GTHA Transit Fare Integration

[MisterF]

The Government of Ontario would be funding fare integration, so I don't see the issue here (MX is not the government; they do not fund anything).

I don't see how uploading helps at all. If you upload the TTC, you still have to pay to operate all the busses, subways and streetcars. You'll still have to pay for maintenance. None of the costs associated with operating the TTC would vanish; they'd just be obfuscated. Under this scheme, fare integration would still have to be absorbed by the budget somehow (even if it's no longer labeled "fare integration").

Well at this point we agree that fare integration costs money. This is just a debate about who should pay, which really isn't all that interesting.

Given that damn near all RER customers will benefit from TTC-GO fare integration, while only a very small fraction of TTC customers will see similar benefits, I'd say its only fair for Queen's Park to pick up the bill. Further, QP has way more fiscal capacity to absorb the costs than the City of Toronto. Fare integration would have a far greater negative impact on TTC/Toronto's budget than QP's.

Responding to this from another thread: while I don't care which level of government pays for fare integration (the petty turf wars between transit agencies in the GTA is a big part of the problem), the part in bold just isn't true. Someone going from Leslieville to Liberty Village benefits from fare integration. Same with Agincourt to downtown or Weston to the Junction. There are countless examples of trips like this where people now taking slow, overcrowded TTC vehicles will benefit from RER and fare integration giving them much faster trip options for the same price. We've barely begun to scratch the surface of the way that current TTC customers will benefit from fare integration.

 

[afransen]

Responding to this from another thread: while I don't care which level of government pays for fare integration (the petty turf wars between transit agencies in the GTA is a big part of the problem), the part in bold just isn't true. Someone going from Leslieville to Liberty Village benefits from fare integration. Same with Agincourt to downtown or Weston to the Junction. There are countless examples of trips like this where people now taking slow, overcrowded TTC vehicles will benefit from RER and fare integration giving them much faster trip options for the same price. We've barely begun to scratch the surface of the way that current TTC customers will benefit from fare integration.

Just wait until Toronto starts to get a bunch of infill GO stations. Seems like funneling people onto Lakeshore E/W rather than Line 2 should help a lot with Y-D station crowding as well.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Anyhoo, there is a thread for fare integration:

GTHA Transit Fare Integration

As we all know, the current fare system in the GTHA has changed little in the last few decades. The TTC does not accept transfers from the 905 systems, requiring you to pay a second fare to cross the city limits. Also, while most 905 systems offer a discounted fare for passengers traveling to a...

urbantoronto.ca

MoD

That's because the 905 transit system have a HIGHER subsidy than the TTC does. If the TTC was subsidized like the 905 from the city AND province, not only will fare integration be possible, but fares could be lower (especially the monthly pass).

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Responding to this from another thread: while I don't care which level of government pays for fare integration (the petty turf wars between transit agencies in the GTA is a big part of the problem), the part in bold just isn't true. Someone going from Leslieville to Liberty Village benefits from fare integration. Same with Agincourt to downtown or Weston to the Junction. There are countless examples of trips like this where people now taking slow, overcrowded TTC vehicles will benefit from RER and fare integration giving them much faster trip options for the same price. We've barely begun to scratch the surface of the way that current TTC customers will benefit from fare integration.

I did not say that TTC customers would not see any benefit from fare integration. I said that proportionately speaking, RER users are going to see more benefits from GO-TTC fare integration than the average TTC customer.

This is really just a function of how these networks are designed. The overwhelming majority of GO rail trips are start or end in the City of Toronto. Once they're in Toronto, these RER customers are going to use Toronto's local transit services to get to their destinations. These RER customers will benefit immensely from fare integration.

The same cannot be said about TTC customers. Only a small minority of TTC trips can be served by RER. So proportionately speaking, RER customers originating outside of the City of Toronto are going to yield far more benefits from TTC-GO fare integration than TTC customers originating from within the City of Toronto.

 

[ARG1]

I did not say that TTC customers would not benefit from fare integration. I said that proportionately speaking, RER users are going to see more benefits from GO-TTC fare integration than the average TTC customer.

This is really just a function of how these networks are designed. The overwhelming majority of GO rail trips are start or end in the City of Toronto. Once they're in Toronto, these RER customers are going to use Toronto's local transit services to get to their destinations.

The same cannot be said about TTC customers. Only a small minority of TTC trips can be served by RER. So proportionately speaking, RER customers originating outside of the City of Toronto are going to yield far more benefits from TTC-GO fare integration than TTC customers originating from within the City of Toronto.

