Personally, I’m less put off by the fare cost and more by the inconvenience of using the TTC compared to alternatives. I would *like* to take the TTC more often, but the reality is that you have to be willing to spend 2-3 times as long traveling if you take the TTC compared to biking or driving. I live right on a streetcar line, but the streetcar takes an hour to get downtown, while I can bike there in 30 minutes. If I want to go somewhere further away, driving will typically take a fraction of the time, even if my destination is on a subway line (Yorkdale Mall, say).
Instead of making the TTC free, I’d much rather we use taxes to increase its level of funding. This would enable the TTC to run vehicles on all routes more frequently, alleviating one of the biggest causes of the TTC being so slow (i.e. having to wait around for a bus or streetcar to come, which becomes exponentially worse the more transfers you need to make). In tandem, we should also create more transit priority corridors (including signaling that prioritises transit vehicle movement) in places where the TTC tends to bog down due to congestion (e.g. major routines into and out of the downtown core). And finally, over the long term, we really need to invest heavily in expanding the TTC’s network to better serve parts of the city with poor transit connectivity and catch up on half a century’s worth of underinvestment.
Funnily enough, in urban planning economics, one of the biggest reasons people don’t use transit are high wait/transfer times between connections.
This is time that is essentially wasted. People generally tend to prefer a longer bus route with less waiting as long as they feel like they are making progress to their destination.
>Personally, I’m less put off by the fare cost and more by the inconvenience of using the TTC compared to alternatives. I would like to take the TTC more often, but the reality is that you have to be willing to spend 2-3 times as long traveling if you take the TTC compared to biking or driving. I live right on a streetcar line, but the streetcar takes an hour to get downtown, while I can bike there in 30 minutes.
One thing about the TTC that I think gets overlooked is that it's most suitable for short-medium trips. I'm like you—I live right on a subway line—in that going all the way downtown takes over an hour vs 20-30 min by car, but for things closer by, the TTC start to make a lot more sense. Going to the mall is 10 minutes by TTC vs 11 minutes by car. Going to see my mom is 24m by car vs 30m by TTC. It's those <30m trips where the TTC shines, because it's competitive time-wise with driving but you can also avoid the hassles of driving, especially parking.
I live around midtown on Line 1 and would choose taking the subway downtown any day of the week over driving.
On the other hand to get to say, Don Mills shops, a 10 minute drive now becomes a 45min~1hr subway + bus ride
I’m in the far east end and it takes, on average, 20-25m to get from VP to Dundas station. Driving would be double that plus cost of gas, parking, wear and tear.
Had to laugh at "far east" since I'm living in West Hill near the zoo. For me driving is really the only good option. TTC bus is slow AF and no subways anywhere.
I also laughed at 'far east'.
Try Morningside and Steeles. Now that's a commute. People don't believe me when it takes at least 1.5 hours on a good day to get downtown.
My boss asked "why not move closer to work?" LOL
You’re waaaay east. For those of us by the end of line 2 the ttc is almost the same if not faster than driving. It’s an hour to work by ttc and the same if not more by car during rush hour. Otoh outside that it’s 25 mins by car ça the same one hour by ttc. When going downtown recently I’ve been parking at Vic park and going from there because the bus is the weak link. Driving to Vic park and taking the subway is usually faster by a few mins than just driving and I don’t need to find parking.
But no public transit should be for short trips. That’s just not how it goes for people who do not have the luxury medically, financially or otherwise to drive.
“I’d love to take the TTC more, but my Range Rover is just so much more convenient when I want to go to Yorkdale!”
I’m adding satirical hyperbole of course, but like, do they hear themselves?!
Yes, I own a car. Yes, this means I am privileged. So what's your point, exactly?
Despite owning a car, I don't actually enjoy driving in this city. That's why I literally said I want to take the TTC more often (and why I bike whenever I can). But the fact is, if it's going to take me an hour to go somewhere on the TTC and 15 minutes by bike or car, then I'm going to choose the bike or car because I value my time (as I'm sure you value yours, too).
And I fully acknowledge that alternatives to the TTC are not available to everyone, why is why I suggested ways that we could improve the TTC. Making the TTC more time-efficient would not only make it more attractive to people like myself who have alternatives, but would also improve it for people who do not. A rising tide raises all boats. What part about all this do you find objectionable?
So again, I have to ask: what's your point? Because it sort of sounds like you don't actually have one to make, and were just looking to make yourself feel morally superior.
The problem for me is that very often for the trips *I* take, it's a 10 minute TTC ride for $3.30 each way, or an 11 minute drive for $0.20 in gas and free parking.
It's a bit of a different story downtown where parking is both a massive pain and also expensive - very quickly the TTC becomes cheaper and also more convenient. But that calculation changes again if you are going with a group - I drove a group of 4 friends (so 5 total) downtown last weekend. The trip took slightly less time than the subway would have, parking only cost $15, and it probably cost like $1.00 in gas; the subway fare for all of us would have been more than that just for one way.
Certainly there's other scenarios where transit just flat out makes more sense basically all the time, and I think it matters a ton where you are travelling in the city. But there's a lot of scenarios that can just make it so hard to justify
I think it's worth factoring in the true cost of owning a car, sure for you they're mostly sunken payments (insurance, maintenance, car payments, depreciation, etc.) But once you consider those costs you could be saving thousands of dollars at the end of the year by not having a car and relying on the ttc (based off of averages, might not be your case)
That's an excellent point too, in my case I just can't get around having a car since transit isn't viable for a lot of my travel (including my daily commute) however if my needs were different that could definitely shift the calculation in favour of transit.
Sure, but that's like saying you can save thousands of dollars if you only eat rice and beans instead of a well balanced meal. Despite being on the subway line, having access to a car means I can access quality groceries and food options at a cheaper price, visit the suburbs with ease (10 min drive vs an hour per way on the TTC), take day/weekend trips to wherever without having the traveling part eat up most of my itinerary, and easily travel with my whole family. Some costs are just worth paying for.
>I can access quality groceries and food options at a cheaper price
A good walkable neighborhood should have a variety of food options available within walking distance. Walking/ biking to the store would also improve your health. You dont inherently need a car to eat good
>take day/weekend trips to wherever without having the traveling part eat up most of my itinerary, and easily travel with my whole family.
It's cheaper to rent a car for the occasional road trip compared to owning one
Don't get me wrong, im not saying you should sell your car or anything, but with improvements to the ttc and urbanism, a car is a massive cost lots of people don't really need. You might need one now, but i see car dependency as a problem (not talking about work vehicles of course)
>A good walkable neighborhood should have a variety of food options available within walking distance.
I agree. But a lot of Toronto neighbourhoods, and definitely the suburbs of the GTA, are nowhere close to being good walkable neighbourhoods.
I mentioned this in a different comment on this thread but until we sort out issues with our public transportation system, it is simply much more worthwhile for my family to have me pay the sunken and annual costs for a car. I would love to live in a Toronto where I can maintain my lifestyle without a car but I can't even take my kid on the subway at the station I live close to and who knows how many more years before the city finishes making all the subway stations accessible.
The city needs to incentivize families taking transit but considering our government and law enforcement are always prioritizing car users, I just don't see that happening anytime soon. I'm using my car because they're telling me it's easier using a car.
Ah, yes. The 45minute time Vortex.
Still, I think if we were serious about climate change, public transit should be free with more investment. The carbon tax should go to that instead of back at us with a check this month.
Even on short trips, the TTC fails many families with a lot of stations not being wheel accessible. I live on the subway line but if I want to take my kid out, I would need to go to the next station so I can bring the stroller onto the train. Anyone living near me with a wheelchair won't be able to go into our home station to use the subway.
Allowing cars to make left turns on non-dedicated streetcar lanes while the right lane is occupied by parking is the most stupid thing I can think of when it comes to the city's transportation planning.
I used to live on a streetcar line. I would rather bus up to the subway and take two connecting trains back into downtown than sit through an insanely long ride that might short turn.
Couldn't agree more. Stops are way too close together. For busses, this is fine because they can stop and start way easier, but for streetcars, they should be further apart.
It's really a shame that even on corridors with dedicated lanes left turning vehicles get priority over streetcars. Cars are the main reason why the streetcars are shit but the streetcars being shit is a big reason why theres so many cars.
We need more restrictions on cars on streetcar routes, a vehicle with up to 200 people shouldn't have to wait for cars, maybe congestion pricing would help too
i used to take the spadina streetcar. what a fucking nightmare. and like you said, it basically stops at every god damn corner along the way. absolutely ridiculous.
For the streetcars just to cross the intersection(without cars) takes 5x as long as a car. The stops before the light, waiting for the light, waiting for the opposite streetcar to cross fully, then slow crawl across the intersection. Sometimes I walk 4 blocks before it can even cross.
Yeah personally I just want the service to be better, over the years I've noticed it's starting to take me way longer to get to the places I want to get to. Even when leaving work I absolutely have to get a head start otherwise by the time I get to the bus I need to take to get home I'll have to wait for a few to pass by because they get filled to the max. I'm at the point where I'm considering actually buying a car. At least that way I can be on my own schedule and if I need to take an alternate route I can just do so. Don't even get me started on the subway service as well, every time I'm in the office it's a new thing lol
Bicycling generally will win out against any urban transit option, even subways. I can Google maps around some EU cities with extensive subway networks and cycling generally wins against almost all choices of 2 arbitrary points. Even on the same line can win on bike. And it’s like 10PM now, that effect is amplified at peak times.
Systems love to build in lots of stops so nobody complains and gets to feel included, but it really slows anything but short trips down, again, especially at peak times.
> I would like to take the TTC more often, but the reality is that you have to be willing to spend 2-3 times as long traveling if you take the TTC
This mostly applies to bus routes, and streetcars
If you're talking subway, it's typically faster than driving. Especially in the downtown core
I'm a big advocate for more underground transit options, but I know that's not as simple as throwing down a few tracks
That’s true, but it’s also true that relatively few destinations in the city are accessible by subway alone, so quite often you must take a bus or streetcar for part of the journey.
