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GTHA Transit Fare Integration

TheTigerMaster said:
Don't expect any funding for fare integration from Metrolinx. Considering the annual funding that Metrolinx receives, I see no way for them to independently raise the money needed to fund fare integration. They'll need to go to Queen's Park for the money.
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Well, first Queen's Park effectively is Metrolinx, which is part of the problem.

There are all sorts of ways for them to independently raise money, both for fare integration and for capital expansion and indeed for just about anything else they need to do. As BMO points out, highway tolls are one way and the TWO reports Metrolinx did on revenue tools list another good half dozen.

The only issue is political will. I'm disappointed Wynne hasn't done any of it so far but there is nothing, practically speaking that prevents her from announcing tomorrow that the province will revise the Metrolinx Act to reconstitute the board, distance their planning from the political process and allow them to introduce revenue tools to foster the implementation of The Big Move.

Back to the matter at hand, it's a question of POV. For many, the starting point seems to be, "TTC can't afford this, QP won't give them money so it's a non-starter." If you look at the GTA and the whole reason Metrolinx exists in the first place (not to mention the many, many metros that figured this out years ago), you see it's inevitable and necessary. Obviously there are issues, particularly in regards to equity, both for TTC and for riders. But thinking the current system can persist, this outdated and obsolete flat fare for the abstract space that happens to be the City of Toronto and a patchwork everywhere else , is as naive as thinking the TTC could have gone on handing out tokens and paper tickets, because that's what they always did.
 
Not sure why you guys need to wax all poetic about how GTHA fare integration is inevitable and that we will never have a kumbaya planning process if we don't integrate, and destroy the artifical abstract spaces that imprison us. I'm pretty sure we all understand that, so spare us the lecture. We get it. But grandstanding with press releases and speeches on cooperation and integration is useless if the conversation about funding is not brought up. Money talks. If you want fare integration, there needs to be more funding for the TTC and not just what the City can raise itself.
 
Toronto already taxes similar to 905. Lower residential rates but high commercial rates.

The issue is not revenue, it's Toronto's unwillingness to integrate in the first place.

If money was really the issue, then why would the city ban the 905 from providing transit service in its borders? For real. Incoming buses from the 905 are prohibited from picking up passengers within Toronto borders and outgoing buses are prohibited from dropping off passengers. Toronto considers 905 transit to be a threat and won't allow them to provide transit service to Torontonians. How does this fit into the Toronto-needs-money narrative?

There is a lot of redundancy between TTC and 905 systems. If Toronto really wants efficiency, it needs to stop this redundancy. It needs to integrate.

Even with this redundancy, there are still places in Toronto not served by the TTC at all, such as those hotels and factories on the south side of Eglinton along the Mississauga border. So if you live at Eglinton and Martin Grove and want to travel to your workplace on Rakely Ct. you have to pay both Toronto and Mississauga fare, even though you are travelling entirely within the city of Toronto. Is that more money for Toronto?

Who needs the money the most anyways? I think it's the poorest areas of the city - Rexdale, Jane-Finch, Malvern - they are beside the border. They are ones being hurt the most by these hostile policies. But the same time the city won't get rid of the Gardiner? The city is putting all the burden on transit riders in the poorest areas and supporting cars and the people who can afford them. Doesn't seem like transit or its users are the main concern here.

Of course, the province needs to fund transit more, but that goes for all Ontario, including 905. Ever since Mike Harris, transit in Ontario has been starving for funding. Don't make this to be a Toronto-only problem. To make lack of funding to be a Toronto-only problem doesn't help Toronto's cause in any way.

Tolls ARE a great idea (that's money from both 416 and 905), but the money should go to capital costs of transit projects, to eventually replace the Gardiner. Implementing tolls to fund fare integration would be very weird.

Fare integration has a cost (for both 416 and 905) but it could also save money (for both 416 and 905) and allow the TTC and 905 systems to help each other out. Maybe it would also help Toronto to convince the 905 to help pay for the upkeep of Steeles and Eglinton Aves. Y'know, cooperation. That is efficiency. Toronto trying to be alone and providing full 10 minute bus service along Burnhamthorpe is not efficiency. I think integration would benefit everyone.
 
Well said, Doady.
Perhaps you have to live by the municipal border to appreciate how nutty some of these arrangements are and how poorly they serve commuters but the bus issue you cite is a perfect example and at least as damaging to riders as the double fare.
It's legitimately insane that a Toronto transit rider has to watch empty YRT buses cruise past so they can pay for the privilege of cramming onto a crowded TTC bus to go a couple of clicks to the subway station etc. In a nutshell, that conveys how little our transit system, as it currently exists, caters to riders vs. catering to the interests of the the transit masters themselves.

It creates an economic distortion and a disincentive to take transit in the first place.

I 100% understand people who want to make sure TTC doesn't get the short end of the stick here but I think you also need to understand the extent to which we've outgrown a system of fares and borders that doesn't reflect how people want and/or need to move from A to B. Fare integration is a big step towards remedying that and, as Doady points out, it simultaneously allows for overall streamlining and elimination of redundant services.

