TTC Fare Hike...yet again

As a Torontonian, it is disturbing to see the continuous fare hikes at TTC. Year after year, the fare is increased to compensate for the large deficits they incur. As much as the TTC would like to blame this on the government and their lack of financial support, this certainly isn't the sole cause of the situation.

This year, the TTC proposed a new fare beginning in January, 2010. Hearing this news, many riders began to, what the TTC called, "hoarding" tokens. At one point, the TTC representative explained that by hoarding tokens, it would potentially cost them $5 million in revenue. Unforunately, he did not explain the reasons as to why. On other blog sites, people are speculating that he was referring to future revenues (after the fare increase).

The funny thing is, even though there is a potential shortfall of $5 million in future revenue, he did not consider the extra revenue that is going into the TTC EVERY SINGLE DAY since the hoarding began. If riders are purchasing as much as the TTC claims, there should be a sudden influx of revenue every day. This extra money can be used for investments, dump it into a short-term money market fund and make some extra interests off of it.

There are a few things I don't understand:

1. The TTC had to issue temporary tickets as a result of the severe token hoarding - yet they have a few control measures in place. Once they are sold out, there is usually a sign that says "Tokens sold out". Second, there is also a limit on how many you can buy each time. Lastly, there is a certain number of tokens going back into circulation every day.

The worst thing is, after like 3 days of issuing the tickets, they were all sold out! With tickets, it's not a matter of taking them out of the fare box and putting it back into circulation. Once they've been used, you can't recycle them for sale.

2. They claim the Metropass was giving riders "too good of a deal", so they have to adjust the price on that too. Firstly, there is no longer free parking offered on the Metropass. And second, in a normal 4-week month, you have to make at least 8 additional trips to break-even (A token fare will be $2.50, and the cost of the new pass will be $121. So to break-even, you at least have to make 48 trips on the pass). Think about it, 8 extra trips in a month? How is that a good deal?

One of their concerns is that the Metropass is now transferrable, and that is why they're losing a lot of money. To be honest, if I bought a Metropass to go to work, chances are I won't be able to let someone else use that pass for the 10 hours I'm at work.

They're putting an 11% increase on the cost of the pass, while most of the population will be stuck with a salary freeze or a very very minimal increase in salary. While their workers threatened to halt all operations if they did not receive their salary increase. How is that fair to the riders?

It's unfortunate because they basically know they are a monopoly in the city. There is not other public transportation system to compete with. The saddest thing is we call ourselves a "world-class city", and yet if anyone from any other world-class city was to come here, they would scoff at our dilapidated system, the mostly rude transit operators who aren't helpful with directions, and the little tokens we still use.

Come on TTC, grow up already.

*Visit ttcrider.ca to find out what you can do. It's a small glimmer of hope, but at least it's a start.

**Funny, when I was editing this post I just noticed a post from April 2008 where the TTC was threatening us with a strike. *sigh*