TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION
• [ Toronto Star ]
• [ Toronto Star ]
• TTC proposes $200M increase in capital budget [ Toronto Star ]
• [ Toronto Star ]
• Transit fare hike is in the cards [ Toronto Sun ]
• TTC’s $17.4M deficit could force fare hikes [ CBC News ]
• Riders find TTC too crowded, poll find [ National Post ]
CITY HALL
• Savings from strike won’t yield rebate, officials say [ Globe & Mail ]
• Karen Stintz calling [ Now Magazine ]
• Early odds on the mayoral race [ Eye Weekly]
• Hasta la vista, Davy: Miller to experience climate in L.A. [ Toronto Star ]
OTHER NEWS
• 401 service stations ‘a mess’ [ Toronto Star ]
• [ Toronto Star ]
• Why licensing cyclists just won’t work [ Globe & Mail ]
• School board votes to reopen four pools [ Globe & Mail ]
• Canada’s tallest office tower gets a $100-million facelift [ National Post ]
• Bridge over Fort York [ Now Magazine ]
20 comments
Is anyone else suspicious that this TTC deficit & ‘blame-the-metropass’ spin was a planned scheme to justify fare increases? Mind you I’m not sure their management would be able to pull off such a thing.
Rather than a fare hike, there should be a supplemental registration fee on cars to cover some TTC Operating costs. Something like $100 per car year would be a good start.
Very, very interesting to see that MdAS has been brought in to reclad 1st Canadian Place. (They are listed as the design architect on redefiningfirst.com). This firm popularized the turn-masonry-into-glass recladding procedure in New York over the last decade and have done a dozen buildings there. Their biggest to date was glassing up the old Verizon Building near Bryant Park (http://bit.ly/s0tNH). 1st Cdn is a much larger scale and will be a huge project; I look forward to the result.
Why isn’t Steve Monroe in charge of the TTC?
There is no sense in keeping TTC fares artificially low. TTC should charge the full cost of the service it provides. We shouldn’t subsidize the middle class and the rich just because the poor take transit too.
The right way to help the poor is to do so in a targeted way:
– provide transit passes as a supplement to welfare
– sell transit passes at a discount in homeless shelters and food banks
– supplement any child assistance benefits with transit passes
– supplement employment insurance with transit passes
Subsidizing everyone whether they need the subsidy or not is moronic.
Transit service will remain crappy as long as TTC keeps losing money on every new rider. When “Always a [street]car in sight” was a true slogan, Toronto’s transit operators made money on every rider. We won’t return to those days until we restore the old incentives.
@”401 service stations ‘a mess’”:
Dear Ontario ProgCons:
How are highway service stations in any way the responsibility of the government? The private sector can provide its own gas stations and Tim Hortonses.
It sounds like the government is losing money on service stations. Let the private sector lose money on them instead — privatize the damn things.
Mark: Why should Steve Munro be in charge of the TTC?
Leo,
all around the world, public transit always requires subsidy, and TTC is among the ones which receive lower percentage in subsidy. And do you think drivers are not subsidized? Think again.
When I first got to Toronto, I hated the public transit because it was so much worse than the service I was used to in Melbourne, Australia. But then I remembered that back in Melbourne, I was paying $5.80 for a ticket, compared to $2.25 (at the time) here.
I think North Americans are used to cheap public transit. But you get what you pay for.
TTC metro pass is not too cheap, how can a monthly pass that does not pay for itself after 40 rides (even take tax credit into consideration) be considered cheap? In some Europe cities, transit pass pays for themselves after 30 rides or so, that is why almost every resident is having one, and everybody uses transit. More bus/subway and more subsidy required? Bring it on. Think about how many cars that can help to take off the road.
Leo,
Bang on!
Transit subsidy is consistently proven to improve city life. If you make people pay more for transit they drive more – and road subsidy is far less efficient.
If you like the kind of city where you need to drive to get to most of it with any convenience then enjoy living in Toronto, LA, and Detroit. I’m leaving Toronto for Tokyo, because people thinking like Ted and Leo keep Toronto as mediocre as it is, and nothing I think, or Spacing writes, is going to change their anti-social minds, much less the city.
