For the 13th year, the Government of Ontario is again allocating part of provincial gas tax revenues to municipalities across the province to help expand and improve public transit services.

During a media event at Brampton Transit’s Sandalwood maintenance and storage facility, Stephen Del Duca, Ontario’s Minister of Transportation, announced that the province is supplying $334.5 million to municipalities through the gas tax program — an increase, the province says, of $1.6 million from last year. Including this year’s funds, the province has provided more than $3.4 billion in gas tax funding to communities across the province since 2004, the Minister said.

Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey and local members of the provincial parliament, Harinder Malhi (Brampton - Springdale) and Vic Dhillon (Brampton West) joined the minister during the event. Brampton, this year’s host for the announcement, is receiving more than $10 million to upgrade and enhance its transit system, including buying new buses, adding more routes, extending hours of service and improving accessibility.

Ontario shares two cents per litre of provincial gas tax revenues with municipalities. According to a Ministry of Transportation news release, “The Ontario government made the funding for its Gas Tax Program permanent in 2013 to help municipalities improve transit. In 2015, there was an increase of more than 217 million trips on municipal transit systems, compared to 2003 — equivalent to removing approximately 181 million car trips on roads.”

At the news event, Minister Del Duca confirmed what many public transit users already know: A single bus takes as many as 40 vehicles off the road and keeps 25 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere each year.

Municipalities, large and small, throughout Ontario benefit from the fund, including regions, cities and towns in the Greater Toronto Area and elsewhere in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The province pays out funds from gas tax revenues on a quarterly basis and determines the amount that municipalities receive by total transit ridership and population of each municipality. As Ontario’s largest municipality with Ontario’s (and Canada’s) largest transit system, the City of Toronto receives the biggest payout, this year totaling more than $170,000,000.

Part of the final price you pay at the pump for gasoline and other fuels goes to various levels of government in the form of taxes. In Ontario, you pay both a federal and provincial tax on these products.

The federal government charges a flat rate of 10 cents per litre on gasoline and 4 cents per litre on diesel. The Ontario government also collects gasoline taxes — another 14.7 cents per litre for gasoline and 14.3 cents for diesel fuel.

The federal government also allocates a portion of its gas tax funds to municipalities to help them build and revitalize local public infrastructure, including transit.