Windsor mayor points to tariff threat as reason to kill Tunnel Bus

Yahoo

05-02-2025

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens pointed this week to the threat of tariffs as a reason to kill the Tunnel Bus service connecting his city and Detroit.
President Donald Trump on Monday agreed to place a 30-day pause on imposing tariffs on Canadian products after threatening to move forward with them, but Dilkens indicated in a note to the Free Press that the mayor would not reverse course at this time.
"As long as that severe economic threat hangs over our heads, I cannot in good conscience subsidize a transit service that brings 40,000 Canadians to the United States to spend their money every year. The Tunnel Bus is almost exclusively an economic engine for Detroit and sees very little U.S. visitors coming to Canada," he said Tuesday. "It costs us $1.6 million each year to provide this service."
Posting Monday on the social media site X, Dilkens had said he intended to veto a Windsor City Council decision to continue the service, asking "Why would we want to subsidize economic development in the United States when their president is assaulting our communities? We receive almost no benefit in return."
He also posted that if the 25% tariffs (10% for Canadian energy products) are imposed, the city would pull its sponsorship of the Detroit Grand Prix and review other spending to focus on Canadian-made goods.
Trump had threatened to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico but opted to pause the tariffs after conversations with leaders of both countries, who reportedly pledged to boost resources at both borders. Trump went ahead with imposing additional tariffs on products from China. The threat of tariffs from the White House has prompted worries about the impact on U.S. consumers from higher prices and the possibility of retaliatory tariffs decreasing demand for U.S. goods abroad.
The fate of the Tunnel Bus, however, was in question before the tariffs appeared imminent.
The service has been the subject of wrangling in Windsor, with city officials concerned about how changes to Canadian federal sick time requirements were blowing a hole in the budget. The changes targeted only the Tunnel Bus service, as a cross-border operation, but affected all employees at Transit Windsor, which oversees it, city officials previously told the Free Press.
The Windsor Star reported Monday that council had voted to save the service on Jan. 27, "which Dilkens threatened to eliminate in his 2025 budget," but that Dilkens said he might veto that budget amendment.
Transit advocates, who have called the bus service essential, expressed skepticism about the mayor's explanation on social media.
'The mayor has been clear from the start that his opposition to worker rights was the primary motivation behind ending the bus service, and has since championed its privatization. This is opportunism at its worst, and the mayor intends to use our state of national unity to harm the lower class and privatize vital service. He should be ashamed of himself,' Josh Sankarlal, a steering committee member for the advocacy group Activate Transit Windsor Essex, said in a post on Facebook.
Windsor officials told the Free Press previously that without budget changes, taxes would need to be increased to an unpalatable level and that tunnel bus ridership had declined from years ago. A fare increase was not considered realistic to cover the budget gap because it would price out users. The service, which runs on an hourly schedule, is currently $10 to ride each way.
It's not clear how soon the service could end.
Steve Habrun, acting executive director for Transit Windsor, told the Free Press previously that preliminary 2024 numbers put the Tunnel Bus at 85,000 rides for the year, with Transit Windsor as a whole at about 9.6 million rides.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Windsor mayor says tariff threat reason to kill Tunnel Bus