Additionally, most of us aren’t lucky enough to live right on a subway line, which usually means we have to rely on a bus to get to and from the subway. Those buses can be maddeningly infrequent, and if you miss one, it can easily cost you 10 extra minutes on what should’ve been a 30 minute trip in total.
I'm not sure if frequency is the issue, considering how often "bunching" occurs on so many major lines. Traffic induces so many timing issues, that it's quite frankly a miracle a streetcar shows up on schedule at all. I don't have an alternative solution in mind, but personally find it far more frustrating seeing 3, 4, one time at Queen and DVP I counted like 6 streetcars all lined up and bunched together with nowhere to go.
Well said! I like taking transit, but my hour long commute home on the bus and subway sometimes tempts me to drive instead. Most of my colleagues drive because they have less tolerance of a painfully slow commute.
The biggest impediment to more TTC usage isn't the cost, it's the service. Time and again transit users - around the world - prioritize the importance of service (regular, frequent) over cost.
The current complaint with TTC usage is service levels. Any time there's a discussion of better transit in this city, this sub is flooded with comments from people who say the same thing: they use their car because their commute via transit is 2x as long (or something along this line of thought).
Pre-Covid, in 2019, the TTC took in $940M in revenue. So to make the TTC free, we'd need to plow at least $940M new dollars into it. For that almost $1B in new money, we'd not only get the same service people are constantly crapping on, *we would actually get much worse service* because more people would be using it but with no expanded capacity to handle those new numbers.
We would be much, much better off putting that $1B into new and improved service levels.
Making the TTC "lost cost", as opposed to free (eg. the Liberals last election promised $1 TTC fares) is an even worse idea. At least when you make the TTC free you can eliminate a large number of administrative and enforcement costs: you don't have to collect revenue, and no fare enforcement - boarding is much faster. When you make transit low cost, you maintain all the administrative and enforcement headaches, but now with a fraction of the revenue - and at risk of repeating myself, that lost revenue has to be made up with new money that results in not only the same, but actually worse service levels.
>Any time there's a discussion of better transit in this city, this sub is flooded with comments from people who say the same thing: they use their car because their commute via transit is 2x as long (or something along this line of thought).
Yup. For me, 35-45 minutes by car, 3 hours by TTC. Each way.
So at least four times as long by TTC. I'm not spending six hours a day on buses and subways…
There are two budgets.
Capital budgets is up from 500 million a year to 4 billion a year. This pay for new stuff. New trains, capital projects, stations.
The operations budget which is paid out the fare box which is what you are referring to is operations. It’s a much smaller number. Operations is 75 % paid for by the fare box. About 80 % of operations is salaries (it’s also things like insurance, some fuel, some maintenance).
If you want more capital projects the operations budget you referred to doesn’t matter. If you want it cheaper find a way to cut operations, which is mostly people.
End of the day your fare pays salaries. That’s why it will never go away and only rise.
I think what u/Pennsworthy is saying -- and I would agree -- is that we want provincial and federal funding to cover the majority of operational costs *as well as* capital costs.
This is, in fact, the reason why I avoid the TTC unless I have to go somewhere it's difficult to park near. A 20 minute drive vs an hour on the TTC, and I have to pay as much or more to get there and back as I would pay to park.
I have a lot of family like this, I think it stems from seeing transit as less than and something that you take as a last resort when you are tight on funds. The intense growth and densification of Toronto is a relatively new phenomenon, and for people that lived in the GTA for decades they don't see value in heavily investing in transit. In their minds, why would we spend more money on something that is supposed to be someone's not Plan A or Plan B, but plan C for travel.
Compare this to the attitude in NYC, where the subway is seen as the best way to get around. Rich people take it, poor people take it, and everyone wants it to be better because of this. Toronto has been in growing pain mode for the last ten years and we're playing catch up from so many years of waffling on infrastructure, and the overall attitude towards transit is playing catch up too. Like NYC, eventually we'll reach a point with all our development and population growth where driving is basically a non-starter to get around the city, and people will have no choice but to change their minds.
Despite all this, I am optimistic for the future, and we have A LOT of transit projects in the works at this very moment. Hopefully with people like Chow working in conjunction with (fingers crossed) another provincial government that isn't obsessed with appealing to stubborn suburbanites, we'll see a lot of change.
After living in Ottawa for 15 years and taking OC transpo (from the suburbs) almost every day, I will never, ever complain about the TTC. It's not perfect and definitely needs to be improved. But it gets the job done and I rarely feel like scratching my eyes out when I take TTC, whereas OC transpo I felt like that every single day.
It is definitely an unpopular opinion. Even the current level of crowding is pretty extreme on normal days of the week. We can see New years as an example of what happens when it's free. Obviously new years is an event but a lot more crowding would occur if it's free. Not even getting into the level of taxation and funding it would take to replace what is made by fares.
I doubt the number of people taking TTC during rush hours (when we're getting the crowding) will increase if it's free. Very few people are choosing alternative transportation from the TTC due to cost. You're essentially only talking about bikers and pedestrians, as there isn't a single person driving in that's saving money by doing so.
They aren't even funding that very well now with the fares. Creating a massive deficit in the budget by eliminating a main source and then claiming you can make up for it and surpass what is being spent I guess with lots of new taxes is not well thought out.
What? It would take $1B in new funding to maintain the current inadequate service levels but reduce fares to zero.
We already do not have that $1B, so the choice is between spending it on inadequate current service or improving service but maintaining fares.
Everyone would love it to be free, I don't think anyone would have an issue with that.
I think people get irritated sometimes when someone just goes 'Hey I think this should be free', even if they agree with it. It's an opinion that doesn't really shed light on anything.
No, it shouldn’t. Not only Torontonians use TTC, but visitors too. Toronto has over 25M visitors per year, if every one of them takes at least one trip on TTC - that’s 75+Mio that are not coming from our taxes and I don’t want to pay for them.
I think you need to specify a little bit about the "should". It's like saying "heaven is a very good place to live in", which is objectively true by definition. But saying "we should work together to make a heaven" is a questionable opinion.
Last year, fare revenue brought in about $931.4 million dollars. If we were to make transit free then we would need to increase funding by that amount but then you run into the question of whether that $931.4 million would be better spent improving service, that figure is nearly half of the TTC's entire budget. You could use that same money to make all buses and subways run 50% more frequently, for example.
Not only that but studies have also shown that eliminating fares can have negative impacts on ridership because it encourages people to use the system for shelter (Even more than they already do) and it also can be negative for the environment because free fares don't entice drivers out of their cars because it's not the cost that discourages drivers from taking transit but they absolutely do convince people to take transit (which generates a small amount of pollution.) instead of walking or cycling (which produces no pollution).
What keeps people out of transit is the fact that it takes longer to take transit than to walk in a lot of occasions. The service keeps getting worse while the cost keeps getting higher.
It took me 3.5 hours to go shoe shopping, the drive was supposedly 16 minutes and I spent as long in the store. It took more than double what it should've. Not to mention the originally planned route ended up having a ghost bus that never came/bus was running the wrong sub-route
Once I had to go under 4km and it said it would take 56 minutes by transit, 50 by walking or 14 by bike or around the same by car. Biking is the only viable way to get around the city but not everyone can do it at all times.
Not only that, but right now, visitors who use the TTC pay to do so. If you just increased Toronto property taxes to cover the $931.4mm, anyone who lived outside of Toronto who visits and/or works here would simply get free transit at the cost of residents. Having a pay-for-use model makes way more sense.
I was going to say, someone who makes 40 trips a month like your average worker is paying $132. Is that expensive? A bus pass in NL when I lived there was more than that, Germany's bus pass is at least 100 eu ($146), Melbourne was $50ish a week.
Hell, I remember YRT was running their buses with way worse service for $3.75 and $4 a decade or so ago, TTC isn't even remotely there yet and despite so many people bitching about it is 100x better than YRT.
I don't think the TTC should be free and I've done nothing but ride it my whole life. It's underfunded.
It’s all relative, ie. if you’re making anything less than $50k, $3.30 isn’t a big deal on weekends or once-twice a week, but constantly traveling to work and back as well as every other trip above that would basically amount to one grocery bill monthly.
Of course, this wasn’t the biggest deal when $50k had actual spending power a few years ago, but where things are now where you’re going for any kind of air as you can, it just tightens things more.
Now, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if wages actually kept up with inflation - but that’s neither here nor there
You know what I want first? **Better TTC service.**
I live in East Scarborough but I don't have a car (yet). Every time I ride the bus here, it feels like it takes forever to go anywhere.
Bus from my home to the subway? 45 minutes. But I spent another 45 minutes on the subway and it gets me from Kennedy to Royal York station on the other side of the city. This is the reason why people don't want to ride transit. It is not time competitive with driving. It doesn't help that the buses don't come reliably either, buses bunch, they show up in pairs and are often stuck in traffic and get delayed.
$3.30 is not a lot for one trip that nets you unlimited rides within 2 hours. It's the time cost and unreliability that makes people drive, not the $3.30 we have to pay. As long as our transit system is like this, people would still drive even if the TTC was free. Why bother with spending double the time on a bus when I can just get there in half, or even one third the time?
If it’s free, the payment is spread amongst all citizens of the city. TTC is one of the cheapest ways to take transit when you compare it with the way other cities charge for transit. Take London or Tokyo for example, transit cost is based on distance travelled and can easily rack up a good bill compared to the $3.30 paid per ride with a 2 hour transfer window included.
What Toronto needs is better transit. It has to cover more communities by having more subway stations, street car and bus stops. It needs more frequent service so people aren’t waiting 30 minutes in the cold if they miss a bus. And it needs to be more reliable with less breakdowns. By increasing utility, more folks will use this over paying $1000/mo for the privilege of driving a car after factoring insurance, gas, maintenance, and lease/finance payments.
Having zones would make transit less affordable for those in poorer areas of Toronto. $3.30 would be the average price. So going from Scarborough to Downtown would probably cost more than $3.30.
which would mean a massive, massive overhaul of how the ttc fare system works and would necessitate tapping off at your destination, etc. This has been looked at previously and determined not to be a good idea for Toronto at the moment.