You're clearly looking at this from the traditional perspective of what GO is, a commuter rail line where people travelling from the suburbs can use the train to reach the CBD and get to work. The problem is this isn't what GO RER is or is supposed to be. Imagine if LSW was renamed to "Line 7", Kitchener to "Line 8", Barrie to "Line 9", etc. That's what GO RER is. Imagine for a second that we used the same argument to remove the fare integration between the subway and TTC busses, claiming that the subway is meant for suburbanites travelling to the CBD to get to work, which to some extent is true, there is a massive amount of people from York Region that commute every day to Finch Station to take the subway down to Union. However, we both know that even though a large chunk of the Subway's ridership comes from these commutes, it comes nowhere close to the amount of Torontonians that use the Subway for their needs. The same applies to GO RER. Imagine, if you will, commuting from Parkdale to downtown. Instead of riding Line 2 all the way down to St. George, and transferring to Line 1, they can transfer to Bloor-Dundas West, and take GO down to Union on the same fare they paid for the subway. The amount of Torontonians this would single-handedly benefit is absolutely massive. Imagine if Line 6 was extended south from Humber College to the new Woodbine GO station, and GO had full fare integration with the TTC. Status Quo dictates that the people that live in North Western Toronto, areas around Albion Mall, have to travel down Line 6 to Finch West, which is estimated to take 25-30 mins, then spend an additional 34 minutes travelling on Line 1, or around a 1h commute. Instead they can spend around 10 minutes taking Line 6 to Woodbine, then transfer to the GO train and reach downtown in 19 minutes (this is according to the IBC which claims that with GO RER, travel times from Etobicoke North to Union will be 16 minutes, so I added 3 mins for how long it would take to travel 2km, based off the additional 3 mins the IBC claims it will take to reach to Union from Maple compared Rutherford, 2 stations that are also 2km apart). This is one isolated example, but its so important to state how beneficial GO RER would be to many communities within Toronto that are currently transit deserts, New Toronto, Scarborough (basically all of eastern and northern Scarborough for that fact), Rexdale, Weston, the list goes on. To say that RER will serve those outside of Toronto more than those in Toronto, while accurate to some extent, really misses the point of what RER is and what its supposed to be.

P.S. Keep in mind the argument is mostly to follow TRBOT's Fare Zone proposal, not to make the entire GO train network a single fare with the TTC. That would be ludicrous, nobody is arguing for that.

 

[yin_yang]

I took VIVA yesterday and then the TTC and it didn't charge me for the TTC trip. Impressive integration!

 

[Voltz]

I took VIVA yesterday and then the TTC and it didn't charge me for the TTC trip. Impressive integration!

Where did you take the TTC?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

You're clearly looking at this from the traditional perspective of what GO is, a commuter rail line where people travelling from the suburbs can use the train to reach the CBD and get to work. The problem is this isn't what GO RER is or is supposed to be. Imagine if LSW was renamed to "Line 7", Kitchener to "Line 8", Barrie to "Line 9", etc. That's what GO RER is. Imagine for a second that we used the same argument to remove the fare integration between the subway and TTC busses, claiming that the subway is meant for suburbanites travelling to the CBD to get to work, which to some extent is true, there is a massive amount of people from York Region that commute every day to Finch Station to take the subway down to Union. However, we both know that even though a large chunk of the Subway's ridership comes from these commutes, it comes nowhere close to the amount of Torontonians that use the Subway for their needs. The same applies to GO RER. Imagine, if you will, commuting from Parkdale to downtown. Instead of riding Line 2 all the way down to St. George, and transferring to Line 1, they can transfer to Bloor-Dundas West, and take GO down to Union on the same fare they paid for the subway. The amount of Torontonians this would single-handedly benefit is absolutely massive. Imagine if Line 6 was extended south from Humber College to the new Woodbine GO station, and GO had full fare integration with the TTC. Status Quo dictates that the people that live in North Western Toronto, areas around Albion Mall, have to travel down Line 6 to Finch West, which is estimated to take 25-30 mins, then spend an additional 34 minutes travelling on Line 1, or around a 1h commute. Instead they can spend around 10 minutes taking Line 6 to Woodbine, then transfer to the GO train and reach downtown in 19 minutes (this is according to the IBC which claims that with GO RER, travel times from Etobicoke North to Union will be 16 minutes, so I added 3 mins for how long it would take to travel 2km, based off the additional 3 mins the IBC claims it will take to reach to Union from Maple compared Rutherford, 2 stations that are also 2km apart). This is one isolated example, but its so important to state how beneficial GO RER would be to many communities within Toronto that are currently transit deserts, New Toronto, Scarborough (basically all of eastern and northern Scarborough for that fact), Rexdale, Weston, the list goes on. To say that RER will serve those outside of Toronto more than those in Toronto, while accurate to some extent, really misses the point of what RER is and what its supposed to be.

