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Transit City Plan

Which transit plan do you prefer?

  • Transit City

    Votes: 95 79.2%

  • Ford City

    Votes: 25 20.8%
  • Total voters
    120
To get the card, you'll need to spend a minimum of $25 up front.
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Wow...really? That's fine for commuters and most other Toronto residents too I would guess, but that seems to be a bit steep for tourists, many of whom may be here for only two or three days and only take the subway a few times.

Edit: After checking the presto website myself, I'm also not a huge fan of the fact that the cards cost $5...again, probably fine for Toronto residents, but maybe a bit steep for tourists here for a few days. Do the cards really cost anywhere near $5 to produce? I know it's an RFID card, but I still can't imagine that it would cost anywhere near that much to produce the card (and print it, and transport it to the card selling place, etc).
 
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I think it's not quite fair to lambast the $5 charge for the card. Though cheaper would be nicer, the truth is, from my and other's experiences, its easy to loose tickets and tokens (especially), and at ~$2.50 a pop, loosing two is $5 right there, to consider you would have this card for a number of YEARS and I think over the period, the card would prevent the loss of at least its worth in fare media anyways. However, you get some bonuses with the farecard that you don't with the media: more convenient, faster, and harder to loose (i've never lost a credit or debit card), and finally if you DID loose it, (assuming you registered it), you do not loose the stored fare.

On another note, you don't need to pay $25 upfront, that's a bit misleading. One of the most important and often overlooked aspects of this card is that it can store PASSES not just dollar value. This is big deal. So if you, like a huge number of other people who regularly ride transit, we use passes. Be it day pass, week pass, month pass. If you already use these, then you'd get your next pass at the same time as your presto card, and presto, it only costs you $5 upfront, as far as your book value is concerned.
 
The opus card in Montreal was supposed to be for Montreal only at first to fight fare evasion but got expended to the other cities around the island.

Before the Opus card we had the TRAM card system.
Magnetic card compatible with the Montreal Metro system used by every suburb even Beyond Montreal Metro Area

CAM Zone 1=Montreal Island Bus and Subway
TRAM Zone 2= Montreal Island Bus, Subway and Commuter Train (AMT) in Montreal
Tram 3=STL (Laval), RTL (South Shore, Longueuil)+Train
Tram 4 and 5= Near suburbsSuburbs.+Train
Tram 6 to 8=Beyond Montreal Area+Train

Why the STM in Montreal accepted this?

The Subway was declared a Metropolitan infrastructure. The principle was since it was advantageous to all the suburbs around Montreal, they had to help pay for its operating cost, maintenance cost and expansion.

So over 80 Cities and town had to give money to the STM. So the STM had no problem to implement an integrated fare system.

The thing is that people are mad at the TTC but something has to give.
The subway does benefit the GTA and its only natural that the GTA helps pay for its maintenance and operating cost. Expanding the Subway system would be easier and it could go to Mississauga, Richmond Hill, Vaughaun,DRL, Renovations etc...

That would benefit the whole GTA if that were to happen. Until then, you can't blame the TTC for not wanting to have a regional view about public transportation when no one wants to help pay for it...

Remember the topic about Montreal who asked the provincial government to expend the Metro by 33%? By having everyone pay for the subway, Montreal had a better attitude towards regional transit than in the past.

The TTC would act the same way. It's up to Metrolinx to change the Structure.

Take over completely or find a way to make it fair for the TTC.
The present situation we have today is not productive and provoking too many fights.
 
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hkric88 said:
I think it's not quite fair to lambast the $5 charge for the card. Though cheaper would be nicer, the truth is, from my and other's experiences, its easy to loose tickets and tokens (especially), and at ~$2.50 a pop, loosing two is $5 right there, to consider you would have this card for a number of YEARS and I think over the period, the card would prevent the loss of at least its worth in fare media anyways. However, you get some bonuses with the farecard that you don't with the media: more convenient, faster, and harder to loose (i've never lost a credit or debit card), and finally if you DID loose it, (assuming you registered it), you do not loose the stored fare.

On another note, you don't need to pay $25 upfront, that's a bit misleading. One of the most important and often overlooked aspects of this card is that it can store PASSES not just dollar value. This is big deal. So if you, like a huge number of other people who regularly ride transit, we use passes. Be it day pass, week pass, month pass. If you already use these, then you'd get your next pass at the same time as your presto card, and presto, it only costs you $5 upfront, as far as your book value is concerned.
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I said minimum $25 up front.

That's $5 for the card and $20 for the fares.

If you get a pass, it's much MORE than $25, since a monthly pass is way more than $20.

