GTHA Transit Fare Integration

[mdrejhon]

GO Transit fare within Toronto starts at roughly $5.30, going up to about $11.00. To get that down to a roughly $3.00 TTC fare would require anywhere from a $2.30 subsidy, to an $8 subsidy. Multiply this by tens or hundreds of millions of trips, and this get very expensive, very quickly.

I'd expect GO RER to be cheaper to operate on a per passenger basis, but considering that RER will be moving 2x (or more) passengers than the current network, we'd still be looking at a massive annual government expenditure to pay for this.

Alternately, the old TTC fares (for buses and rapid transit) could be increased, but I doubt that would be a popular move. The increase would be substantial.

Inflation.

Electrification opening is not until 2025 or beyond.

Simply keep GO fares stagnant while letting inflation raise TTC fares.

 

[44 North]

Let's say we had 100% fare-by-distance regardless of mode, starting tomorrow. What's a realistic base fare, like how much to ride the bus one block? How much to go from Scarb Ctr to Union (17km) or VMC to City Hall (19km), or trips over 20km (like end to end on Crosstown)? Is there a general consensus here? Seems like prices would get pretty high to the point that we'd drive riders away in droves.

 

[ssiguy2]

What I think they should do {and is probably the most politically palatable} is to maintain the current fare for anyone, anywhere in the city to get to Union or Y&B for the same price they do now. For that to happen that means roughly 25km for $3.25. How that is broken down further would be a fare for the first 12.5 km of {for example} $2.50, 12.5 to 25km for $3.25, 25 to 37.5km would be $4.00 etc. You could get from Malvern to Union for today's fare but going from Malvern to STC would cost less while going from Malvern to Etobicoke South or Humber College would cost more.

They could of course tweek how many km you get and how much you pay but a good and sellable option is to make sure that all Torontonians can get to the downtown of their city at the same price they do today

 

[W. K. Lis]

Fare evasion could be costing TTC almost $50 million per year, internal report suggests

An internal TTC document obtained by the Star suggests the fare evasion rate on the TTC could be twice as high as previously reported. But the transit agency says the document was a draft and that it had concerns about the “veracity” of the higher numbers.

See link.

 

[amnesiajune]

GO Transit fare within Toronto starts at roughly $5.30, going up to about $11.00. To get that down to a roughly $3.00 TTC fare would require anywhere from a $2.30 subsidy, to an $8 subsidy. Multiply this by tens or hundreds of millions of trips, and this get very expensive, very quickly.

That's assuming that no new passengers show up with a lower fare. Even on a longer trip - say, Milliken to Union - the difference in subsidy between 200 passengers @ $7.33 (the current fare) and 400 passengers @ $3.00 is just 66 cents per passenger. If no new passengers start their trip at Milliken but 500 passengers transfer on from the 53 bus (each paying $1.50 in extra fares), the difference is just 16 cents per passenger. There's nothing "very expensive" about that.

Everyone on this forum loves talking about induced demand when we discuss roads. It applies to transit too! Make a faster option expensive and people won't take it. Make it the same price as the slower option and they will.

 

[MisterF]

Let's say we had 100% fare-by-distance regardless of mode, starting tomorrow. What's a realistic base fare, like how much to ride the bus one block? How much to go from Scarb Ctr to Union (17km) or VMC to City Hall (19km), or trips over 20km (like end to end on Crosstown)? Is there a general consensus here? Seems like prices would get pretty high to the point that we'd drive riders away in droves.

The TTC is already driving away passengers in droves by charging expensive fares for people travelling short distances in the most transit friendly part of the city. Those riders are currently subsidizing longer distance riders. A fare by distance model would attract people making short downtown area trips in droves. For long trips, a lot of people would switch to GO, especially with RER in place. So the TTC would be able to concentrate on shorter trips, which is what local transit is best at.

Despite its name, not very many people are going to take the Crosstown across the whole city. Especially if much of it has streetcar style operation.

 

[amnesiajune]

The TTC is already driving away passengers in droves by charging expensive fares for people travelling short distances in the most transit friendly part of the city. Those riders are currently subsidizing longer distance riders.

They're not, actually. Pretty much the entire TTC network operates at a loss, including the subway system when you account for maintenance costs. The only profitable parts of the system are the Spadina streetcar and a few short bus routes.

 

[Neutrino]

The TTC is already driving away passengers in droves by charging expensive fares for people travelling short distances in the most transit friendly part of the city. Those riders are currently subsidizing longer distance riders. A fare by distance model would attract people making short downtown area trips in droves. For long trips, a lot of people would switch to GO, especially with RER in place. So the TTC would be able to concentrate on shorter trips, which is what local transit is best at.