Good luck to those of you staying, who understand how a city should work.
Yu,
Drivers do not have their operating cost subsidised. That is, the government does not pay for gas, insurance maintenance and depreciation. Nor does it pay someone to drive for them.
What is ‘subsidised’ is the road infrastructure. That being said, those subsidies come from tax revenues which governments generate quite a bit from the purchases of auto’s, insurance, gas and maintenance. They also receive income taxes on the wages used to build and support auto’s and the various infrastructures. The various revenues to governments are more than sufficient to cover the expense incurred for roads and maintenance.
Ben,
We already have a supplemental registration fee on car registration. Don’t you remember the stink just 2 tears ago. We also have a big one on buying a house.
See ya, James. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
And for the record, Melbourne is a beautiful city, with a more extensive streetcar and rail network than Toronto, and with pedestrian-only streets in its downtown core. Toronto would be envious.
Old-school accounting is a very distorted lens that ignores any impact that can’t be listed on a balance sheet. If various and sundry externalities were taken into account (environmental impact, etc.) then I’m sure the ‘subsidy’ granted to transit users translates to a sizeable savings in healthcare costs, infrastructure costs for extra drivers, etc. and a boost to the economy because people without cars can still get around.
Leo’s proposal doesn’t make sense. If you stop subsidizing the middle and upper class riders, as he suggests, then you’ll just end up with fewer of them. Am I missing something here?
Andrew: no you’re not missing anything: its a horrible idea. Toronto has one of the highest riderships in North America based on CHOOSING transit 9as opposed to it being the only option for people).
The TTC is funded by 80% fare recovery, whereas most American cities generate only 50-60% through the farebox. Less subsidization is not eh option. Its just better management of other costs that they need to get control of.
Re: Ben
1. I like your name (though now I’ll have to sign my posts with my last name now to avoid confusion).
2. As mentioned, Toronto already has a vehicle registration fee, and is the only municipality in Ontario (maybe even Canada?) that does this, with some of the money going to transit.
3. Just because you dislike cars does not mean they should pay for everything. Your irrational solution to “let drivers pay for the TTC’s mismanagement” is no better than those who think cyclists should have to pay to register their bikes.
How much more do you feel is appropriate? This isn’t Europe where cities are more dense, and there is less land to venture. Even if everyone got rid of their cars tomorrow, our transit system can barely handle the crowds now, imagine if it had to move everyone in Toronto and the GTA?
Cars are not perfect, but on a whole they do more good than harm. They allow individuals to travel large distances more efficiently than transit (at least in Canada), allow the transport of goods and services, and are vital to our economy as thousands of people hold jobs relating to cars. The federal and provincial governments agree, which is why they just bailed out auto makers to ensure they stay in business.
4. Since removing Metropass parking perks, many drivers who take the TTC are now giving the system more money now anyways. Speaking of which, how come the TTC can’t manage its books with this new channel of revenue? If a driver with a Metropass only used it 2 times per day 20 days per month ($5.45 per day), they were essentially only paying 95 cents per day to park compared to tokens. Now they are paying $4-$6 per day to pay, a 300%-500% increase on parking and a 65%-191% increase on what they were paying for transit + parking before!
Face it people, blaming the Metropass is simply the scapegoat that they gave the union too much and they cannot balance the books. If it weren’t for the strike and the controversy surrounding the contract, I’d say to the TTC to just raise the fares if they need to. They have done a pretty good job keeping fares steady for the past few years while other GTA systems have been raising fares annually with no media attention; all while providing significantly poorer service. In fact, besides the monthly pass, the TTC is one of the cheapest systems in the GTA right now.
@ Leo, regarding your TTC proposals, they sound logical, until one realizes that NO sizeable transit system recoups it’s costs through the fare box. Yes, the TTC certainly can use some efficiencies, and from what I’ve heard, it is WAY too top heavy/bureaucratized. But as a passenger, I’d say TOO MUCH of the operating costs are recouped through the fare box. Transit services are cheaper in other comparable jurisdictions, not so much because of the costs of labour (as so many people want to insist) but because transit systems in those jurisdictions are receiving a much higher level of subsidy.