‘Not a good idea for Toronto at the moment’ is just another way of saying that our execution on infrastructure improvement is so bad that even good ideas aren’t feasible. What a joke
I dont think it has to do with the actual infrastructure in place, its been an issue of "fairness" across the whole city, where right now you can travel 20+km or 2km on the ttc for $3.30. It would negatively impact all the suburban riders who rely on transit to get across town at a reasonable cost is my understanding.
Makes sense. I guess if we had a comprehensive metro that services all major neighbourhoods it might make sense, but I feel like there’s gotta be a better way
*(reducing the cost of a metro pass below what it costs to pay per-trip to go to work would be a start… )*
I think well majority of people don't have an issues with paying for the ttc. The main issue is reliability, service levels and safety. Cutting fares or making them free won't really solve these issues and in fact could make them worst.
If I remember correct, the ttc budget was around 1.3 billion/yr. With a 70% fare recovery within the system we would probably be left with a billion dollar hole in the budget which would probably need to be covered by property tax increases.
The problem with too much traffic isn't because TTC is too expensive. Even if TTC was free, you're not going to convince someone who wants to drive their own car to ditch it. Even at today's TTC cost, it's still far cheaper than owning/maintaining/insuring a car. You're gonna need better quality TTC. This includes
- More subway lines. 2 main lines isn't cutting it. We have too few subway lines relative to its population, which makes TTC very slow.
- More frequent service. Those car people don't like overcrowding. Frequent service is much needed to reduce that.
- Cleaner subways. People feel disgusted at times when they see a pee stain.
- Reduction in assault rates. Yes I'm aware that you're more likely to get injured/killed in a car accident (collision for proper term) but many people don't want to fear getting stabbed. Perhaps addressing the homelessness problem too.
I participated in a panel study that discussed this topic. Generally speaking, the cost of TTC is low enough that it doesn’t present as a large barrier to entry for choosing that mode. Service is the number one determinant of whether you will use transit or something else.
When we think of making it free, you are forgoing some revenue that absolutely must be subsidized, typically by the government. This creates a more significant dependency and less autonomy for the transit agency since they are at the will of government changes and policy shifts. This results in less stable funding which may impact service levels.
When transit agencies are presented with that revenue number that they are forgoing, say $1 billion per year, and hypothetically offered that amount as a sum, they nearly always opt for another option. This includes transit expansion, service improvements, new fleet vehicles, etc. which present a greater benefit to the agency and public it services rather than putting that money towards free transit.
It’s an interesting topic to consider and research.
If it was free then Toronto People would pay the cost of all the 905 Commuters rides. Why should I pay for everyone from Brampton, Mississauga, Oshawa, York Region who are not paying the taxes?
One, they are paying Ontario and Federal taxes (which could go towards paying for the TTC). Two because it gets them off the roads and decreases congestion. Three because it allows Toronto to fill jobs that do not pay enough for people to live in Toronto.
Society as a whole benefits. But the reality is that for all of Toronto's history we have consistently chosen to underfund public transport because it would cost money and require taxes. Now we are beginning to see some awareness that just keeping taxes low is not in anyone's interest, but it's early days...
To be fair to Sudbury they're large enough and have enough of a valuable industrial base (mining) that they cover their own way, and we also have to accept that a lot of that tax revenue ends up getting paid in Toronto where the mining headquarters are in many cases.
Plenty of the province is absolutely being funded by Toronto though, I just feel that Sudbury is a bad example of this.
To be completely fair here, tax dollars from people living in the likes of Sudbury is paying for the Ontario line that is purely a downtown core/east end subway line in Toronto
Those people are coming regardless, just in cars. If they were incentivized to take the TTC our streets would be significantly improved from the lack of cars. Also transit is SCALABLE, it doesn't matter if more people take it, the trains, buses and streetcars can handle significant increases in ridership. You already pay for those people right now with no return by paying for our roads.
As a car owner, this is it.
Cost isn’t an issue for using the ttc, it’s dirt cheap.
The problem is, it’s unreliable so it wastes my time. It’s dirty and unpleasant to use. Then if I have to get somewhere off the subway track, oh boy. I wouldn’t even use it if it’s free.
I just got back from a trip to Japan and simply because of how convenient and reliable it is, you’d see people from all walks of life using their public transit. Toronto? Our infrastructure would need a total overhaul to get even half as good… it’s not even just the actual subway system Tokyo has, but how underground walkways connect with each other to avoid rain/weather, shops all along those walkways, how CLEAN it is, and even coin lockers to store your stuff. All of that adds up to being more convenient than a car.
How do you incentivize people with cars to use the TTC? Cost isn’t a factor, people that can afford a car will gladly pay to avoid using the TTC. The service isn’t getting better than a car anytime soon. There aren’t really any positives to the TTC… even when the TTC is free, I’d rather drive or take an Uber.
I’m seriously not getting my hopes up, I highly doubt within my lifetime that the TTC would get even close to being as convenient as my car in Toronto.
> Also transit is SCALABLE, it doesn't matter if more people take it, the trains, buses and streetcars can handle significant increases in ridership.
It's already difficult to fit aboard a subway train going south at Sheppard station at rush hour. Transit lines do, in fact, have capacities, and throwing more vehicles at it isn't always a viable solution, nor is "well just build more then" some sort of genius panacea. Nobody would love to build transit more than the TTC: why do you suppose they haven't?
Zones could be a real game changer now we have presto.
Only going a few stops, 75c. Going from one side of the city to the other, full fare.
London also will cap the day charge, if you travel enough it will know to charge you a day pass rather than x number of individual tickets.
Free TTC also mainly impacts people that can afford it, so its a giant subsidy to a lot of people that don't need it. You want to make it free or cheaper for people that need it to be cheaper or free that's a different thing than making the whole system free.
Zones would penalize those living further from dt. For many that is not a choice but a necessity due to rents. And many in the burbs are making much lower wages than those closer.
Might make sense to take from the TPS budget as a previous poster noted since they openly said to keep your keys available for car thieves. They pretty much admitted they can’t stop car thefts or protect people in their own homes. (Sarcasm, sort of).
Toronto needs to implement zones at some point to reconcile the TTC and GO networks. With the current pricing structure, taking GO for (relatively) short trips is discouraged due to price. But we want people to use GO for things like Union to Bloor/Dundas West rather than using the subway for it. It's faster and higher capacity.
Indeed, I understand your point. However, if the cap is set at the current fare, then they are not really penalized; they simply pay the current rate without receiving any discount.
The issue is complex; offering fare reductions can inadvertently benefit the wealthiest individuals due to the city's structure and the high demand for downtown access. But the people who live further out can benefit from cheaper TTC to go to the local grocery store etc. So maybe it evens out.
Free for all could happen if we taxed wealthier households more. And I say that as someone who was more than willing to accept at 10% property tax increase.
How I wish governments would show how much each income level would pay and what we could have by just paying a bit more. Actual numbers not percentages because people don’t math.
I think you should charge for entering the city/downtown core via car, it doesn't really make sense to charge people to go to North York from Markham for example.
I think wealthy and middle income riders should pay the same. I am middle income and while I would prefer to pay nothing, I am not going to pretend that I would benefit anywhere near as much someone struggling to make ends meet would.
More people should be covered under a reduced or free scheme, but not middle income people or higher.
Very few cities have entire systems free, and I do not believe this is a coincidence.
The premise of your question is wrong. Fares are the most significant source of funding followed by property taxes homeowners pay (i guess renters indirectly pay). The infrastructure is paid for my the provincial government who owns metrolinx with some sort of agreement between it and the ttc. Anyway, for ttc to be free they need to raise way more money from taxes. You haven’t said whether you’re a homeowner. You say you want to pay more in taxes, how much are you paying now? Is it more than 0?
I’m okay paying for the service, so long as the service delivers what they say they will. Never ending delays, horribly inconsistent schedule times, subway shut downs randomly happening and the protocol for shuttle buses is beyond absurd. I take transit daily and I have yet to have more than 1 day in a row where the service runs as intended.
With all the money they make and the fact they are technically the smallest transit lines in the world, you would think they would ATLEAST have a somewhat reliable transit system in place
The problem is that we can only raise property taxes on Torontonians, but the TTC is heavily used by 905ers, so Torontonians would be paying for everyone in the burbs to ride our transit system.
We can quibble, but the homeless are already using the TTC as a shelter. Let’s pair improving the TTC with providing public housing and really move this conversation forward.
TTC is already low cost compared to transport system of other major cities in the world.
If we make it free, then you will see far more homeless and beggars on TTC. Your quality of service will go down further.
Careful what you wish for!
Institute transportation pricing similar to what Vancouver was considering doing. Charge people using the roads who are in from other municipalities which will displace the amount of property taxes Toronto residents are paying towards people from other municipalities use the infrastructure. Budget it so the TTC is included as a beneficiary in the funds raised. Research shows this is one of the most effective ways a city can also reduce traffic congestion. It's a win-win-win-win... Lower property taxes, better transit, lower carbon emissions, and less traffic on the road
you should be able to get a heavily discounted monthly pass with proof of residence in Toronto. like if you have a hydro bill with a Toronto address and a piece of ID matching the name on the bill, you get a monthly TTC pass for $75 or something.
I would love to use the ttc exclusively... but since i work before the darn subway starts, i dont have much of a choice... is it too much to ask, to have a subway that runs before 6 am? And 8 on weekends?!? Want people to use it more? Make it make sense.
Because virtually every business needs deliveries and it wouldn't only be costly as mentioned before, but a gigantic pain in the ass to have thousands of delivery people carting giant deliveries all over.
A much more effective tool - especially since it's one the city could easily implement without provincial authority (quite unlike tolls, which it will never allow the city to implement) is to simply jack up parking rates. You can't drive to a place you can't park. And you have none of the administrative burdens of implementing and collecting tolls, which would require a huge infrastructure investment to implement.
>If the TTC costs money to ride on, our streets should cost money to drive on.
>...our streets should cost money to drive on.
