S
SD2
Guest
Would people be open to this though? I think the smart card idea is long overdue, but zone fares may turn people off transit.
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Would people be open to this though? I think the smart card idea is long overdue, but zone fares may turn people off transit.
D
Darkstar416
Guest
People might complain, but it's hard to complain about something that makes sense. Paying for the distance you travel isn't illogical. Besides, it should also save some people a lot of money and make the TTC desirable again for short-trips as well.Would people be open to this though? I think the smart card idea is long overdue, but zone fares may turn people off transit.
Zones are the future. I don't doubt that. I'm always surprised that the TTC doesn't seriously talk about reintroducing them. However, I suspect that'll be left to the the new region-wide agency who will likely have zoning the entire GTA as one of their first tasks.
E
EnviroTO
Guest
Well a lot of people living downtown would definitely support zone fares because assuming the same budget they would pay less. The TTC Casino would be OK too.
S
SD2
Guest
Zones do make sense...and I suppose a smart card system would really take the work out of it.
And what about a TTC store? Someone on this board mentioned that idea, just can't remember who...
And what about a TTC store? Someone on this board mentioned that idea, just can't remember who...
T
TdotTrickyRicky
Guest
"Transit fares likely to rise"
Transit fares should rise every year with inflation, but users shouldn't be subject to ad hoc budget fueled fare rises. A fair increase would be a nickel every year.
Billonlogan Re: Property taxes
Every non-dependent Torontonian pays property taxes. Renters pay through there rent and often at a rate 2.5 times that of the residential rate. So in reality people who pay property taxes, when in reference to home owners, get a disproportionate free ride in this city.
Transit fares should rise every year with inflation, but users shouldn't be subject to ad hoc budget fueled fare rises. A fair increase would be a nickel every year.
Billonlogan Re: Property taxes
Every non-dependent Torontonian pays property taxes. Renters pay through there rent and often at a rate 2.5 times that of the residential rate. So in reality people who pay property taxes, when in reference to home owners, get a disproportionate free ride in this city.
W
wyliepoon
Guest
And what about a TTC store? Someone on this board mentioned that idea, just can't remember who...
... all the people over at Spacing who are making big bucks off of station buttons?
M
mpolo2
Guest
Zones make sense, but Toronto would be zone 1. Meaning zones would be more effective if there was a real GTA wide system that one ticket/payment would let you access - ie) missaussaga would be zone 2, Oakville and beyond zone 3....or else you really are just charging people more for something they already have.
C
cacruden
Guest
^ absolutely! But can we get the province to do this?
Well, you need people that are willing to "play chicken" (politics) and just stop some of the lesser important services and blame it on the province. After much name calling, they might find "a little extra" somewhere :b
A
Antiloop33rpm
Guest
Zones make sense, but Toronto would be zone 1. Meaning zones would be more effective if there was a real GTA wide system that one ticket/payment would let you access - ie) missaussaga would be zone 2, Oakville and beyond zone 3....or else you really are just charging people more for something they already have.
I dont know if that is how I would split things up. I would make at least 5 zones. Toronto (former limits) being the first zone, North York et al being the second, Vaughan, Mississauga being the third, Oakville/Ajax/Oshawa being the 4th and and anything else beyond being the fifth.
Im somewhat surprised Toronto has not created a more integrated GTA wide transit fare system and put zones in place. If cars pay based on mileage (gas taxes based on consumption and tolls based on distance driven) then I dont see why transit should not be the same.
The only instance I would be against it is if it was used a cash grab and nothing more. But if the cost reflects the service, then I am all for it. This isnt too say that zones will be the end all solution to the TTC and its funding issues but it would be a step in the right direction.
E
EnviroTO
Guest
I think there should be a lot more zones within Toronto than one if a zone fare is implemented. I would suggest something like 5km by 5km cubes where travel within the cube or to any neighbouring cube is the lowest fare and each additional cube (5km) increases the fare. Something like $1.50 for base fare plus $0.50 per cube. GO would be premium travel so something like $2.00 would be base fare ($0.50 with transfer) and each cube (5km) would cost $0.75.
F
fiendishlibrarian
Guest
If you look at the way transfers are printed, you can still see where the zones were delinated. The old Zone 1 stretched roughly from the lake to Eglinton, and past the Don and into Mimico. Once you went north of Eglinton and past St. Clair, you hit zone two (a holdover from the boundary with the Township of York railway, which ran Weston, St. Clair, and Oakwood streetcars prior to 1921). The other zones were past Mimico (New Toronto), Township of Scarborough, and York (encompassing North York and up to Richmond Hill for the old North Toronto radial cars). So zone fares were well-known to Torontonians. There is no reason why they can't be brought back right now. The transfers are still printed that way, the fareboxes are the same as were used prior to 1970-1971, and everything else is in place to implement it.
