I’ve been meaning to write a new blog for a while now. I know, I think I put that in every post. But this time, I mean it. I was ready to write a blog, and then my MacBook died. Now that I have a refurbished (and superior) replacement, I’m ready to return to blogging! The only thing that kept me since then was that there was nothing pressing to write about, at least not that I could think of. That is, until the past few days, when it was handed to me on a silver platter. Let’s talk about the TTC!
I actually don’t think I’ve really gone into the TTC on this blog, which is a surprise, since there’s so much to talk about. There’s always an issue that bubbles up every now and then, usually about once a month. This month is special, though – the Commission has gone from slightly hated to downright loathed in the past week. Did somebody say fare increase? Naturally, it’s been a whole 2 years since the last one!
But before I get into that, let me first start by something positive: the York University Busway finally opened on Friday! I had been seriously awaiting this since I first heard about it, oh, 3 years ago maybe? I think I was in my first year, and now I’m in my fourth. I cannot stress enough how badly this needed to be built; the old 196 bus route was OK when there was no traffic, but failed horribly during rush hour. In September, it literally took me 1 hour 13 minutes to get from the back of the bus line to my job at Yorkdale, when normally it shouldn’t take more than 20-25 minutes.
The route is now almost totally on bus-only lanes, although I’m a little skeptical that cars will stay out of them on Dufferin. Another trivial thing is the railroad crossing that goes right through the actual busway part; I really hope trains don’t use those tracks too frequently, or else there will be lines of buses waiting for a slow moving train, thereby defeating the entire purpose. Also, buses legally have to make a full stop at them and wait for 3 seconds, which is kind of annoying, but, well, beggars can’t be choosers. I’m taking it tomorrow morning during rush hour, so I’ll hopefully be able to tell the difference. I did go by the line at York at 4:30, which is the time when the line would weave all over the place beside the student centre. There wasn’t nearly that many people waiting in line – perhaps a lull in traffic, or the busway is working… time will tell.
Now that we have the good out of the way, it’s time for the bad. The TTC approved a fare increase last week, so that fares go up about 25 cents and metropass prices go up about $12. The TTC had an upcoming deficit of about $100 million, so it was basically the only choice without cutting service. At the same time they announced changes to student metropasses; in September they will also be valid for postsecondary students. They cut token purchases to 5 per person so that people wouldn’t hoard them, which they argued could make them lose $5 million in revenue. In an unrelated incident, a construction mistake caused the busiest corridors of the subway to be shut down during afternoon rush hour on Thursday, the day after the fare hike was approved. Finally, in a surprise move yesterday, they announced that, starting today, you would be able to buy special adult tickets, as many as you wanted, but you would need to add 25 cents when using it after the fares go up, plus they won’t be valid after January.
Where do I begin? I think I’ll work backwards with this one. There have all sorts of viewpoints on this whole token/ticket business and some of them are quite interesting. I actually think the tickets were a good idea; the only problem is they didn’t give anyone any warning. People were going crazy all last week just trying to get tokens and they didn’t really need to. The other issue is that they didn’t estimate nearly enough tickets – Twitter was rampant with reports of major stations running out of both tickets and tokens by the evening of the first day. Huge lines everywhere, only augmented by the fact that the automatic turnstiles won’t accept tickets. With a little bit of planning this whole debacle would have been at least a little less horrendous, but the whole thing ended up looking like it was half baked at the last minute. Which, for all we know, it was.
Moving on, the issue of the fare hike itself. People will argue that, the TTC, as a business, is complete crapola. It seems that in terms of budgeting, someone isn’t doing the math right, because it can’t sustain itself. Businesses that can’t sustain themselves go bankrupt, but the TTC is less of a business and more of a government entity, so it can’t. I’ve heard an argument that transit systems aren’t really designed to make money, and normally they don’t, so the government subsidizes a certain amount to them so that they can keep operating. Apparently the TTC’s subsidy is pretty small compared to other major cities, and that fares play a much bigger role than they do in other cities.
I find this argument interesting, and I think it’s importance shouldn’t be ignored. But at the same time I think that the TTC should really look at trimming the fat instead of making service cuts look like the eighth deadly sin. I can give you a perfect example; a recent boost to service promised that every bus route would operate at least every 30 minutes up to 1:30 AM. At my station, St. Clair West, one of the routes is 33 Forest Hill, and I can tell you that every time I see that bus go by later on at night it’s almost totally empty. Yet the TTC pays the driver, and pays for gas for that bus, just so it can go up and down Forest Hill practically empty. And I’m sure that’s not the only route that operates like that.
I’m not saying that we should abolish these routes altogether, but thought should be given into where the TTC’s money is going if they’re going to raise fares like this. It’s great that they can boast about having 30 minutes or better bus service up to 1:30 in the morning for almost every route, but if I had to choose that or averting a fare hike I would obviously want to avert a fare hike. It’s almost like the TTC is being frivolous – cut service to routes like that and see how many people will complain.
The student metropass deal is great, except that I’ll have to go a whole 8 months paying the (soon to be even higher) adult rate. Why they didn’t choose to implement it starting in January is beyond me – did they want to soften the blow of losing more money? It was also peculiar that they would introduce that at the same time as a fare hike… but that’s the TTC in a nutshell, I guess.
So, to wrap this up, I think we have a two way street going on here – we need governments to step up, but at the same time the TTC could probably make some cuts that aren’t to tough to make. And in the mean time, I’ll enjoy the new busway.
Oh, and also as a side note; the timing of that huge subway closure was horrendous, and it wasn’t the TTC’s fault apparently, but I’m sure most of the people caught in it thought otherwise. The thing I don’t get is why people actually bother trying to take shuttle buses. People! Walk to St. George, go north, use Wilson to get back across and take your bus from there! Even if it takes long, at least you’ll feel like you’re going somewhere instead of standing in a giant mess of people at Yonge and Bloor listening to Adam Giambrone apologize.