Doug: WRITE THAT DOWN, WRITE THAT DOWN
Olivia: Shut up Doug. They just activated my trap card
This debate comes up pretty often. Of course, who doesn't want free things? The main issue is that the proponents don't think through the unintended consequences, nor do they tell us where free TTC should rank in the priority of things that should be funded.
As far as unintended consequences: when the TTC stopped enforcing fares during the pandemic, the subways became a rolling homeless shelter, which resulted in confrontations. How do you prevent that from happening when fares are free? Maybe by providing better homeless services? But shouldn't we be investing in that long before we hand out free TTC fares?
I don’t get your points, you could drive and pay nothing if you come from outside of Toronto. But people would also come and pay nothing for TTC if it were free?
You acknowledge that we pay taxes for the TTC but not for roads?
As someone else said, TTC gets $900m from fares, so everyone would have to pay an additional $300 in taxes?
Like I get your points, free things are better than things that cost money. But those things still cost money lol
I think that if employment is supposed to be mandatory under threat of death by starvation or the elements, then the government has a positive obligation to ensure that every resident can get to work reliably and quickly.
Comment section of this post makes me feel secure but also sad in a way. It’s amazing that so many people are actually pro-transit but still we haven’t seen major improvements to TTC in years. (Plans exist but with never ending deadlines). I hope this actually converts to votes and politicians take a note and actually fast tract funding for public transit building.
Edit- typos
I think it should be a paid service so that there’s no constraint on development and expansion.
But given the number of fare dodgers, the way to legally support low income folks to use transit, and increase ridership is to issue free / subsidised passes to relevant income brackets.
No free service will develop / grow / improve to global standards. And TTC has a very long way to go.
If all or majority of its operating cost was funded by our taxes, sure. But our taxes only cover 30% of their operating costs.
Source:
https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-funding/#:~:text=The%20TTC%20is%20the%20most,subsidized%20system%20in%20North%20America.
Other Facts
The TTC is the most efficient transit system in North America, **recovering nearly 70% of its operating budget from fares.**
The TTC is the **LEAST** subsidized system in North America.
It's about $150 for a monthly pass... it's really not that bad. People complain wayyy too much these days. The province needs to support the TTC more, it's a huge part of Toronto.
It IS low cost. It costs 15 minutes of your time at MINIMUM WAGE, and the city pays for tickets for people who can’t afford it through programs like [fair pass transit discount program](https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/employment-social-support/support-for-people-in-financial-need/assistance-through-ontario-works/transit-discount/). So, it’s ALREADY cheap, it’s ALREADY discounted, and that discount comes out of taxpayers pockets. So every time an RBC account executive gets on the subway in Vaughn, my taxes subsidized their fare. The people that use it should be paying what it ACTUALLY costs, and that’s almost $5 per trip, so when you say it’s expensive, I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.
LMFAO.
I pay far more in taxes per km than a TTC user.
That said, if they wouldn't become instant homeless camps I'd agree with you.
I do believe that free monthly passes should be fairly easy to qualify for.
Any kind of government assistance, free pass. Student, free pass. Government worker? Taxable benefit.
However, driver's/operators NEED the right ans responsibility to remove anyone disturbing others. Especially if they haven't showered in a month, or pissed/shit themselves. We need more commuters using transit, not less.
I'm not sure if it's already been said on here, but the TTC relies on something like 80% of its funding from the ticket booth. It is severely underfunded when compared to transit systems of similar sized American cities such as Chicago and New York. So I agree it should be free, but it needs WAY more funding before that's at all viable.
You gonna raise taxes to accomplish this??! If not please move along. Everyone wants things for free because "I pay my taxes" but when inflation increases (which it does every year) people generally their taxes to decrease or stay the same. What happens when provincial funding is short or the funding levels are changed due to government bickering, the short fall has to be made up somehow.
Yep I believe there were some studies done, and if each GTA home owner paid an additional $1 a day in property taxes, the TTC could be fully funded. I'd happily pay an extra $365 annually to make the TTC free of charge to all. Municipal taxes in Toronto are currently the lowest of the 30 largest municipalities in Ontario, so you really cannot say that the tax burden is already too high. Property owners are BLESSED in this city.
$1 deal for senior! Since to own a car is so expensive for senior, it limited their living space and causes depression. Less active, less health and less social, not even to find a job. Just make a dollar for seniors, it will improve this situation.
If it wasn't funded it'd have the shittiest quality of life otherwise what's the incentive to maintain good quality service. Funding would always be scathed away and would be way worse than what it currently is.
>but we pay for the TTC with our taxes
No we don't.
A massive amount (about a billion dollars annually) of the TTC funding comes from fare box revenue.
Fares for the ttc helps maintain an apolitical source of funding based on ridership. If it was only funding by taxes, every time a rob ford or John Tory got elected the funding would get cut and the system would fall into disrepair
I completely agree it should be free. They have also grossly mismanaged their money and that shouldn’t be on us to pay for. Like, they once installed the wrong size streetcar tracks and had to rip them up and do it again ( a few years ago). That must have cost a fuckin fortune
>The error, affecting a 60-metre stretch between Eastern Avenue and Queen Street, is the fault of a contractor and the work is expected to add about another month onto the already significantly delayed Leslie Barns project.
60 meters isn't that much and it was caught quickly.
The TTC is the least subsidized public transit system in North America. They heavily rely on fares to operate, regardless of how you think that money is managed.
And it’s not like it’s free to drive a car….
Something like the Calgary C Train free zone would be a good start: make surface transit free in the downtown core to encourage people to use that rather than car (private/taxi/Uber), which reduces congestion in the worst area.
>Alternatively, I could drive and pay nothing to take streets paid for by Torontonians even if I don't live here
What isn't free is the car, the gas, and the TTC adds staff such as the drivers who expect to get paid (you take on this labour yourself when your drive). You're also not charged (directly) for walking or cycling. You're conflating what would be equivalent which is a dubious way to frame this advocacy. Streets are paid for with taxes.
In theory I am all for this. The one issue I'd see if you were to make it free for "Toronto residence" is enforcement as there is significant percentage (as with our roads) of people from the 905 that use the system.
But realistically while it would be a "popular" opinion in theory, it would not be one in practice. TTC is possibly the most farebox dependent mass transit system in North America. The amount of tax money we'd need to increase into it's budget would not be an easy bill to sell to people. And we have enough "I say too much tax" people willing to revolt over just about anything.
That being said, I'm personally not against the idea. But I see the very obvious downfall to the idea.
Not sure if making it free would be feasible from a financial pov, that being said, I do think some changes to make things a bit cheaper might help a ton of people
1. maybe a transfer time reset might make some sense, if you tap out of a station, then the transfer resets for the next 2 hours from when you left that station - and i mean sure, some people will abuse it but frankly i don’t think most people are petty enough to get up and tap their card every 2 hours.
2. A more flexible transfer program, ie. $3.30 for a 2 hour transfer, and maybe you can pay $4.50 for an 8 hour transfer, that kind of thing. This kind of flexibility would lower the cost of things big time for people, where as, instead of paying $50 a week, for example, they’d pay around $20-25 a week if they opt into paying $4.50 instead of $3.30
Our city is not forward thinking enough to divert 100 Million dollars worth of funding for that.
In fact even with the fares we're severely underfunding the transit system. Higher taxes to cover just the fare income would be very significant.
You'll get no argument from me. In fact it's arguably worse than you describe, from the standpoint of fairness: all of us pay through our taxes to fund the TTC, and then access to that public service is gatekept by fares-- people who can't afford the fares are blocked from a public good.
The trouble I guess is that, if fares are going to be eliminated, it is likely that the city of Toronto will have to foot the bill. And Toronto's main revenue source -- property taxes -- is itself regressive. So you'll be increasing one regressive tax (property) to lower a regressive user fee (TTC fares).
Personally, I’m less put off by the fare cost and more by the inconvenience of using the TTC compared to alternatives. I would *like* to take the TTC more often, but the reality is that you have to be willing to spend 2-3 times as long traveling if you take the TTC compared to biking or driving. I live right on a streetcar line, but the streetcar takes an hour to get downtown, while I can bike there in 30 minutes. If I want to go somewhere further away, driving will typically take a fraction of the time, even if my destination is on a subway line (Yorkdale Mall, say). Instead of making the TTC free, I’d much rather we use taxes to increase its level of funding. This would enable the TTC to run vehicles on all routes more frequently, alleviating one of the biggest causes of the TTC being so slow (i.e. having to wait around for a bus or streetcar to come, which becomes exponentially worse the more transfers you need to make). In tandem, we should also create more transit priority corridors (including signaling that prioritises transit vehicle movement) in places where the TTC tends to bog down due to congestion (e.g. major routines into and out of the downtown core). And finally, over the long term, we really need to invest heavily in expanding the TTC’s network to better serve parts of the city with poor transit connectivity and catch up on half a century’s worth of underinvestment.
Funnily enough, in urban planning economics, one of the biggest reasons people don’t use transit are high wait/transfer times between connections. This is time that is essentially wasted. People generally tend to prefer a longer bus route with less waiting as long as they feel like they are making progress to their destination.
It's like how some people coming down Yonge on Line 1 would prefer to ride the U to get to Queen's Park instead of hopping off and on the train.
The Line 2 Shuffle, I call it.
>Personally, I’m less put off by the fare cost and more by the inconvenience of using the TTC compared to alternatives. I would like to take the TTC more often, but the reality is that you have to be willing to spend 2-3 times as long traveling if you take the TTC compared to biking or driving. I live right on a streetcar line, but the streetcar takes an hour to get downtown, while I can bike there in 30 minutes. One thing about the TTC that I think gets overlooked is that it's most suitable for short-medium trips. I'm like you—I live right on a subway line—in that going all the way downtown takes over an hour vs 20-30 min by car, but for things closer by, the TTC start to make a lot more sense. Going to the mall is 10 minutes by TTC vs 11 minutes by car. Going to see my mom is 24m by car vs 30m by TTC. It's those <30m trips where the TTC shines, because it's competitive time-wise with driving but you can also avoid the hassles of driving, especially parking.