The problem is, the Commission is now a political beast, which means it won't confront people in this city about the true cost of transit because we've become so weaned on the idea, solidified over the past 35 years, that you are entitled to pay one fare to travel from Scarborough to downtown, as you are to go from Pape and Danforth to Yonge and Bloor. This is the fundamental issue behind the lack of expansion over the past 30 years. It is a fantasy that is ruining the TTC. We became spoiled when Bill Davis began the practice of paying half the TTC's operating costs, and 60% of capital. Prior to that, it was the riders, in the form of zoned fares, that payed the freight. It was a frugal, self-sustaining system. This should have continued, even after the TTC became solely responsible for providing transit into the suburbs in the 1960s. If further zones were implemented during this period, say from St. Clair to Lawrence, and then Lawrence to Steeles, we could have had enough money raised to have subways along Bathurst or Dufferin, and perhaps Eglinton by now, or a DRL, or PROW streetcars out to Malvern and Weston again.
*warning, rant ahead*
This money would have been the TTC's money, just as the money raised to build the Yonge subway was its own money as well. Back then it paid its own way. By doing so, it allowed the TTC to operate largely free from political interference, with the ability to design and build subways as it saw fit. Look at the consistency in design from 1954 through to 1966, same font, same clean, minimal layout of stations. Try to think of this occuring today, with politician x whining about "bathroom stations", and politician y blabbering about "public art, and why can't our stations look Montreal's" etc, to say nothing of all the ridiculous environmental assessment hoops we have to go through to build a subway through already-established areas, as though we're building it through virgin forest. Somehow building all those subways in less than twenty years didn't ruin the city back then, but of course, those EA and management consultants have to be paid, right?
The Toronto that built the Yonge, University and Bloor lines was one, I think, that was more grounded in common sense and frugal, efficient practicality than now. It would have been aghast at the notion that stations are anything other than for moving people from a to b, and rightly so. The TTC then would have, quite properly in my opinion, politely told such critics to go fly a kite. They're not running a railroad. And so what I consider to be the clean, perfectly functional and still-efficient and modern station designs from that era hold up as well as they do for that reason. This is the result of the TTC having the ability to have its own in-house design and development team. It's amazing that from 1948 (with some wartime restrictions still in place) to 1966 (and 1968) , that such an enormous amount of rapid transit was built, constructed by and large by the TTC alone, with minimal fuss. And how did it do it? Because it was run frugally and with the notion that you can't get something without paying its full cost. The TTC did that for years, and took pride in it, with good reason. Look at the photos (when that site is up again) from that era. The stations are spotless. The trains and streetcars gleaming, even the men wearing crisp uniforms seemed to take pride in the system, as did the passengers, unlike today who treat it like a dump. It was a virtuous cycle, and the TTC was truly revolutionary and well-known around the world for this.
And what do we have now? What do we have to show for thirty years of avoiding the elephant in the room, which is the craven politicking to riders' cheap, shallow interests that the TTC is now afraid to tell people: you want to pay the same fare to go from Bathurst and Sheppard to Union, as to go from Queen and Church to Bloor and Dundas? No, sorry, that's just ridiculous. This delusion has to end.
And now look what we have. A once proud organization, that once built its dreams, reduced to little more than a panhandler because the politicians that run it think in three-year election cycles, and are afraid to tell the people in this city that if you want a great transit system, you have to be prepared to pay for it. But that can't happen now, can it? And so we keep going through this kabuki theatre every year of fare increases, threats of cuts, back-and-forth accusations and mindless "cut the fat from the TTC" mantra from ignoramuses who wouldn't know how to run a model railroad, much less a real one. And for what? How much money are we talking about here? People who spend their money on endless, useless junk can't even gather enough intelligence to realize that paying a little more would provide us with a system that, over the long run, would bring benefits to the city of a magnitiude that would far outstrip whatever measly additional costs they would incur? Such selfish, short-sighted, stupid people citizens in this city have become.
Looking at those archival photos really made me wistful, and angry. I wish I was alive then. You can see the pride, the hope in the city when the subways were built, with the parades and the slogans and the "Moving forward" and "Wheels of progress" banners everywhere. People knew back then it would take some sacrifice to do all of this, many of whom had gone through the Depression and the war, and the era of crowded Witt trains (now THAT was crowding!). To them, the idea that you couldn't spare a few extra cents in the form of an extra zone fare to pay for it would have struck them as the height of frivolity and selfishness.
The problem is, the Commission is now a political beast, which means it won't confront people in this city about the true cost of transit because we've become so weaned on the idea, solidified over the past 35 years, that you are entitled to pay one fare to travel from Scarborough to downtown, as you are to go from Pape and Danforth to Yonge and Bloor. This is the fundamental issue behind the lack of expansion over the past 30 years. It is a fantasy that is ruining the TTC. We became spoiled when Bill Davis began the practice of paying half the TTC's operating costs, and 60% of capital. Prior to that, it was the riders, in the form of zoned fares, that payed the freight. It was a frugal, self-sustaining system. This should have continued, even after the TTC became solely responsible for providing transit into the suburbs in the 1960s. If further zones were implemented during this period, say from St. Clair to Lawrence, and then Lawrence to Steeles, we could have had enough money raised to have subways along Bathurst or Dufferin, and perhaps Eglinton by now, or a DRL, or PROW streetcars out to Malvern and Weston again.
