The TTC is on crack

Most cities want people to take public transit. They see value in getting people to park their cars and take the bus or subway. They even encourage such behaviour. Not so in Toronto. In Toronto, transit users are an annoyance to the transit system, something to be barely tolerated, and even loathed.

Yes, the TTC is set to hike fares again, and I don’t mean by a little. They’re proposing major fare hikes that will, bizarrely and stupidly, hit Metropass holders the hardest.

The cash fare for a single trip is proposed to rise by a quarter, fro, $2.75 to $3. Token fares would also go up by a quarter, from $2.25 to $2.50. A weekly pass would rise from $32.25 to $36. And the big daddy, a monthly Metropass, would skyrocket from an already pricy $109 to a ridiculous $126.

The problem, according to the TTC? It seems too many people are taking transit. The horror!

I accept that riders do need to pay their fair share to fund the transit system but it’s worth noting that the TTC already gets 71 per cent of its revenue from riders, one of the highest percentages in North America.

The TTC needs to control costs internally, and the province and feds need to step in with stable operating funding. They’re quick to do flashy capital acquisition photo-ops, but operating funds keep the trains running.

There’s a reason we as a society subsidize transit: it gets cars off the road, reduces congestion, and is good for the environment. Maybe less money on highways and more money on transit would be an idea.

But back to the TTC. Even if you accept the need for fare hikes, the decision to disproportionately punish Metropass holders, your best and most loyal customers, is asinine. You want to be encouraging people to buy Metropasses, not discourage them.

Already a pretty shitty deal, under the new fare regime a Metropass holder needs 50 trips to break even over token fares. That’s a round-trip to work every weekday, and at least another roundtrip every weekend. And THEN you start to have a better deal over tokens. That’s an exceedingly shitty deal that is only made less shitty, ironically, by the Harper government’s transit pass tax credit, which lowers the break-even number to about 42 trips.

(Although, it’s worth noting that the credit is also part of the problem: it encouraged people to buy passes, yes, but with no more operating funds for the TTC it leads to congestion and the need to either lower service levels or hike fares, thereby driving some back to their cars.)

It’s stupid for the TTC to be discouraging pass holders like this. They should want to incent people to buy passes. It’s better for them. They get the money in one hit at the beginning of the month, instead of having to collect it over the course of the month in cash and tokens, that cost them money to process. Pass holders generate steady, predictable revenue and are loyal customers. Most transit systems price cash, token and pass fares to encourage pass buying over tokens, and tokens over cash. Not the TTC.

These hikes will undoubtedly encourage many to just go back to their cars, as the TTC is making the transit value proposition less and less attractive. Which may be their goal; those pesky transit users only clutter up the subway cars.

But for many, such as me, there’s no choice but to take the TTC. Buying a car isn’t really an option right now. So we’re held hostage to the TTC and its ridiculous fare hikes. And it’s hard to see any sanity on the horizon.

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