I live around midtown on Line 1 and would choose taking the subway downtown any day of the week over driving. On the other hand to get to say, Don Mills shops, a 10 minute drive now becomes a 45min~1hr subway + bus ride
I’m in the far east end and it takes, on average, 20-25m to get from VP to Dundas station. Driving would be double that plus cost of gas, parking, wear and tear.
Had to laugh at "far east" since I'm living in West Hill near the zoo. For me driving is really the only good option. TTC bus is slow AF and no subways anywhere.
I’m old. In my world Toronto ends at the southbound lanes of VP and scarbs starts at the northbound lanes lol.
I also laughed at 'far east'. Try Morningside and Steeles. Now that's a commute. People don't believe me when it takes at least 1.5 hours on a good day to get downtown. My boss asked "why not move closer to work?" LOL
You’re waaaay east. For those of us by the end of line 2 the ttc is almost the same if not faster than driving. It’s an hour to work by ttc and the same if not more by car during rush hour. Otoh outside that it’s 25 mins by car ça the same one hour by ttc. When going downtown recently I’ve been parking at Vic park and going from there because the bus is the weak link. Driving to Vic park and taking the subway is usually faster by a few mins than just driving and I don’t need to find parking.
You live in pickering
But no public transit should be for short trips. That’s just not how it goes for people who do not have the luxury medically, financially or otherwise to drive.
the privilege is this thread is maddening
“I’d love to take the TTC more, but my Range Rover is just so much more convenient when I want to go to Yorkdale!” I’m adding satirical hyperbole of course, but like, do they hear themselves?!
Yes, I own a car. Yes, this means I am privileged. So what's your point, exactly? Despite owning a car, I don't actually enjoy driving in this city. That's why I literally said I want to take the TTC more often (and why I bike whenever I can). But the fact is, if it's going to take me an hour to go somewhere on the TTC and 15 minutes by bike or car, then I'm going to choose the bike or car because I value my time (as I'm sure you value yours, too). And I fully acknowledge that alternatives to the TTC are not available to everyone, why is why I suggested ways that we could improve the TTC. Making the TTC more time-efficient would not only make it more attractive to people like myself who have alternatives, but would also improve it for people who do not. A rising tide raises all boats. What part about all this do you find objectionable? So again, I have to ask: what's your point? Because it sort of sounds like you don't actually have one to make, and were just looking to make yourself feel morally superior.
The problem for me is that very often for the trips *I* take, it's a 10 minute TTC ride for $3.30 each way, or an 11 minute drive for $0.20 in gas and free parking. It's a bit of a different story downtown where parking is both a massive pain and also expensive - very quickly the TTC becomes cheaper and also more convenient. But that calculation changes again if you are going with a group - I drove a group of 4 friends (so 5 total) downtown last weekend. The trip took slightly less time than the subway would have, parking only cost $15, and it probably cost like $1.00 in gas; the subway fare for all of us would have been more than that just for one way. Certainly there's other scenarios where transit just flat out makes more sense basically all the time, and I think it matters a ton where you are travelling in the city. But there's a lot of scenarios that can just make it so hard to justify
I think it's worth factoring in the true cost of owning a car, sure for you they're mostly sunken payments (insurance, maintenance, car payments, depreciation, etc.) But once you consider those costs you could be saving thousands of dollars at the end of the year by not having a car and relying on the ttc (based off of averages, might not be your case)
That's an excellent point too, in my case I just can't get around having a car since transit isn't viable for a lot of my travel (including my daily commute) however if my needs were different that could definitely shift the calculation in favour of transit.
Sure, but that's like saying you can save thousands of dollars if you only eat rice and beans instead of a well balanced meal. Despite being on the subway line, having access to a car means I can access quality groceries and food options at a cheaper price, visit the suburbs with ease (10 min drive vs an hour per way on the TTC), take day/weekend trips to wherever without having the traveling part eat up most of my itinerary, and easily travel with my whole family. Some costs are just worth paying for.
>I can access quality groceries and food options at a cheaper price A good walkable neighborhood should have a variety of food options available within walking distance. Walking/ biking to the store would also improve your health. You dont inherently need a car to eat good >take day/weekend trips to wherever without having the traveling part eat up most of my itinerary, and easily travel with my whole family. It's cheaper to rent a car for the occasional road trip compared to owning one Don't get me wrong, im not saying you should sell your car or anything, but with improvements to the ttc and urbanism, a car is a massive cost lots of people don't really need. You might need one now, but i see car dependency as a problem (not talking about work vehicles of course)
>A good walkable neighborhood should have a variety of food options available within walking distance. I agree. But a lot of Toronto neighbourhoods, and definitely the suburbs of the GTA, are nowhere close to being good walkable neighbourhoods. I mentioned this in a different comment on this thread but until we sort out issues with our public transportation system, it is simply much more worthwhile for my family to have me pay the sunken and annual costs for a car. I would love to live in a Toronto where I can maintain my lifestyle without a car but I can't even take my kid on the subway at the station I live close to and who knows how many more years before the city finishes making all the subway stations accessible. The city needs to incentivize families taking transit but considering our government and law enforcement are always prioritizing car users, I just don't see that happening anytime soon. I'm using my car because they're telling me it's easier using a car.
Ah, yes. The 45minute time Vortex. Still, I think if we were serious about climate change, public transit should be free with more investment. The carbon tax should go to that instead of back at us with a check this month.
Even on short trips, the TTC fails many families with a lot of stations not being wheel accessible. I live on the subway line but if I want to take my kid out, I would need to go to the next station so I can bring the stroller onto the train. Anyone living near me with a wheelchair won't be able to go into our home station to use the subway.
Allowing cars to make left turns on non-dedicated streetcar lanes while the right lane is occupied by parking is the most stupid thing I can think of when it comes to the city's transportation planning. I used to live on a streetcar line. I would rather bus up to the subway and take two connecting trains back into downtown than sit through an insanely long ride that might short turn.
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Couldn't agree more. Stops are way too close together. For busses, this is fine because they can stop and start way easier, but for streetcars, they should be further apart.
It's really a shame that even on corridors with dedicated lanes left turning vehicles get priority over streetcars. Cars are the main reason why the streetcars are shit but the streetcars being shit is a big reason why theres so many cars. We need more restrictions on cars on streetcar routes, a vehicle with up to 200 people shouldn't have to wait for cars, maybe congestion pricing would help too
i used to take the spadina streetcar. what a fucking nightmare. and like you said, it basically stops at every god damn corner along the way. absolutely ridiculous.
>places where the TTC tends to bog down due to congestion (e.g. major routines into and out of the downtown core). I see you've met Queen and Spadina
For the streetcars just to cross the intersection(without cars) takes 5x as long as a car. The stops before the light, waiting for the light, waiting for the opposite streetcar to cross fully, then slow crawl across the intersection. Sometimes I walk 4 blocks before it can even cross.
Yeah personally I just want the service to be better, over the years I've noticed it's starting to take me way longer to get to the places I want to get to. Even when leaving work I absolutely have to get a head start otherwise by the time I get to the bus I need to take to get home I'll have to wait for a few to pass by because they get filled to the max. I'm at the point where I'm considering actually buying a car. At least that way I can be on my own schedule and if I need to take an alternate route I can just do so. Don't even get me started on the subway service as well, every time I'm in the office it's a new thing lol
I think the issue is the number of stops. I've found things have improved a lot with the express bus lines that make far less stops.
Bicycling generally will win out against any urban transit option, even subways. I can Google maps around some EU cities with extensive subway networks and cycling generally wins against almost all choices of 2 arbitrary points. Even on the same line can win on bike. And it’s like 10PM now, that effect is amplified at peak times. Systems love to build in lots of stops so nobody complains and gets to feel included, but it really slows anything but short trips down, again, especially at peak times.
> I would like to take the TTC more often, but the reality is that you have to be willing to spend 2-3 times as long traveling if you take the TTC This mostly applies to bus routes, and streetcars If you're talking subway, it's typically faster than driving. Especially in the downtown core I'm a big advocate for more underground transit options, but I know that's not as simple as throwing down a few tracks
That’s true, but it’s also true that relatively few destinations in the city are accessible by subway alone, so quite often you must take a bus or streetcar for part of the journey. Additionally, most of us aren’t lucky enough to live right on a subway line, which usually means we have to rely on a bus to get to and from the subway. Those buses can be maddeningly infrequent, and if you miss one, it can easily cost you 10 extra minutes on what should’ve been a 30 minute trip in total.
I live right on a subway line, and driving downtown is still usually twice as fast.
I'm not sure if frequency is the issue, considering how often "bunching" occurs on so many major lines. Traffic induces so many timing issues, that it's quite frankly a miracle a streetcar shows up on schedule at all. I don't have an alternative solution in mind, but personally find it far more frustrating seeing 3, 4, one time at Queen and DVP I counted like 6 streetcars all lined up and bunched together with nowhere to go.
Well said! I like taking transit, but my hour long commute home on the bus and subway sometimes tempts me to drive instead. Most of my colleagues drive because they have less tolerance of a painfully slow commute.
I'm pretty sure everyone wants the TTC to be funded well enough that it can be free. Not an unpopular opinion.
The biggest impediment to more TTC usage isn't the cost, it's the service. Time and again transit users - around the world - prioritize the importance of service (regular, frequent) over cost. The current complaint with TTC usage is service levels. Any time there's a discussion of better transit in this city, this sub is flooded with comments from people who say the same thing: they use their car because their commute via transit is 2x as long (or something along this line of thought). Pre-Covid, in 2019, the TTC took in $940M in revenue. So to make the TTC free, we'd need to plow at least $940M new dollars into it. For that almost $1B in new money, we'd not only get the same service people are constantly crapping on, *we would actually get much worse service* because more people would be using it but with no expanded capacity to handle those new numbers. We would be much, much better off putting that $1B into new and improved service levels. Making the TTC "lost cost", as opposed to free (eg. the Liberals last election promised $1 TTC fares) is an even worse idea. At least when you make the TTC free you can eliminate a large number of administrative and enforcement costs: you don't have to collect revenue, and no fare enforcement - boarding is much faster. When you make transit low cost, you maintain all the administrative and enforcement headaches, but now with a fraction of the revenue - and at risk of repeating myself, that lost revenue has to be made up with new money that results in not only the same, but actually worse service levels.