TTC has some legitimate gripes but TTC also has some very intransigent, parochial attitudes that prevent them from seeing the big picture. I expect the province to treat them fairly, but I'm past the point where I expect TTC to offer progressive ideas about how it can help people who live outside the 416 - but who travel within it every day - get where they're going efficiently (both economically and in terms of time).
 
Look at the new Steeles West Station being built, because of the how disjointed transit is with the lack of integration between the systems you have the TTC building two bus stations effectively. One for York Region on the north side of Steeles and one for the TTC on the south side of Steeles. In most other sensible cities who have integrated systems and policies, you have different buses picking up passengers at the same station.
 
Adjei said:
Look at the new Steeles West Station being built, because of the how disjointed transit is with the lack of integration between the systems you have the TTC building two bus stations effectively. One for York Region on the north side of Steeles and one for the TTC on the south side of Steeles. In most other sensible cities who have integrated systems and policies, you have different buses picking up passengers at the same station.
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At the Islington Station, the Mississauga buses discharge passengers on the sidewalk on Islington Avenue. Passengers then use the street subway entrance to get to the turnstiles downstairs. The Mississauga buses then enter the bus terminal empty. They enter a bus bay, where passengers enter the buses and pay-as-they-enter.
 
W. K. Lis said:
At the Islington Station, the Mississauga buses discharge passengers on the sidewalk on Islington Avenue. Passengers then use the street subway entrance to get to the turnstiles downstairs. The Mississauga buses then enter the bus terminal empty. They enter a bus bay, where passengers enter the buses and pay-as-they-enter.
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You say this like it's a bad thing.

Discharging there, you get off the bus sooner, and have a shorter walk to the subway platform than you do if you are on the TTC 37 Islington Bus, that first has to pull into the bus platform, then has the longer walk to the subway platform.
 
I wonder if we are making this problem more complex by not challenging our mental model whereby the 'franchise' of transit agencies is assumed to adhere to municipal boundaries.

The Mississauga Transit/Subway thing is a good example. Perhaps MT's 'franchise' should span Etobicoke. There would no longer be a need for a TTC Bloor West bus - MT routes would do it all on their way to the subway. A single bus fare applies, but a second fare is paid to transfer to the subway. Maybe the first fare in either direction is say $2 and the transfer to the second system is $1.50.
Eglinton West is another good example - instead of Smarttrack, or LRT, or TTC on Eglinton to connect to the Renforth Hub - just have the MT busses come all the way to Mount Dennis. Extend the Busway as a seamless corridor to Mount Dennis, instead of thinking how to push TTC lines west to Mississauga. (I'm ignoring the various ridership projections for the sake of argument - although the projected ridership west of Kiping does favour busways)
If you pass the franchise for the suburban part of the TTC system to the various 905 operators, they have the ability to balance cost and revenue accross a different ridershhip - and a unified single fare might be easier to administer and the overall political appeal might be there.
The TTC system could consist of street rail, subway, and a limited number of bus routes in the center of the city. The economics of this pared down system might justify a different fare altogether.
Too radical, I'm sure, and big labour and governance issues....but are we indulging transit properties too much in a 'turf' mentality to our detriment? Maybe if we shake up the 'turf' allocation, the fare issue becomes simpler.

- Paul
 
It certainly seems obvious that if (in a huge hypothetical) you encountered the GTA as it now stands and were building a transit system from scratch, you probably wouldn't draw a single "franchise" line where it now exists. You wouldn't have different systems in Etobicoke and Mississauga any more than you'd have different systems on either side of Steeles.

The reality, of course, is that we are dealing with different systems and they have differing economics, histories and other issues to confront.

Realizing that the lines that exist are obsolete is sort of a pre-requisite to addressing the actual challenge of overcoming all those issues. The TTC's issues and concerns are real, but so too is the fact that its role has changed. If all you can see are those lines and vested interests, you're not going to be able to address the real A-to-B or equity or other issues created by a fragmented system that's been pieced together over generations but which we want to now operate as a single network.

The idea you outline might be "too radical" but it's a good mental exercise to start with when thinking about what the fair way to do all this is.
 
From the frontpage story: http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2015/10/fare-integration-metrolinx-rules-out-flat-fare-across-gtha

The Presto card, now in use on transit systems across the GHTA and which is targeted to be fully installed by the end of 2016 across the TTC—replacing tokens and tickets—is an important first step as a technical means for collecting fares regionally and flexibly, but Metrolinx has to negotiate how fares will be set and revenue split between itself and the region’s transit agencies, a process that it expects may take a decade.
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Hope it doesn't take a decade....
 
Why is everything so slow in this place? A decade! Everything moves at a glacial pace.
 
Adjei said:
Why is everything so slow in this place? A decade! Everything moves at a glacial pace.
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Well, we never had a regional transit agency before and now that we do, they don't have the power they need to just DO stuff. And in the meantime we've created a patchwork of underfunded transit fiefdoms, lead by a huge (and hugely underfunded) agency that's so busy patching holes in the dyke that seeing the forest for the trees is the absolute last thing on its agenda.

If you're a transit rider who uses more than one system, this is important to you. If you're embedded within the system, you could care less, because that's become the prevailing culture and there's little appetite to cede power or otherwise implement "regionalism" because it will allegedly help someone else, even your customers.

So, yeah, that's more or less why.
 
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