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New Transit Funding Sources
- Thread starter denfromoakvillemilton
- Start date
kEiThZ
Superstar
FFS. Transit is the one thing that the public will support higher taxes for. It's the never ending police raises that are truly annoying.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
And the province, with council support/request made TTC an essential service and by default made it all the more difficult to get better deals from the ATU. So really...
AoD
cplchanb
Senior Member
They should start raising fares then. Considering how much service TTC provides versus the cost to ride, TTCs by far under charges significantly. a 25C increase would generate millions. While theyre at that they should seriously start looking into charging fare by distance for subways or delinking surface from subway by requiring a small transfer fee.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Let me rephrase it - considering how much service TTC provides and recovers by fare, TTC by far receives significantly less operating subsidy.
AoD
cplchanb
Senior Member
well they can continue to dream that they will someday get a subsidy or they can do something about it...by operating as if they are heavily subsidised will only hurt them more when the money runs out like now.
Face it the province will not increase subsidy. you might as well just give the sticker shock now and let it ripple out. Besides, those who rely on transit will for sure complain, but in the end they will still take it because they must.
Then again the hike is for single fares. Most who pay are occasional riders. Frequent riders have already been hiked via the metropass.
goreckm
Active Member
Sure, let's increase the fares, maybe to $4 like York Region. Then, when ridership plummets, they'll be able to cut back service, which improves the financial situation even more! Genious!
I don't know where you are getting this idea that people don't have options. The slowing rate of ridership increase shows exactly the opposite. Fares for the TTC should be around $2 based on the service provided.
cplchanb
Senior Member
OK so lets do nothing now and keep on whining for a subsidy that will never come. Theyre damned if they do damned if they dont regardless . TTC has been doing the same fare model for decades and frankly its only been working against them ever since they lost their old subsidy and this is why many riders have grown to be entitled. I can tell that your last sentence that you are part of the entitled group too. Sure TTC isnt the best but its by far much better than many other TAs in NA. However its time to change. Even a modest 10c will make a significant impact. Thats $6 a month if one were to make a return trip every day of the year
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Toronto has a multitude f options for raising revenues for the TTC but the councillors and Tory simply haven't got the political fortitude to implement them.
rbt
Senior Member
So, $2 token fare (I assume other fares are also adjusted down) means losing about 1/3rd of the revenue. So, TTC needs to find an additional $400M/year to maintain current service levels.
Property taxes bring in about $4B. So, $400M is roughly a 10% increase in property taxes (plus the normal 2%). So, renters in older apartment buildings would be looking at a rent increase around $20/month; that includes older retired folks who don't take the TTC more than once a month.
I don't think this line of thought would fly politically even if the typical suburban (driving) household was onboard with it.
To give you an idea of just how large a gap a 30% fare reduction would have, the proposed parking tax will bring in about 8% of the necessary income to cover that gap.
Euphoria
Active Member
You want to solve the lack of transit funding problem in Toronto? End TTC's monopoly. Let private companies build whatever subways/LRT's they want and charge whatever they want through the fare box on a few conditions: no public funds will be provided, full interoperability and free transfer from the TTC for users, and subway lines/extensions must not undermine city council approved transit plans. They won't have the TTC's collective agreements to deal with. Force the TTC to play ball by having a reciprocal free transfer agreement. I'd also suggest combining subway construction with underground expressway construction. Allow the private sector to charge whatever tolls they want on the tunneled highway, as long as the highway doesn't replace an existing one, but the consortium that builds it must include subway tunneling (and stations) in the build. It's probably unrealistic to include subway operating costs as a requirement of the tender, but I'm sure we could get the capital construction costs of the subway covered. I bet we could do this at least for the western section of the DRL (Allen Expressway from Eglinton West station to the Gardiner), maybe all the way to the DVP under Richmond and Adelaide?
W. K. Lis
Superstar
cplchanb
Senior Member
maybe TTC can float some of their assets on the TSX. Maybe that will also have a side benefit of forcing them to produce positive results in order to boost their stock values...
Euphoria
Active Member
I appreciate the link. Interesting reading for sure, but the situation today is very different as labour costs really are preventing expansion. The TTC can continue to run its expensive system, but let other players build additions on condition of interoperability. The New York subway system was built by multiple players.
Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
The only place on the planet where private sector transit has succeeded is in Japan. It has failed everywhere else. The whole topic is a non-starter.