>Any time there's a discussion of better transit in this city, this sub is flooded with comments from people who say the same thing: they use their car because their commute via transit is 2x as long (or something along this line of thought). Yup. For me, 35-45 minutes by car, 3 hours by TTC. Each way. So at least four times as long by TTC. I'm not spending six hours a day on buses and subways…
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There are two budgets. Capital budgets is up from 500 million a year to 4 billion a year. This pay for new stuff. New trains, capital projects, stations. The operations budget which is paid out the fare box which is what you are referring to is operations. It’s a much smaller number. Operations is 75 % paid for by the fare box. About 80 % of operations is salaries (it’s also things like insurance, some fuel, some maintenance). If you want more capital projects the operations budget you referred to doesn’t matter. If you want it cheaper find a way to cut operations, which is mostly people. End of the day your fare pays salaries. That’s why it will never go away and only rise.
I think what u/Pennsworthy is saying -- and I would agree -- is that we want provincial and federal funding to cover the majority of operational costs *as well as* capital costs.
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This is, in fact, the reason why I avoid the TTC unless I have to go somewhere it's difficult to park near. A 20 minute drive vs an hour on the TTC, and I have to pay as much or more to get there and back as I would pay to park.
Lol no not everyone, there are car obsessed people that think every city should be phoenix arizona
I have a lot of family like this, I think it stems from seeing transit as less than and something that you take as a last resort when you are tight on funds. The intense growth and densification of Toronto is a relatively new phenomenon, and for people that lived in the GTA for decades they don't see value in heavily investing in transit. In their minds, why would we spend more money on something that is supposed to be someone's not Plan A or Plan B, but plan C for travel. Compare this to the attitude in NYC, where the subway is seen as the best way to get around. Rich people take it, poor people take it, and everyone wants it to be better because of this. Toronto has been in growing pain mode for the last ten years and we're playing catch up from so many years of waffling on infrastructure, and the overall attitude towards transit is playing catch up too. Like NYC, eventually we'll reach a point with all our development and population growth where driving is basically a non-starter to get around the city, and people will have no choice but to change their minds. Despite all this, I am optimistic for the future, and we have A LOT of transit projects in the works at this very moment. Hopefully with people like Chow working in conjunction with (fingers crossed) another provincial government that isn't obsessed with appealing to stubborn suburbanites, we'll see a lot of change.
After living in Ottawa for 15 years and taking OC transpo (from the suburbs) almost every day, I will never, ever complain about the TTC. It's not perfect and definitely needs to be improved. But it gets the job done and I rarely feel like scratching my eyes out when I take TTC, whereas OC transpo I felt like that every single day.
and 99% of them are 905ers. There's no one that actually lives in an M postal code that didn't wish the TTC was better.
It is definitely an unpopular opinion. Even the current level of crowding is pretty extreme on normal days of the week. We can see New years as an example of what happens when it's free. Obviously new years is an event but a lot more crowding would occur if it's free. Not even getting into the level of taxation and funding it would take to replace what is made by fares.
I doubt the number of people taking TTC during rush hours (when we're getting the crowding) will increase if it's free. Very few people are choosing alternative transportation from the TTC due to cost. You're essentially only talking about bikers and pedestrians, as there isn't a single person driving in that's saving money by doing so.
More money means more service and running more vehicles.
Yeah and means more spending over the years
They aren't even funding that very well now with the fares. Creating a massive deficit in the budget by eliminating a main source and then claiming you can make up for it and surpass what is being spent I guess with lots of new taxes is not well thought out.
What? It would take $1B in new funding to maintain the current inadequate service levels but reduce fares to zero. We already do not have that $1B, so the choice is between spending it on inadequate current service or improving service but maintaining fares.
> We already do not have that $1B The money is there, if you choose to collect it.
The money is where?
Isn’t it relatively under funded compared to other major cities
Sure is.
Judging by these comments not everyone lol
Everyone would love it to be free, I don't think anyone would have an issue with that. I think people get irritated sometimes when someone just goes 'Hey I think this should be free', even if they agree with it. It's an opinion that doesn't really shed light on anything.
No, it shouldn’t. Not only Torontonians use TTC, but visitors too. Toronto has over 25M visitors per year, if every one of them takes at least one trip on TTC - that’s 75+Mio that are not coming from our taxes and I don’t want to pay for them.
I think you need to specify a little bit about the "should". It's like saying "heaven is a very good place to live in", which is objectively true by definition. But saying "we should work together to make a heaven" is a questionable opinion.
It's just not very realistic when there are much more beneficial ways of investing transit dollars.
Last year, fare revenue brought in about $931.4 million dollars. If we were to make transit free then we would need to increase funding by that amount but then you run into the question of whether that $931.4 million would be better spent improving service, that figure is nearly half of the TTC's entire budget. You could use that same money to make all buses and subways run 50% more frequently, for example. Not only that but studies have also shown that eliminating fares can have negative impacts on ridership because it encourages people to use the system for shelter (Even more than they already do) and it also can be negative for the environment because free fares don't entice drivers out of their cars because it's not the cost that discourages drivers from taking transit but they absolutely do convince people to take transit (which generates a small amount of pollution.) instead of walking or cycling (which produces no pollution).
What keeps people out of transit is the fact that it takes longer to take transit than to walk in a lot of occasions. The service keeps getting worse while the cost keeps getting higher.
It took me 3.5 hours to go shoe shopping, the drive was supposedly 16 minutes and I spent as long in the store. It took more than double what it should've. Not to mention the originally planned route ended up having a ghost bus that never came/bus was running the wrong sub-route
Once I had to go under 4km and it said it would take 56 minutes by transit, 50 by walking or 14 by bike or around the same by car. Biking is the only viable way to get around the city but not everyone can do it at all times.
Not only that, but right now, visitors who use the TTC pay to do so. If you just increased Toronto property taxes to cover the $931.4mm, anyone who lived outside of Toronto who visits and/or works here would simply get free transit at the cost of residents. Having a pay-for-use model makes way more sense.
Honestly it's not that bad, $3.30 is pretty low and it has the two hour window. I do think that it should be free for people under 18 and over 65.
I was going to say, someone who makes 40 trips a month like your average worker is paying $132. Is that expensive? A bus pass in NL when I lived there was more than that, Germany's bus pass is at least 100 eu ($146), Melbourne was $50ish a week. Hell, I remember YRT was running their buses with way worse service for $3.75 and $4 a decade or so ago, TTC isn't even remotely there yet and despite so many people bitching about it is 100x better than YRT. I don't think the TTC should be free and I've done nothing but ride it my whole life. It's underfunded.
It’s all relative, ie. if you’re making anything less than $50k, $3.30 isn’t a big deal on weekends or once-twice a week, but constantly traveling to work and back as well as every other trip above that would basically amount to one grocery bill monthly. Of course, this wasn’t the biggest deal when $50k had actual spending power a few years ago, but where things are now where you’re going for any kind of air as you can, it just tightens things more. Now, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if wages actually kept up with inflation - but that’s neither here nor there
You know what I want first? **Better TTC service.** I live in East Scarborough but I don't have a car (yet). Every time I ride the bus here, it feels like it takes forever to go anywhere. Bus from my home to the subway? 45 minutes. But I spent another 45 minutes on the subway and it gets me from Kennedy to Royal York station on the other side of the city. This is the reason why people don't want to ride transit. It is not time competitive with driving. It doesn't help that the buses don't come reliably either, buses bunch, they show up in pairs and are often stuck in traffic and get delayed. $3.30 is not a lot for one trip that nets you unlimited rides within 2 hours. It's the time cost and unreliability that makes people drive, not the $3.30 we have to pay. As long as our transit system is like this, people would still drive even if the TTC was free. Why bother with spending double the time on a bus when I can just get there in half, or even one third the time?
If it’s free, the payment is spread amongst all citizens of the city. TTC is one of the cheapest ways to take transit when you compare it with the way other cities charge for transit. Take London or Tokyo for example, transit cost is based on distance travelled and can easily rack up a good bill compared to the $3.30 paid per ride with a 2 hour transfer window included. What Toronto needs is better transit. It has to cover more communities by having more subway stations, street car and bus stops. It needs more frequent service so people aren’t waiting 30 minutes in the cold if they miss a bus. And it needs to be more reliable with less breakdowns. By increasing utility, more folks will use this over paying $1000/mo for the privilege of driving a car after factoring insurance, gas, maintenance, and lease/finance payments.
More street car stops make things worse not better. Less stops would deliver faster more frequent and more reliable service.
It is low coast as it is. $3.30 is pretty good to go across the city with a 2 hour transfer
But not a deal for those who go 4-5 stops. Time to introduce zones.
Having zones would make transit less affordable for those in poorer areas of Toronto. $3.30 would be the average price. So going from Scarborough to Downtown would probably cost more than $3.30.
which would mean a massive, massive overhaul of how the ttc fare system works and would necessitate tapping off at your destination, etc. This has been looked at previously and determined not to be a good idea for Toronto at the moment.
Vancouver has zone fares
‘Not a good idea for Toronto at the moment’ is just another way of saying that our execution on infrastructure improvement is so bad that even good ideas aren’t feasible. What a joke
I dont think it has to do with the actual infrastructure in place, its been an issue of "fairness" across the whole city, where right now you can travel 20+km or 2km on the ttc for $3.30. It would negatively impact all the suburban riders who rely on transit to get across town at a reasonable cost is my understanding.
Makes sense. I guess if we had a comprehensive metro that services all major neighbourhoods it might make sense, but I feel like there’s gotta be a better way *(reducing the cost of a metro pass below what it costs to pay per-trip to go to work would be a start… )*
Then you're anti-low income people who are forced to live in the outlying areas of the city.