Despite its name, not very many people are going to take the Crosstown across the whole city. Especially if much of it has streetcar style operation.

GO RER will replace only a limited number of TTC routes because it goes pretty much only to Union - it cannot meet the many to many challenge as well as TTC's surface network.

 

[MisterF]

They're not, actually. Pretty much the entire TTC network operates at a loss, including the subway system when you account for maintenance costs. The only profitable parts of the system are the Spadina streetcar and a few short bus routes.

What I meant by that is that people taking short trips get less subsidy than people taking long trips. The system gets more revenue by having higher turnover in a given distance.

GO RER will replace only a limited number of TTC routes because it goes pretty much only to Union - it cannot meet the many to many challenge as well as TTC's surface network.

I didn't say that RER will replace TTC routes, I said that a lot of riders would switch to GO. Big difference. TTC routes would obviously still exist but people wouldn't use them as much for long trips.

 

[Neutrino]

I didn't say that RER will replace TTC routes, I said that a lot of riders would switch to GO. Big difference. TTC routes would obviously still exist but people wouldn't use them as much for long trips.

Sure, but there are also many long trips that go nowhere near Union, that's what I meant.

 

[amnesiajune]

What I meant by that is that people taking short trips get less subsidy than people taking long trips.

Who cares? There are a lot of cases where one group of people get a smaller subsidy than another group. That's not a bad thing - it's actually a good thing most of the time.

One of the big problems with FBD is that it punishes people who don't have the means to live close to work. That's why it's important to have a flat fare for the entire city - nobody really gets pushed out to the 905 because of affordability, but a lot of people get pushed into parts of the city where they end up having a long transit commute.

 

[MisterF]

Sure, but there are also many long trips that go nowhere near Union, that's what I meant.

Of course. That doesn't contradict my point though.

Who cares? There are a lot of cases where one group of people get a smaller subsidy than another group. That's not a bad thing - it's actually a good thing most of the time.

One of the big problems with FBD is that it punishes people who don't have the means to live close to work. That's why it's important to have a flat fare for the entire city - nobody really gets pushed out to the 905 because of affordability, but a lot of people get pushed into parts of the city where they end up having a long transit commute.

Well, the people who are paying inflated fares for short rides might care, to start. Cities that use distance or zone based fare systems obviously care. It's not as if these cities don't have the same challenges you mention but they've managed to figure it out. Transit riders who have to suffer through overcrowded subway trains might care - the flat fare is a contributing factor in the subway being constantly pushed farther into the suburbs with no downtown expansion in half a century. Penalizing some people and rewarding others with fares subsidies is a good thing? Well I suppose that's a matter of opinion.

I don't know if distance based fares are the ideal solution, or zones or some other system. But flat fares within the 416 seems kind of arbitrary. Whatever fare system is chosen should be region-wide. The city doesn't end at the municipal boundary.

 

[amnesiajune]

Well, the people who are paying inflated fares for short rides might care, to start. Cities that use distance or zone based fare systems obviously care. It's not as if these cities don't have the same challenges you mention but they've managed to figure it out.

Cities that use zone-based fares usually have much bigger or more sprawling transit systems. You can travel an area just as big as the City of Toronto on the base fare, and you pay more when you take transit out into the suburbs.

Transit riders who have to suffer through overcrowded subway trains might care - the flat fare is a contributing factor in the subway being constantly pushed farther into the suburbs with no downtown expansion in half a century.

It's not. If anything, FBD would actually help the business case for expanding transit out into the suburbs since it gets more farebox revenue, and hurt the business case for projects within downtown that would require relatively larger subsidies to operate.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

GO RER will replace only a limited number of TTC routes because it goes pretty much only to Union - it cannot meet the many to many challenge as well as TTC's surface network.

Go RER is short sited it only assumes that people want to go to downtown. Where as the TTC serves all of the city of Toronto. Go RER will never be an alternative to the TTC it's a pipe dream of politicians.

 

[amnesiajune]

Go RER is short sited it only assumes that people want to go to downtown. Where as the TTC serves all of the city of Toronto. Go RER will never be an alternative to the TTC it's a pipe dream of politicians.

This makes no sense. Go RER exists because the current system only works for people who go downtown in the morning and back home in the afternoon. Two-way service recognizes that there are a lot of other places where people work outside of downtown, and a lot of people who work outside of the "traditional" 9-5 schedule, that currently have very poor transit options.