P.S. Keep in mind the argument is mostly to follow TRBOT's Fare Zone proposal, not to make the entire GO train network a single fare with the TTC. That would be ludicrous, nobody is arguing for that.

My bad. I wasn't aware that we were specifically talking about TRBOT's Fare Zone proposal. I was thinking we were discussing a program more similar to the GO-TTC co-fare program that was canceled in 2020.

The TRBOT proposal:

This is the an excellent proposal.

My concerns with this would primarily be around whether the RER network would be able to handle the increased demand from Toronto residents. I recall back when SmartTrack was first evaluated, the planners were very concerned that Union would not be able to handle the projected demand. This TRBOT scheme appears very similar to SmartTrack on the surface (I haven't read TRBOT's proposal in detail). I know there were some suggestions that the Union Station Rail Corridor would need to be upgraded with underground tunnels to accommodate the demand.

I'd also suggest that MX should implement through-running at Union Station, rather than terminating all stations there (I know this was proposed in the TRBOT report). Having to transfer trains at Union Station greatly diminishes the utility of RER services to Toronto residents, in addition to increasing pedestrian demand at Union Station. Under the current RER plans, having to transfer at Union makes RER significantly less useful for travel between Etobicoke and Scarborough, for example.

 

[ARG1]

My bad. I wasn't aware that we were specifically talking about TRBOT's Fare Zone proposal. I was thinking we were discussing a program more similar to the GO-TTC co-fare program that was canceled in 2020.

The TRBOT proposal:

View attachment 312001

This is the an excellent proposal.

My concerns with this would primarily be around whether the RER network would be able to handle the increased demand from Toronto residents. I recall back when SmartTrack was first evaluated, the planners were very concerned that Union would not be able to handle the projected demand. This TRBOT scheme appears very similar to SmartTrack on the surface (I haven't read TRBOT's proposal in detail). I know there were some suggestions that the Union Station Rail Corridor would need to be upgraded with underground tunnels to accommodate the demand.

I'd also suggest that MX should implement through-running at Union Station, rather than terminating all stations there (I know this was proposed in the TRBOT report). Having to transfer trains at Union Station greatly diminishes the utility of RER services to Toronto residents, in addition to increasing pedestrian demand at Union Station. Under the current RER plans, having to transfer at Union makes RER significantly less useful for travel between Etobicoke and Scarborough, for example.

Well its not we were discussing explicitly, but I think I can safely say that its what people are thinking of when they're talking about "fare integration", being able to ride the GO train within Toronto for no additional cost with your TTC fare.

As for your concerns on the RER network, these are correct, and some of these concerns are exactly why the Ontario Line extends to Exhibition Station, and why East Harbour is now a much easier transfer on the Ontario Line then before. The whole point of stations like Exhibition, East Harbour, and Front-Spadina is to offer passengers a way to get to the CBD and to their workplace without accessing Union Station which as you rightly pointed would quickly become overcrowded. Whether or not these stations will do a good job at this however is a different question (I'm looking at you Front-Spadina).

As a side note, I believe someone here (I forget who) emailed Metrolinx a few months ago asking them about interlining RER services, and I believe the Metrolinx spokesperson said that interlining is something that is under active consideration so I wouldn't be surprised if we had Stouffville and Kitchener full interlined.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

As for your concerns on the RER network, these are correct, and some of these concerns are exactly why the Ontario Line extends to Exhibition Station, and why East Harbour is now a much easier transfer on the Ontario Line then before. The whole point of stations like Exhibition, East Harbour, and Front-Spadina is to offer passengers a way to get to the CBD and to their workplace without accessing Union Station which as you rightly pointed would quickly become overcrowded. Whether or not these stations will do a good job at this however is a different question (I'm looking at you Front-Spadina).

OL being used as an RER relief valve makes so much more sense with the implementation of TRBOT's Fare Zone. Dare I say, it would be the most sensible "relief line" scheme to date (although I remain very concerned with the OL's ridership capacity). However in the absence of the Fare Zone, I'm very skeptical of the effectiveness using the OL to relieve RER. If MX is going to do this, they need to go ahead and just do it. We can't be making billion dollar infrastructure decisions on fare policies that may or may not materialize in the future. The fare policy completely changes the travel dynamics on RER and OL; it cannot be overlooked.