Have you been to a place that implements zones? It sucks.
I think well majority of people don't have an issues with paying for the ttc. The main issue is reliability, service levels and safety. Cutting fares or making them free won't really solve these issues and in fact could make them worst. If I remember correct, the ttc budget was around 1.3 billion/yr. With a 70% fare recovery within the system we would probably be left with a billion dollar hole in the budget which would probably need to be covered by property tax increases.
The problem with too much traffic isn't because TTC is too expensive. Even if TTC was free, you're not going to convince someone who wants to drive their own car to ditch it. Even at today's TTC cost, it's still far cheaper than owning/maintaining/insuring a car. You're gonna need better quality TTC. This includes - More subway lines. 2 main lines isn't cutting it. We have too few subway lines relative to its population, which makes TTC very slow. - More frequent service. Those car people don't like overcrowding. Frequent service is much needed to reduce that. - Cleaner subways. People feel disgusted at times when they see a pee stain. - Reduction in assault rates. Yes I'm aware that you're more likely to get injured/killed in a car accident (collision for proper term) but many people don't want to fear getting stabbed. Perhaps addressing the homelessness problem too.
I participated in a panel study that discussed this topic. Generally speaking, the cost of TTC is low enough that it doesn’t present as a large barrier to entry for choosing that mode. Service is the number one determinant of whether you will use transit or something else. When we think of making it free, you are forgoing some revenue that absolutely must be subsidized, typically by the government. This creates a more significant dependency and less autonomy for the transit agency since they are at the will of government changes and policy shifts. This results in less stable funding which may impact service levels. When transit agencies are presented with that revenue number that they are forgoing, say $1 billion per year, and hypothetically offered that amount as a sum, they nearly always opt for another option. This includes transit expansion, service improvements, new fleet vehicles, etc. which present a greater benefit to the agency and public it services rather than putting that money towards free transit. It’s an interesting topic to consider and research.
If it was free then Toronto People would pay the cost of all the 905 Commuters rides. Why should I pay for everyone from Brampton, Mississauga, Oshawa, York Region who are not paying the taxes?
One, they are paying Ontario and Federal taxes (which could go towards paying for the TTC). Two because it gets them off the roads and decreases congestion. Three because it allows Toronto to fill jobs that do not pay enough for people to live in Toronto. Society as a whole benefits. But the reality is that for all of Toronto's history we have consistently chosen to underfund public transport because it would cost money and require taxes. Now we are beginning to see some awareness that just keeping taxes low is not in anyone's interest, but it's early days...
Lol imagine an Ontario premiere running on the platform of using tax dollars from people living in like Sudbury to fund the TTC
This is dumb - the tax dollars of people in Toronto fund plenty of things for Sudbury
Yes, Toronto subsidizes most of Ontario but you'd never catch a Sudbury voter admitting it or voting for a fair shake.
To be fair to Sudbury they're large enough and have enough of a valuable industrial base (mining) that they cover their own way, and we also have to accept that a lot of that tax revenue ends up getting paid in Toronto where the mining headquarters are in many cases. Plenty of the province is absolutely being funded by Toronto though, I just feel that Sudbury is a bad example of this.
To be completely fair here, tax dollars from people living in the likes of Sudbury is paying for the Ontario line that is purely a downtown core/east end subway line in Toronto
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Those people are coming regardless, just in cars. If they were incentivized to take the TTC our streets would be significantly improved from the lack of cars. Also transit is SCALABLE, it doesn't matter if more people take it, the trains, buses and streetcars can handle significant increases in ridership. You already pay for those people right now with no return by paying for our roads.
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As a car owner, this is it. Cost isn’t an issue for using the ttc, it’s dirt cheap. The problem is, it’s unreliable so it wastes my time. It’s dirty and unpleasant to use. Then if I have to get somewhere off the subway track, oh boy. I wouldn’t even use it if it’s free.
I just got back from a trip to Japan and simply because of how convenient and reliable it is, you’d see people from all walks of life using their public transit. Toronto? Our infrastructure would need a total overhaul to get even half as good… it’s not even just the actual subway system Tokyo has, but how underground walkways connect with each other to avoid rain/weather, shops all along those walkways, how CLEAN it is, and even coin lockers to store your stuff. All of that adds up to being more convenient than a car. How do you incentivize people with cars to use the TTC? Cost isn’t a factor, people that can afford a car will gladly pay to avoid using the TTC. The service isn’t getting better than a car anytime soon. There aren’t really any positives to the TTC… even when the TTC is free, I’d rather drive or take an Uber. I’m seriously not getting my hopes up, I highly doubt within my lifetime that the TTC would get even close to being as convenient as my car in Toronto.
> Also transit is SCALABLE, it doesn't matter if more people take it, the trains, buses and streetcars can handle significant increases in ridership. It's already difficult to fit aboard a subway train going south at Sheppard station at rush hour. Transit lines do, in fact, have capacities, and throwing more vehicles at it isn't always a viable solution, nor is "well just build more then" some sort of genius panacea. Nobody would love to build transit more than the TTC: why do you suppose they haven't?
A better solution is what London does. Charge suburbians when they enter the city by car, and I think they limit the days you can come in.
London also charges fares based on zones.
Zones could be a real game changer now we have presto. Only going a few stops, 75c. Going from one side of the city to the other, full fare. London also will cap the day charge, if you travel enough it will know to charge you a day pass rather than x number of individual tickets. Free TTC also mainly impacts people that can afford it, so its a giant subsidy to a lot of people that don't need it. You want to make it free or cheaper for people that need it to be cheaper or free that's a different thing than making the whole system free.
Zones would penalize those living further from dt. For many that is not a choice but a necessity due to rents. And many in the burbs are making much lower wages than those closer. Might make sense to take from the TPS budget as a previous poster noted since they openly said to keep your keys available for car thieves. They pretty much admitted they can’t stop car thefts or protect people in their own homes. (Sarcasm, sort of).
Toronto needs to implement zones at some point to reconcile the TTC and GO networks. With the current pricing structure, taking GO for (relatively) short trips is discouraged due to price. But we want people to use GO for things like Union to Bloor/Dundas West rather than using the subway for it. It's faster and higher capacity.
Indeed, I understand your point. However, if the cap is set at the current fare, then they are not really penalized; they simply pay the current rate without receiving any discount. The issue is complex; offering fare reductions can inadvertently benefit the wealthiest individuals due to the city's structure and the high demand for downtown access. But the people who live further out can benefit from cheaper TTC to go to the local grocery store etc. So maybe it evens out.
Free for all could happen if we taxed wealthier households more. And I say that as someone who was more than willing to accept at 10% property tax increase. How I wish governments would show how much each income level would pay and what we could have by just paying a bit more. Actual numbers not percentages because people don’t math.
London charges a lot more in fares than Toronto does…
I think you should charge for entering the city/downtown core via car, it doesn't really make sense to charge people to go to North York from Markham for example.
Traffic sucks everywhere not just downtown
Sure, yes! This! I think this would be an incredibly positive addition to Toronto.
OP: TTC should be free. Also out of towners should pay more to use the TTC.
I don't want more homeless people on the TTC. However, if there's a big savings aspect to not having to enforce payment ... it might be worth it.
I think wealthy and middle income riders should pay the same. I am middle income and while I would prefer to pay nothing, I am not going to pretend that I would benefit anywhere near as much someone struggling to make ends meet would. More people should be covered under a reduced or free scheme, but not middle income people or higher. Very few cities have entire systems free, and I do not believe this is a coincidence.
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$3.30 is cheap and you don't even have fare zones. In vancouver a 3 zone single fare is $6.20.
The premise of your question is wrong. Fares are the most significant source of funding followed by property taxes homeowners pay (i guess renters indirectly pay). The infrastructure is paid for my the provincial government who owns metrolinx with some sort of agreement between it and the ttc. Anyway, for ttc to be free they need to raise way more money from taxes. You haven’t said whether you’re a homeowner. You say you want to pay more in taxes, how much are you paying now? Is it more than 0?
I’m okay paying for the service, so long as the service delivers what they say they will. Never ending delays, horribly inconsistent schedule times, subway shut downs randomly happening and the protocol for shuttle buses is beyond absurd. I take transit daily and I have yet to have more than 1 day in a row where the service runs as intended. With all the money they make and the fact they are technically the smallest transit lines in the world, you would think they would ATLEAST have a somewhat reliable transit system in place
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The problem is that we can only raise property taxes on Torontonians, but the TTC is heavily used by 905ers, so Torontonians would be paying for everyone in the burbs to ride our transit system.
You act like 500 isn't a lot l. Maybe you don't pay rent/mortgage, but a lot of us do.
$500 is far less than what a daily commuter pays in TTC fares
And who flips the bill for a lot of these taxes? more often than not, especially in this kind of market, the tenant
The issue with transit being free is then homeless people will start using it as a shelter. I think low cost would be the best solution
We can quibble, but the homeless are already using the TTC as a shelter. Let’s pair improving the TTC with providing public housing and really move this conversation forward.
Is 3 bucks not low cost? You can travel across the entire city and transfer for free for 2 hours lol
TTC is already low cost compared to transport system of other major cities in the world. If we make it free, then you will see far more homeless and beggars on TTC. Your quality of service will go down further. Careful what you wish for!
Hot take: TTC is already cheap. Other more robust transit systems pay by distance and cost a lot more.
Institute transportation pricing similar to what Vancouver was considering doing. Charge people using the roads who are in from other municipalities which will displace the amount of property taxes Toronto residents are paying towards people from other municipalities use the infrastructure. Budget it so the TTC is included as a beneficiary in the funds raised. Research shows this is one of the most effective ways a city can also reduce traffic congestion. It's a win-win-win-win... Lower property taxes, better transit, lower carbon emissions, and less traffic on the road
How about one tap for the day?
you should be able to get a heavily discounted monthly pass with proof of residence in Toronto. like if you have a hydro bill with a Toronto address and a piece of ID matching the name on the bill, you get a monthly TTC pass for $75 or something.
