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TTC Approves Fare Hikes, Extends Student Discount

By David Topping

20091117fare.jpg
Photo by S.S.K. from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.


As of January 3, 2010, TTC fares will rise across the board. Well, almost. Here’s what the Commission approved at their meeting this afternoon, all effective on the first Sunday of the new year:

The better news amidst all of that is that, as of September 2010, “anyone enrolled in a post-secondary degree or diploma granting program,” as the TTC’s release defines it, now qualifies for a student Metropass at the TTC’s student rate—for a significant part of Toronto’s population, in other words, a Metropass next year will be at least $10 cheaper than it was before.
Then again, at least one adult was lucky enough to get a discount well into next year anyway: Spacing‘s Todd Harrison, who discovered a loophole in the Metropass Discount Plan that let him sign up for the Plan, today, for a year, for $100 a month. (That loophole is now closed: effective Wednesday, the TTC’s Director of Communications Brad Ross told us earlier today, “we will only be signing up new MDP subscribers for January 2010.”)
As we showed in our look at how adult fares have changed over the past thirty years, this hike—fair or not—was relatively predictable, which is why it makes sense that the reaction to the hike on Twitter so far has been largely intelligent and measured, with many riders understanding that the TTC’s move was a necessary, rather than a frivolous, one. Haha, just kidding; it’s Twitter. What’s that, djkidsupraa?

20091117farehike.jpg
djkidsupraa is not sayin’; he’s just sayin’.


In Toronto, this is what happens when you charge people one-quarter of a dollar more for something.

CORRECTION: NOVEMBER 17, 2009 This article originally said that the fare increase was effective January 3, 2010 “barring City Council voting against the decision”; in fact, as Brad Ross explained in an email tonight, “The Commission makes that call [on fare increases]. Council cannot overturn the decision.” Our mistake was the result of citing a CP24 story, which concluded by claiming that “Toronto City Council has to approve the changes before they can take effect.” (CP24′s article has since been updated to omit the sentence.)
UPDATE: NOVEMBER 18, 2009 The TTC’s press release contained incorrect information about the price of an Adult MDP Metropass and VIP Metropass; the new costs were listed as $110 and $106, respectively, when they’ll actually cost a dollar more each (sacrilege!) as of January 3, 2010.

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Comments

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    A correction above: the fare hike is not conditional on City Council approval, as my article said (a mistake which you can blame me, as well as other media outlets I was checking my information against, for). The changes above are those that are going to happen.

  • http://undefined josher

    in my opinion the TTC is highly inefficient, unused routes, overcrowding, an archaic fare system, overtime pay should not be allowed, overpaid employees http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/611565 (a 2008 article) but all that can be done is increase fares, no service cuts and “look” at inefficient. I for one will start walking more but I will give my metropass to one my family member.

  • http://undefined Peter K

    It’s sad the TTC Chair Adam Giambrone and others of his ilk are too ideologically driven to consider all the options available to them before shunting the problems caused by their mismanagement onto riders.

  • http://undefined mark.

    Actually, it’s too bad that people like you are too ideologically short-sighted to realize that firing and/or cutting wages is a drop in the bucket.
    I believe that it’s time for the province to return to its practice of sharing the TTC’s operating budget.

  • http://undefined Peter K

    A combination of cutting wages/positions, cutting routes, and looking for new revenue streams, with minor fare hikes would have done it. Giambrone wouldn’t even consider any of those options in conjunction with fare hikes.
    Ironically, it’s the very people he purports to care about, the poor, who are disproportionately hurt by the Giambrone fare hike, since they are the ones who tend to use transit more.

  • http://undefined mark.
  • http://undefined Peter K

    From that report it doesn’t seem to me like serious consideration was given to the alternatives. They were paid lip service before being dismissed out of hand.
    The big question that it raises is actually why are expenditures increasing by $93 million? Bad Giambrone/Miller union contracts mostly.

  • rek

    How do we make that happen, mark?

  • http://undefined mark.

