tickets purchased for a Rotarian conference in late June. In July, ridership fell to 356,000, but the agency says that was the second-highest monthly ridership for the service so far.

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Annual ridership is also on the rise. During the fiscal year that ended in March, 3.5 million people rode the UP Express, up from 2.76 million the year before.

While Metrolinx released the ridership numbers to the Star, a spokesperson for the agency said in an emailed statement it couldn’t release figures showing how much it costs to operate the UP Express, or how much each ride is subsidized by taxpayers, because “Metrolinx considers all of its rail operations — GO and UP — to be part of one network.”

“We do not break down the funding of each line of the network,” said Anne Marie Aikins in the statement.

Metrolinx has published UP Express operating costs in the past. But Aikins said that the service has now been more closely integrated with Metrolinx’s other divisions and doesn’t have a separate budget.

The operating costs and per-ride subsidy level for the UP Express have been closely scrutinized since the former Liberal government launched the line in June 2015.

The Liberals initially pledged the train would generate enough fare revenue to break even on operating costs, but the original one-way fare of $27.50 for trips between the airport to downtown, or $19 using a Presto fare card, proved too steep for many would-be customers. Early ridership was dismal.

In its first 10 months of operation, the UP Express cost the public an astonishing $52 per ride, a subsidy far higher than for other publicly-funded transportation services in the region.

After the Liberals ordered Metrolinx to slash fares in March 2016, the subsidy fell to about $11 per ride for the fiscal year that ended March 2017. In both years it cost Metrolinx about $63 million to operate the service.

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An adult fare between Union and Pearson now costs $12.35, or $9.25 with a Presto card.

With ridership increasing, the per ride subsidy for the most recent fiscal year would be lower than $11 recorded in 2017, unless the train’s operating costs also increased substantially since then. But Metrolinx has abandoned the idea that the UP Express will generate enough revenue to recoup its costs.

“Like all public transit, UP Express requires an operating subsidy to ensure it is affordable for customers. Our goal is to ensure it remains both affordable and economical to operate and to get the subsidy level as low as possible,” Aikins said.

Asked if the operating costs and subsidy level should be made public, a spokesperson for Transportation Minister John Yakabuski sent the Star a brief statement.

“We have launched a comprehensive line-by-line audit of government spending. This will review all projects and spending committed to by the last government. We will have more to say once the audit is completed later this summer,” wrote Justine Lewkowicz.

Last year, after it had become clear the UP Express wouldn’t pay for itself, the opposition Conservatives demanded the former Liberal government publish the service’s operating costs so the public would know how much the line would need to be subsidized in the long term.

“(The government) wants to distract you with how many people are riding the train,” then-transportation critic Michael Harris told the Toronto Sun in March 2017. “But more importantly, the taxpayers need to know how much are they actually subsidizing?”

In an interview Tuesday, Jessica Bell, NDP MPP for University-Rosedale, rejected Metrolinx’s assertion that it can’t release the UP Express operating costs because the line is part of the agency’s wider network.

“It’s a silly argument,” she said.

“They have the data, they should release that. We have a right to know how our taxpayer dollars are being spent. I don’t understand what they have to hide.”

Metrolinx says that between 75 and 80 per cent of UP Express passengers are airport travellers, but the lower fares have also attracted commuters and people attending sports games and other events downtown.

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr

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