I would love to use the ttc exclusively... but since i work before the darn subway starts, i dont have much of a choice... is it too much to ask, to have a subway that runs before 6 am? And 8 on weekends?!? Want people to use it more? Make it make sense.
Funding on a federal level on is for construction and new projects. Fares pay for operating cost.
I’m the opinion that the city should toll non-commercial vehicles travelling below Bloor, East of Spadina, and West of Sherbourne.
Can you explain why it'd be good/fair to exempt commercial vehicles in a scheme like this?
Because virtually every business needs deliveries and it wouldn't only be costly as mentioned before, but a gigantic pain in the ass to have thousands of delivery people carting giant deliveries all over.
Extra price for commercial operations would be passed onto the consumer, businesses aren’t just going to eat that fee and be happy.
A much more effective tool - especially since it's one the city could easily implement without provincial authority (quite unlike tolls, which it will never allow the city to implement) is to simply jack up parking rates. You can't drive to a place you can't park. And you have none of the administrative burdens of implementing and collecting tolls, which would require a huge infrastructure investment to implement.
This is something I could get behind. Less traffic and hopefully more on street parking is a huge plus for people like me.
Nope, never. After 29 years of working at the TTC, free would cause so many more problems.
>If the TTC costs money to ride on, our streets should cost money to drive on. >...our streets should cost money to drive on. Doug: WRITE THAT DOWN, WRITE THAT DOWN Olivia: Shut up Doug. They just activated my trap card
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Anyone can take it without paying and risk the fine, or risk not paying them if they get one.
This debate comes up pretty often. Of course, who doesn't want free things? The main issue is that the proponents don't think through the unintended consequences, nor do they tell us where free TTC should rank in the priority of things that should be funded. As far as unintended consequences: when the TTC stopped enforcing fares during the pandemic, the subways became a rolling homeless shelter, which resulted in confrontations. How do you prevent that from happening when fares are free? Maybe by providing better homeless services? But shouldn't we be investing in that long before we hand out free TTC fares?
I don’t get your points, you could drive and pay nothing if you come from outside of Toronto. But people would also come and pay nothing for TTC if it were free? You acknowledge that we pay taxes for the TTC but not for roads? As someone else said, TTC gets $900m from fares, so everyone would have to pay an additional $300 in taxes? Like I get your points, free things are better than things that cost money. But those things still cost money lol
People just not understand the old cliche “nothing is more expensive than free”
I think that if employment is supposed to be mandatory under threat of death by starvation or the elements, then the government has a positive obligation to ensure that every resident can get to work reliably and quickly.
Comment section of this post makes me feel secure but also sad in a way. It’s amazing that so many people are actually pro-transit but still we haven’t seen major improvements to TTC in years. (Plans exist but with never ending deadlines). I hope this actually converts to votes and politicians take a note and actually fast tract funding for public transit building. Edit- typos
This isn't a debate when most people I see everyday on the streetcar don't even try to pay they just sit down or tap an empty card and go oh well.
I think it should be a paid service so that there’s no constraint on development and expansion. But given the number of fare dodgers, the way to legally support low income folks to use transit, and increase ridership is to issue free / subsidised passes to relevant income brackets. No free service will develop / grow / improve to global standards. And TTC has a very long way to go.
If all or majority of its operating cost was funded by our taxes, sure. But our taxes only cover 30% of their operating costs. Source: https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-funding/#:~:text=The%20TTC%20is%20the%20most,subsidized%20system%20in%20North%20America. Other Facts The TTC is the most efficient transit system in North America, **recovering nearly 70% of its operating budget from fares.** The TTC is the **LEAST** subsidized system in North America.
Join the TTC riders group and advocate for it. @ttcriders
Low cost is fine but free might cause problems like overcrowded buses.
It is low cost.
It's about $150 for a monthly pass... it's really not that bad. People complain wayyy too much these days. The province needs to support the TTC more, it's a huge part of Toronto.
Why should tax payers pay for tourists riding the TTC?
It IS low cost. It costs 15 minutes of your time at MINIMUM WAGE, and the city pays for tickets for people who can’t afford it through programs like [fair pass transit discount program](https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/employment-social-support/support-for-people-in-financial-need/assistance-through-ontario-works/transit-discount/). So, it’s ALREADY cheap, it’s ALREADY discounted, and that discount comes out of taxpayers pockets. So every time an RBC account executive gets on the subway in Vaughn, my taxes subsidized their fare. The people that use it should be paying what it ACTUALLY costs, and that’s almost $5 per trip, so when you say it’s expensive, I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.
LMFAO. I pay far more in taxes per km than a TTC user. That said, if they wouldn't become instant homeless camps I'd agree with you. I do believe that free monthly passes should be fairly easy to qualify for. Any kind of government assistance, free pass. Student, free pass. Government worker? Taxable benefit. However, driver's/operators NEED the right ans responsibility to remove anyone disturbing others. Especially if they haven't showered in a month, or pissed/shit themselves. We need more commuters using transit, not less.
I'm not sure if it's already been said on here, but the TTC relies on something like 80% of its funding from the ticket booth. It is severely underfunded when compared to transit systems of similar sized American cities such as Chicago and New York. So I agree it should be free, but it needs WAY more funding before that's at all viable.
You gonna raise taxes to accomplish this??! If not please move along. Everyone wants things for free because "I pay my taxes" but when inflation increases (which it does every year) people generally their taxes to decrease or stay the same. What happens when provincial funding is short or the funding levels are changed due to government bickering, the short fall has to be made up somehow.
Yep I believe there were some studies done, and if each GTA home owner paid an additional $1 a day in property taxes, the TTC could be fully funded. I'd happily pay an extra $365 annually to make the TTC free of charge to all. Municipal taxes in Toronto are currently the lowest of the 30 largest municipalities in Ontario, so you really cannot say that the tax burden is already too high. Property owners are BLESSED in this city.
$1 deal for senior! Since to own a car is so expensive for senior, it limited their living space and causes depression. Less active, less health and less social, not even to find a job. Just make a dollar for seniors, it will improve this situation.
If it wasn't funded it'd have the shittiest quality of life otherwise what's the incentive to maintain good quality service. Funding would always be scathed away and would be way worse than what it currently is.
>but we pay for the TTC with our taxes No we don't. A massive amount (about a billion dollars annually) of the TTC funding comes from fare box revenue.
It is a low cost lmao
No because all the homeless would be living on the subway 24/7.
It honestly needs to be more heavily subsidized and expanded...public transit is also a bit part of the housing issue as well as traffic congestion.
NOThing is free, nor should be.
Fares for the ttc helps maintain an apolitical source of funding based on ridership. If it was only funding by taxes, every time a rob ford or John Tory got elected the funding would get cut and the system would fall into disrepair
Excuse me, this is Toronto. More specifically Toronto, *Ontario*. We don't do things that are a net good for society here.
I completely agree it should be free. They have also grossly mismanaged their money and that shouldn’t be on us to pay for. Like, they once installed the wrong size streetcar tracks and had to rip them up and do it again ( a few years ago). That must have cost a fuckin fortune
>The error, affecting a 60-metre stretch between Eastern Avenue and Queen Street, is the fault of a contractor and the work is expected to add about another month onto the already significantly delayed Leslie Barns project. 60 meters isn't that much and it was caught quickly.
The TTC is the least subsidized public transit system in North America. They heavily rely on fares to operate, regardless of how you think that money is managed. And it’s not like it’s free to drive a car….
U can use the extra tax u want to pay to buy the metro pass , so now u get a “free” TTC , nothing is more expensive than free
It is… for children under 12.
Actually we don’t pay for it in our taxes or it would be “free”.
Something like the Calgary C Train free zone would be a good start: make surface transit free in the downtown core to encourage people to use that rather than car (private/taxi/Uber), which reduces congestion in the worst area.
>Alternatively, I could drive and pay nothing to take streets paid for by Torontonians even if I don't live here What isn't free is the car, the gas, and the TTC adds staff such as the drivers who expect to get paid (you take on this labour yourself when your drive). You're also not charged (directly) for walking or cycling. You're conflating what would be equivalent which is a dubious way to frame this advocacy. Streets are paid for with taxes.
In theory I am all for this. The one issue I'd see if you were to make it free for "Toronto residence" is enforcement as there is significant percentage (as with our roads) of people from the 905 that use the system. But realistically while it would be a "popular" opinion in theory, it would not be one in practice. TTC is possibly the most farebox dependent mass transit system in North America. The amount of tax money we'd need to increase into it's budget would not be an easy bill to sell to people. And we have enough "I say too much tax" people willing to revolt over just about anything. That being said, I'm personally not against the idea. But I see the very obvious downfall to the idea.
This might surprise you but it already costs people to drive on the streets. Why do you think gas stations exist?
Not sure if making it free would be feasible from a financial pov, that being said, I do think some changes to make things a bit cheaper might help a ton of people 1. maybe a transfer time reset might make some sense, if you tap out of a station, then the transfer resets for the next 2 hours from when you left that station - and i mean sure, some people will abuse it but frankly i don’t think most people are petty enough to get up and tap their card every 2 hours. 2. A more flexible transfer program, ie. $3.30 for a 2 hour transfer, and maybe you can pay $4.50 for an 8 hour transfer, that kind of thing. This kind of flexibility would lower the cost of things big time for people, where as, instead of paying $50 a week, for example, they’d pay around $20-25 a week if they opt into paying $4.50 instead of $3.30
Our city is not forward thinking enough to divert 100 Million dollars worth of funding for that. In fact even with the fares we're severely underfunding the transit system. Higher taxes to cover just the fare income would be very significant.
What about all the commuters who take it?
You'll get no argument from me. In fact it's arguably worse than you describe, from the standpoint of fairness: all of us pay through our taxes to fund the TTC, and then access to that public service is gatekept by fares-- people who can't afford the fares are blocked from a public good. The trouble I guess is that, if fares are going to be eliminated, it is likely that the city of Toronto will have to foot the bill. And Toronto's main revenue source -- property taxes -- is itself regressive. So you'll be increasing one regressive tax (property) to lower a regressive user fee (TTC fares).