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Extra! Extra! Public Transit Enters the 20th Century!

By David Fleischer

2006_10_15_ttc.jpg
The TTC was coasting for a long time on its “best transit system in the world!” laurels before Mike Harris cut it down to size. In fact, the commision was so happy with itself that it failed to notice that transit systems in other large cities were doing all sorts of neat-o things.
For example: while we all love losing tiny TTC tokens (or even occasionally finding them in the laundry) other transit systems devised Smart Cards. They then took the debit card-based programs further, allowing them to be used on multiple transit systems in the same region.
Here, meanwhile, petty politics, shortsightedness and, yeah, a lack of money, ensured that local transit users had to make due with separate fare systems for GO, the TTC and any other systems they might use. Now it’s looking like GTA’ers might soon to be able to enjoy the same kind of system as the rest of the civilized world…sorta.
The Greater Toronto Transit Authority (an allegedly real organization that may or may not have something to do with controlling transit in the GTA) has announced that a Smart Card system could be in place by 2010 (!) thanks to a $250 million cheque from the province.
That will put us a mere 15 years behind New York but, hey, baby steps.
Oh, did we mention that the TTC seems to be the only GTA system that’s not involved? They just feel they have bigger fish to fry right now but they may come on board later.
The cash-poor Better Way is figuring out if they can join the rest of us here in the computer age. For now, they’re still patting themselves on the back for groundbreaking innovations like the weekly pass, but there may yet be hope. We pray.
In the meantime, try not to lose any more tokens.

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Comments

  • http://www.newmindspace.com kevin bracken

    yes! I have been waiting for this moment since before I even knew Toronto existed!

  • Gloria

    Why does the TTC always come off as the slow, lumbering retarded elephant-brother of all the transit agencies? Why?

  • Wrenkin

    Maybe they just think that the quarter-billion would be better spent on vehicles? What was that again, 400 buses?

  • sabrina

    I accidentally spent my ride home from the airport in the Boston MBTA. :( I thought it was a dime. I didn’t get over it for a couple of days.
    (hi kevin!)

  • Chester Pape

    I don’t know why it is you all think smart cards are so all fired amazing. They are expensive to implement and maintain and they are sometimes less convienent than the old ways. The earlier raised point about how many buses they could buy for what would have to be spent on this bears repeating.
    Oh by the way the comparison to New York is way off, of course the MTA has had metrocards for a long time, but they still had tokens until sometime within the last handful of years. I still have a token sitting in my change cup. Metrocards are NOT like the proposed multi-system smart cards, they don’t work on the Metro-North or LIRR (the equivilant of GO) and they don’t work on any adjacent juristiction’s transit systems, heck they don’t even work on the local buses on Roosevelt Island, only fares accepted on buses are cards and coins, no bills even though the fare is $2.00 even.
    A few years ago the missus killed a Chicago bus, she asked where to pay her fare and the driver indicated a box so she dropped a handful of coins in the card reader. Driver goes nuts, bus had to be taken out of service and all the passengers dumped out on the sidewalk.

  • Drew

    OK, this isn’t related, but I’ve asked this before, and I’ll ask again: who the hell won the Subway Car Naming contest 3 months ago?!

  • Gloria

    Wrenkin … does that price tag include the cost of hiring drivers, maintenance crew, and repairs for the rest of those buses’ lives? Just buying buses doesn’t get them on the road if there’s no one to drive and maintain them.

  • Noo Yawkah

    Don’t get excited, guys, trust us. New York still doesn’t have a comprehensive system — as someone stated above, the LIRR, Metro North, and NJ Transit (the local commuter rail systems for Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and surburban NJ) all run under separate fare systems. This, while the LIRR, Metro North, and MTA are all run under the guise of a single transit authority — ha! And lets not forget PATH (Port Authority Trans Hudson) trains, which run from Newark in NJ all the way up to 33rd Street/6th Ave in Manhattan: not only are they a separate fare system, but fifty cents less than MTA subway/bus fare.
    As for smart cards, well, I drop a ridiculous amount of money on my monthly pass, only to trot my ass back to the machine to buy a single ride at least once a week, because the reader deducts a fare but forgets to tell the gate to let me through. Some days, I’d rather have the damn tokens back.