 

[ssiguy2]

It doesn't seven years to negotiate this. We could have fare integration tomorrow if QP opened their wallets. In lieu of that, fare integration means either higher fares or lower service quality (or both) for TTC customers. There is no free lunch.

Wrong answer or at least partially.

Yes it will require QP opening their wallets but also {God Forbid} Torontonians opening theirs. Toronto cannot expect QP to foot the whole bill and yet not do the same for areas outside of the GGH and especially Ottawa and London where regional buses are beginning to be introduced.

You are quite correct that there is 'no free lunch' and the people of Toronto have to realise that they don't get a free lunch courtesy of everyone else in the province having to pay for theirs. If Toronto want QP to foot the bill for fare integration, QP should refuse unless it can provide a similar service for all the province's metropolitan areas.

 

[ARG1]

OL being used as an RER relief valve makes so much more sense with the implementation of TRBOT's Fare Zone. Dare I say, it would be the most sensible "relief line" scheme to date (although I remain very concerned with the OL's ridership capacity). However in the absence of the Fare Zone, I'm very skeptical of the effectiveness using the OL to relieve RER. If MX is going to do this, they need to go ahead and just do it. We can't be making billion dollar infrastructure decisions on fare policies that may or may not materialize in the future. The fare policy completely changes the travel dynamics on RER and OL; it cannot be overlooked.

Absolutely, and Metrolinx knows this. The previous plan for East Harbour calling for a cross platform interchange (which without fare integration would basically be impossible to support) proves as much (granted it looks like Metrolinx may have changed their plans for East Harbour, but that could be for any number of reasons, not necesserily evidence that they're giving up on fare integration). The reason why I brought up GO RER in the first place was because GO RER is another project that without some form of fare integration will drastically underperform in terms of both ridership and as a public good. Why would Metrolinx invest billions of dollars in what is the most expensive transit infrastructure project in the country if it would underperform without fare integration. The answer is simple, Metrolinx knows that fare integration is a must, and they are actively trying to get fare integration up and running, however it needs to be done in a smart way. Fare integration isn't urgent. Ontario Line being generous will open in 9 years, and while Metrolinx still sticks to the 2025 opening date for RER, realistically it won't open until like 27 or 28. Either way, Metrolinx has a TON of time to figure out fare integration, and the cancellation of the co fare discount that occurred during COVID, a time where the government would obviously be cutting programs that weren't well used to save money really shouldn't be used as an indication for anything to come.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Absolutely, and Metrolinx knows this. The previous plan for East Harbour calling for a cross platform interchange (which without fare integration would basically be impossible to support) proves as much (granted it looks like Metrolinx may have changed their plans for East Harbour, but that could be for any number of reasons, not necesserily evidence that they're giving up on fare integration). The reason why I brought up GO RER in the first place was because GO RER is another project that without some form of fare integration will drastically underperform in terms of both ridership and as a public good. Why would Metrolinx invest billions of dollars in what is the most expensive transit infrastructure project in the country if it would underperform without fare integration. The answer is simple, Metrolinx knows that fare integration is a must, and they are actively trying to get fare integration up and running, however it needs to be done in a smart way. Fare integration isn't urgent. Ontario Line being generous will open in 9 years, and while Metrolinx still sticks to the 2025 opening date for RER, realistically it won't open until like 27 or 28. Either way, Metrolinx has a TON of time to figure out fare integration, and the cancellation of the co fare discount that occurred during COVID, a time where the government would obviously be cutting programs that weren't well used to save money really shouldn't be used as an indication for anything to come.

That may very well be true. If that is MX's plan, I wish they would come out and say so. It's impossible for the public to evaluate the effectiveness of these schemes if we have no idea what the fare structure will look like.

 

[ARG1]

That may very well be true. If that is MX's plan, I wish they would come out and say so. It's impossible for the public to evaluate the effectiveness of these schemes if we have no idea what the fare structure will look like.

Fare enough.

(Edit: pun was a typo but its funny so I'm keeping it)

 

[rbt]

..., and the cancellation of the co fare discount that occurred during COVID, a time where the government would obviously be cutting programs that weren't well used to save money really shouldn't be used as an indication for anything to come.

I agree with what you said with one minor nit; the co-fare discount was terminated because it was used much more than anticipated (burned through the budgeted funds topping-up TTC fares much faster than expected).