So, while I agree it's good for people who regularly take transit, it's pretty much useless for people who only take it occasionally. Not that that is the end of the world or anything, but my point is that it sounds like they're not going to a fully automated system any time soon.
 
I think it's not quite fair to lambast the $5 charge for the card. Though cheaper would be nicer, the truth is, from my and other's experiences, its easy to loose tickets and tokens (especially), and at ~$2.50 a pop, loosing two is $5 right there, to consider you would have this card for a number of YEARS and I think over the period, the card would prevent the loss of at least its worth in fare media anyways.
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As I said, I think $5 is fine for commuters and probably most Toronto residents, but it's not so great for tourists and very occasional users.

So, while I agree it's good for people who regularly take transit, it's pretty much useless for people who only take it occasionally.
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Exactly. Does anyone that's used them know how much other RFID-based systems (Octopus and Oyster are RFID, right?) charge for cards?
 
I recall making a deposit of $50HKD for an Octopus card. This was refunded when you returned the card. This works out to about $8 CDN. I think it is a tourist friendly price though, since tourists also tend to spend money in MTR malls.

In London I paid £3 (also refundable) which would have been about $7 CDN at the time.

PrestoCards were a $5 deposit or $5 to replace when I last looked, which is perfectly reasonable.

I expect the $25 quoted comes with $20 in travel capacity. The $25 probably has more to do with Visa and bank fees charged for transferring funds.

^^^^^^^ Confirmed
"When purchasing your PRESTO card, you must load either a dollar value (also called an e-purse), or a monthly pass (also called a period pass) onto it. Your PRESTO card costs $5, and you must load at least $20 or a period pass on your card when you get it."
http://www.prestocard.ca/en/your/get/default.aspx
 
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Some of Metrolinx's decisions have been questionable. But the big problems with Metrolinx's plans stem from the TTC, not Metrolinx. The TTC wanted LRT on Sheppard. The TTC wanted LRT on Finch. The TTC wanted Eglinton as LRT. It's because of these inane decisions that we have the big mess of incompatible transit lines in Scarborough, and the ridiculousness of trying to forge a crosstown route from Finch West LRT, Sheppard Subway, plus Sheppard East LRT. It's inconvenient, stupid, and messy. I had hoped Metrolinx would rationalize what we're doing, but that's still up in the air whether they do or not.

Personally I believe the TTC, MT, BT, YRT, OT and DRT should all be abolished.
 
Yes, Octopus's deposit is $50 HKD. However, it also acts as a backup balance: if the cost of your current trip dips below $0, the remainder will be deducted from the deposit, but you cannot start a trip if you are already in negative balance.

Boston's CharlieCard is free (for now).

It's actually surprising that the $5 on Presto isn't a refundable deposit - or is that known for sure?

As for the min $20 initial value, there's no problem with it really, because (in a logical system, not that Toronto will necessarily be one) the value in a smartcard doesn't expire within any reasonable amount of time (3 years for Octopus, never for Oyster and CharlieCard), so even if you are a really infrequent transit user you will still have time to use up the credit. As for tourists, that's what paper/magnetic tickets will be for; all smartcard systems in my experience (HK, Boston, London) retain a parallel paper ticket system largely for tourists.
 
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golodhendil said:
As for tourists, that's what paper/magnetic tickets will be for; all smartcard systems in my experience (HK, Boston, London) retains a parallel paper ticket system largely for tourists.
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Yeah, but in some places it's fully automated.

I get the sinking feeling that with the TTC we'll still be stuck with overpaid ticket takers.
 
golodhendil said:
Yes, Octopus's deposit is $50 HKD. However, it also acts as a backup balance: if the cost of your current trip dips below $0, the remainder will be deducted from the deposit, but you cannot start a trip if you are already in negative balance.
Click to expand...

Presto is also configured to allow you to carry a negative balance provided you are above $0 when starting the trip.
 
Eug said:
Yeah, but in some places it's fully automated.

I get the sinking feeling that with the TTC we'll still be stuck with overpaid ticket takers.
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Magnetic cards are (can be) also fully automated. That's true for the three places I mentioned, and isn't Metropass also already automated? If TTC has to keep people in the booth, they can keep it no matter what. The major thing is to get rid of cash payment on rapid transit lines, and that can be done with either magnetic cards or smartcards (even tokens).

rbt said:
Presto is also configured to allow you to carry a negative balance provided you are above $0 when starting the trip.
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That's good. Is there a "lower" limit?
 
nfitz said:
$5 for one is peanuts. I must lose at least 2 tokens a year, that I thought were in my pockets.
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Yes, but you're not a tourist (which was my whole point). If the $5 fee was refundable (like the Octopus and Oyster cards seem to be) there'd be no problem.
 
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