    I’m not totally sure, rek. I do, however, notice that very few people understand how the TTC is funded. So many seem to think that the funding problem stems from it being ‘bloated,’ wasting money, paying employees too much, etc. Just look at the comments on the Star’s article and the ‘agrees’…
    I wonder if the first thing to be done is to spread the word about the funding structures, how the Harris gov’t in the 90s ending the long-standing practice of the province helping out with the operating budget, that other public transit systems get funding help from provinces, or that it’s fairly reasonable for the feds to help out with funding. This might change the conversation a bit, away from the ‘easy answers’ and myths about ticket collectors making ‘six figures.’ I think the newspapers are partly responsible for perpetuating these ‘easy answers’ and myths. They could, instead, report on the funding structures, how it’s changed historically and how it compares to other Canadian cities.
    Of course, having the province return to pre-Harris funding requires the provincial gov’t actually doing this. How we’ll ever get them to cough up the money, now that they have a huge deficit, will be rather difficult. Perhaps with the municipal elections coming, some candidates will start showing the facts about TTC funding and start lobbying the provincial gov’t.
    I just want people who care about the TTC (likely more now with the fare increase) to understand the issue of funding and stop wasting their energies with this whole ‘fire them all!’ attitude.

  • http://undefined Green Sulfur

    During yesterday’s debate on the fare hike, the most startling thing I heard was that if Toronto got the federal and provincial subsidy that New York gets, we would have $750 million more each year. The current “shortfall” in the 2010, before the fare increase, was a little more than $100 million. So if we were treated like other big cities, not only would we not have to worry about this fare increase, we’d also be enjoying substantially more/better service.
    The next most startling fact that I heard there is that compared to the TTC’s $0.59/ride subsidy, York Region gets a $4.55/ride subsidy from the provincial government. How is THAT fair?

  • http://piorkowski.ca/ qviri

    You mean the contracts awarded by an arbitrator?

  • http://undefined McKingford

    Yes, because service cuts are totally free, and don’t impact the poor at all…

  • http://undefined Peter K

    An arbitrator who takes both offers as a starting point when determining a settlement. Therefore an overly generous offer from a pro-union ideologue results in an arbitrated settlement that is bad for the TTC and its riders.

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    A minor update to this post (but one worth noting): the prices of the MDP and VIP Adult Metropasses are each one dollar more than was listed last night, the result of an error in the TTC’s press release. The article above contains the updated costs.

  • http://undefined falldowngoboom

    It’s not a “myth” that bus drivers and ticket booth collectors made over $100k. The linked Toronto Star article states there were “62 drivers and 21 station collectors” on the province’s $100,000 list.
    Yes, the province and feds should chip in. But let’s not just blindly throw more money down the bottomless CUPE hole.

  • http://undefined mark.

    Thanks for pointng that out. Yes, it was in fact more than one driver or ticket operator making more than $100,000.
    However, I’d point out a couple things from the article:
    -this $100,000 pay occurs when an employee works a bunch of overtime. “Without the overtime, those jobs pay only about $60,000 annually.”
    -the article also states that this overtime “saves the system money to pay and budget for overtime (rather than) hire additional bodies and pay those benefits.”

  • http://undefined Peter K

    That’s 83 people too many.
    As well $60,000 for the average collector/driver is too much for a more or less unskilled job. That’s more than the average teacher makes.

  • http://undefined Therese

    All I have to say is that there is severe mismanagement of money in the TTC, as at any given time day or night it is pot-luck wether you are able to get a seat, the overcrowding causes people to miss their stop, because they can’t get through the irritated users who became that way, because they have paid,a ridiculous amount of money to the TTC, and have to settle with being squashed together like sardines,with people who may or not be carrying viruses,something wrong with this picture,shame on you TTC.

  • http://undefined Jim Beam

    Am I the only resident of this City who thinks $3.00 subway fares are a bargain? Try using the subway in London or Paris where fares costs 2-3 times more to travel half the distance.