YRT Fare Hike

[wyliepoon]

From Yorkregion.com

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Transit riders face fare hike

Sep 23, 2006
Caroline Grech, Staff Writer
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Cash transit fares will be going up in January after regional councillors approved a hike.

The cash fare will be bumped from $2.50 to $2.75 and will mean $1.4 million in extra revenue for the region.

Student and senior cash fares will remain the same, however passes and tickets will see increases.

For example, a GTA weekly pass will increase from $2.11 to $2.21, student passes will go from $1.36 to $1.48 and seniors and the multipass will see a nine-cent increase.

The hikes will mean more than $2 million in extra revenue.

The increases are three times the inflation rate and are unacceptable, Markham Regional Councillor Jack Heath argued.

"I think that is totally unreasonable when we're trying to encourage getting cars off the road. Take the cash fare to $3," Mr. Heath said, adding advance ticket prices shouldn't be raised because ticket and pass buyers are frequent buyers. "We have to make getting cars off the road a direction of this council."

Vaughan Regional Councillor Joyce Frustaglio voted in favour of the increase, based on making the transit system feasible.

"I guess if we all had our druthers, we would not increase ticket fares or taxes because that is the preference of our residents, but we have a responsibility to ensure it is a viable service for our residents," Ms Frustaglio said.

For Sarah Mason, who works in Newmarket and takes the bus two to three times a month, the change isn't one that worries her.

"It was pretty cheap to begin with compared with GO. It costs me $3.50 there and back on Viva and $10 on GO," Ms Mason said.

 

[toforumer]

This is ****ing bullshit! They raised the fare from 2.25 to 2.50 not too long ago. Now they are raising it to 2.75. I work up in the Vaughan region and it get's kind of pricy paying for bus fare all the time and now I hear of this.

 

[thenay]

I don't see why YRT will be $2.75, its already overpriced. I guess they have to up it to make the loss from the Viva. I heard its not as good as it first was for them, many aren't taking it now. I've seen many empty buses drive by already in the day

I can see Brampton and Mississauga transit matching it soon.

 

[ceytie]

For comparison's sake, Hamilton's cash fare is still a modest $2.10.

 

[doady]

I can see Brampton and Mississauga transit matching it soon.

I don't know about Brampton, but Mississauga is going to raise the cost of tickets by $0.10 and passes by $1.00 in February, but the cash fare will remain at $2.50. I stock up on tickets before a fare hike. Mississauga and Brampton do not have the problem of empty buses that York Region does. Quite the opposite actually.

Actually, I thought the future fare hikes might be cancelled or delayed considering the price of gas is not as high anymore. VIVA must be doing very poorly.

 

[spmarshall]

I think the only part of VIVA that is doing well is the Yonge Street Blue Line, partly as it replaced the GO service, for a lower fare. The Purple Line does okay when York is in session, otherwise, the buses are empty, especially Green and Orange.

 

[roch5220]

decreasing petrol prices, and increased YRT fares will do wonders for a car dominated suburb.

 

[wyliepoon]

Parts of Purple and Green are virtually useless in attracting passengers. For example, both routes currently use Enterprise Drive to get to Unionville GO. Enterprise Drive is a four lane boulevard that runs through an open field which will eventually become Downtown Markham. Other than serving the Motorola office park on Warden, that stretch of Viva does not serve anybody.

 

[doady]

Annnual boardings of the routes:

1 Highway 7: 824,732
77 Highway 7-Centre St: 688,718
99 Yonge South: 1,070,178
Viva Blue: 3,997,155
Viva Purple: 1,383,052
Viva Green: 285,888
Viva Orange: 471,711
Viva Pink: 340,930

And before VIVA so you can compare:

1 Highway 7: 1,120,729
77 Highway 7-Centre St: 541,954
99 Yonge 'C': 2,355,341
GO Newmarket 'B': ~800,000?

1 million boardings a year is around 4000 boardings per weekday

 

[toforumer]

If they are raising the bus fare, the YRT service god damn be better. The current scheduling of the busese is horrible. Waiting for a bus for 20-30 minutes is ridiculous.

 

[p5archit]

re:YRT to TTC

What we need is a regional transit authority, which would make it possible to travel from across the GTA to the city for one single price- the mulitple payment system which is now in place, makes for a very inefficient and unattractive ride for most users- thus leading to more people turning to their cars.

p5

 

[doady]

Re: re:YRT to TTC

^ The unattractiveness of transit has nothing to do with multiple fare structure. You only need one fare to travel from Hamilton to Markham, anywhere in the 905 as long as you avoid theGO and the TTC, but still no one is going to do it.

 

[wyliepoon]

I rode Viva Pink during today's afternoon rush hour, my first time since my trial trip when Viva first went into service. What I was amazed at was that almost everybody who rode it looked like a first-time rider. At Finch Station, 9 out of 10 people (not exactly ten people were on my bus, but it was around that number) who got on board the bus asked the driver for directions. Fortunately the driver was very courteous (like your average Vivadriver, in contrast to the stereotypical mean TTC bus driver) and patiently answered their questions.

 

[Chocho]

Yeah, TTC drivers are asses most of the time. For example yeaterday, I ask him a question but before giving me and answer, he looked at me like WTF?

The YRT is already overpriced!! I ride it almost every single day, so I got a 60$ 1 Zone monthly pass. If they increase the price they should put more buses in service or increase the time the ticket is valid for, to 3 maybe 4 hours.