*warning, rant ahead*
This money would have been the TTC's money, just as the money raised to build the Yonge subway was its own money as well. Back then it paid its own way. By doing so, it allowed the TTC to operate largely free from political interference, with the ability to design and build subways as it saw fit. Look at the consistency in design from 1954 through to 1966, same font, same clean, minimal layout of stations. Try to think of this occuring today, with politician x whining about "bathroom stations", and politician y blabbering about "public art, and why can't our stations look Montreal's" etc, to say nothing of all the ridiculous environmental assessment hoops we have to go through to build a subway through already-established areas, as though we're building it through virgin forest. Somehow building all those subways in less than twenty years didn't ruin the city back then, but of course, those EA and management consultants have to be paid, right?
The Toronto that built the Yonge, University and Bloor lines was one, I think, that was more grounded in common sense and frugal, efficient practicality than now. It would have been aghast at the notion that stations are anything other than for moving people from a to b, and rightly so. The TTC then would have, quite properly in my opinion, politely told such critics to go fly a kite. They're not running a railroad. And so what I consider to be the clean, perfectly functional and still-efficient and modern station designs from that era hold up as well as they do for that reason. This is the result of the TTC having the ability to have its own in-house design and development team. It's amazing that from 1948 (with some wartime restrictions still in place) to 1966 (and 1968) , that such an enormous amount of rapid transit was built, constructed by and large by the TTC alone, with minimal fuss. And how did it do it? Because it was run frugally and with the notion that you can't get something without paying its full cost. The TTC did that for years, and took pride in it, with good reason. Look at the photos (when that site is up again) from that era. The stations are spotless. The trains and streetcars gleaming, even the men wearing crisp uniforms seemed to take pride in the system, as did the passengers, unlike today who treat it like a dump. It was a virtuous cycle, and the TTC was truly revolutionary and well-known around the world for this.
And what do we have now? What do we have to show for thirty years of avoiding the elephant in the room, which is the craven politicking to riders' cheap, shallow interests that the TTC is now afraid to tell people: you want to pay the same fare to go from Bathurst and Sheppard to Union, as to go from Queen and Church to Bloor and Dundas? No, sorry, that's just ridiculous. This delusion has to end.
And now look what we have. A once proud organization, that once built its dreams, reduced to little more than a panhandler because the politicians that run it think in three-year election cycles, and are afraid to tell the people in this city that if you want a great transit system, you have to be prepared to pay for it. But that can't happen now, can it? And so we keep going through this kabuki theatre every year of fare increases, threats of cuts, back-and-forth accusations and mindless "cut the fat from the TTC" mantra from ignoramuses who wouldn't know how to run a model railroad, much less a real one. And for what? How much money are we talking about here? People who spend their money on endless, useless junk can't even gather enough intelligence to realize that paying a little more would provide us with a system that, over the long run, would bring benefits to the city of a magnitiude that would far outstrip whatever measly additional costs they would incur? Such selfish, short-sighted, stupid people citizens in this city have become.
Looking at those archival photos really made me wistful, and angry. I wish I was alive then. You can see the pride, the hope in the city when the subways were built, with the parades and the slogans and the "Moving forward" and "Wheels of progress" banners everywhere. People knew back then it would take some sacrifice to do all of this, many of whom had gone through the Depression and the war, and the era of crowded Witt trains (now THAT was crowding!). To them, the idea that you couldn't spare a few extra cents in the form of an extra zone fare to pay for it would have struck them as the height of frivolity and selfishness.
S
SD2
Guest
Great post fiendish. I don't like fare increases, but then overall it's still really cheap.
Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with a zone system.
Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with a zone system.
M
MetroBoiNay
Guest
Cheap? Compared to other cities in North America its becoming the most expensive! eg. It's $2US in NYC ($2.30cdn). Our system is not as good compared to new york.
If the fare increases were for making the system bigger, then I would approve. However its to keep it running.
I know many from the GTA who'd rather drive and park now, 8 yrs ago, they parked @ a subway and took that. I can see this decreasing the ridership below their expectations for this year.
If the fare increases were for making the system bigger, then I would approve. However its to keep it running.
I know many from the GTA who'd rather drive and park now, 8 yrs ago, they parked @ a subway and took that. I can see this decreasing the ridership below their expectations for this year.
O
Ontarian1976
Guest
Hopefully fare increases will reduce some of the rush-hour crowding. I doubt it though.
D
dan e 1980
Guest
how would they enforce a fare zone?