  • barold

    how much of the dilly-dallying on a debit card system have to do with the elimination of the need for an employee to sit in a booth, chat on the phone and occasionally sell us some tickets, & tokens? What about stations that have a person there merely to watch people put a ticket, token or cash into the collection box? What about the collection of all these tickets, tokesn and coins for sorting and counting…

  • Xpat

    The TTC fare purchase system is one of the worst I’ve ever seen.
    *Token machines that only take 10′s and 20′s and
    NO debit.
    *No metrocards.
    *Tokens that are tiny and light as a feather.
    And why the huge disparity between buying a token or piece of cardboard at Shoppers and paying the fare in cash? .65 is a big difference.
    Public transit in Toronto is turning into one the major downsides of my move here. I could go on and on… Why don’t the subways run 24 hours –at least on weekends? And what is this with drivers who have to get out of the streetcar with a crowbar (or whatever) and wrench something to keep going. Is there no way to automate something like that?
    I see why the roads are clogged with autos. You have to be patient,committed with extra time on your hands to do TTC only.
    Thanks for the soapbox.

  • http://www.guesswork.ca Patrick

    In Singapore they were using a smart card at least as far back as 1992. How much do you think the TTC would have saved on forged tickets and tokens alone in that time, let alone on the staff time savings associated with self-service card reloading. It’s not (just) lack of money that hampers the TTC, it’s lack of long-term vision.

  • andrew

    You folks all missed an important part of this announcement. It’s a ten year contract with Accenture. These are the folks who were contracted to update and modernize the Ministry of Community & Social Services’ welfare computer system. They were also the ones who produced the reports that either influenced or confirmed the ideology behind the Common Sense revolution. The computer system they modernized? You remember the welfare cheque update last year? Because the system wasn’t ready and yet the government had promised to increase the rates. They had to issue paper cheques to people for the increase. Check out page 8 of this from the Polaris Institute: http://www.polarisinstitute.org/corp_profiles/public_service_gats_pdfs/Accenture.pdf
    So, maybe the TTC’s reservations are not so much about the smart card in and of itself, but the vehicle for delivery.

  • Chester Pape

    And lets not forget PATH (Port Authority Trans Hudson) trains, which run from Newark in NJ all the way up to 33rd Street/6th Ave in Manhattan: not only are they a separate fare system, but fifty cents less than MTA subway/bus fare.
    But at least you can use some Metrocards on the PATH.
    how much of the dilly-dallying on a debit card system have to do with the elimination of the need for an employee to sit in a booth, chat on the phone and occasionally sell us some tickets, & tokens?
    None or very little, someone has be there anyway for saftey/security reasons, having them watch over the fare box is a sideline.
    Why don’t the subways run 24 hours –at least on weekends?
    To what end? so you and your buddies can stay later in the bars? Do we really need to spend the kind of money it would take to keep the system up and running an extra shift to serve the needs of a couple hundred drunks? If you could convince me there was significant unmet demand to move shift workers around that would be different but that doesn’t seem to be the case. They can run 24 hours in NY because everything is double tracked so they can (and do) route around maintenance work.

  • Xpat

    chester says:
    “To what end? so you and your buddies can stay later in the bars? Do we really need to spend the kind of money it would take to keep the system up and running an extra shift to serve the needs of a couple hundred drunks?”
    Do you see the number cars, cabs, bikes etc out even in the middle of the night? Toronto is growing and changing and its time for the public transit administration to leave the 1950′s behind. People are up 24 hours a day doing all kinds of things.

  • andrew

    Yeah, but we aren’t doubletracked, like NYC. Repairs and maintenance are important. I’d rather see the Blue Night network expanded. More lines, more service. That would help with shift workers. I just can’t see the ridership between 2am and 6am really being worth it, despite how desperately i long for subways at 3am in january.

  • rek

    The westbound Bloor night bus is packed to the gills at 5AM, so maybe a good start would be to extend service hours to see if the riders are there.