TTC: Customer Service

[nfitz]

And if you don't have enough income to qualify to make it tax deductible, it is 49.5 rides.

Federal tax kicks in at about $12,300 a year of income. At minimum wage, that's a 23-hour week.

Presumably anyone working enough to make 42 trips a month is earning more than $12,300 a year?

What adult is making over 42 trips a month, but neither earning $12,300 a year, nor having a spouse who can make the claim? I'm struggling to think of a scenario. The only obvious one to me is students, but don't pay $133.75 a month.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Has anyone experienced very long wait times on Yonge today? At both 9:00 am and 11:00 pm I had to I wait over 10 minutes for a train. I've never experienced headway this ridiculously long before. I think it has something to do with the construction at Union

Worst I've seen is around 6 minutes, but it was midnight and I had just missed the train before.

 

[Electrify]

A few weeks ago I waited nearly 10 minutes at St. George at 9AM, but there was like 5 different service disruptions in the 45 minutes prior.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but Karen Stintz just tweeted a photo, which looks like the next-gen turnstiles for the TTC:

R: Interesting picture of KS using a experimental TTC turnstile...These do remind me of what SEPTA in Philadelphia plans to
install implementing their new NPT (New Payment Technologies) fare collection system in the coming years...

LI MIKE

 

[Johnny Au]

Federal tax kicks in at about $12,300 a year of income. At minimum wage, that's a 23-hour week.

Presumably anyone working enough to make 42 trips a month is earning more than $12,300 a year?

What adult is making over 42 trips a month, but neither earning $12,300 a year, nor having a spouse who can make the claim? I'm struggling to think of a scenario. The only obvious one to me is students, but don't pay $133.75 a month.

Certificate students are ineligible for the post-secondary passes.

 

[nfitz]

Certificate students are ineligible for the post-secondary passes.

These students go to school 12 months of a year, and don't earn any income? I thought those were fairly short-term programs, often held by those with part-time jobs.

I expect there might be a few examples, who are probably only in that position for a short period of time. But surely the vast majority of adults are at 42 rides or less already.

 

[Electrify]

Federal tax kicks in at about $12,300 a year of income. At minimum wage, that's a 23-hour week.

Presumably anyone working enough to make 42 trips a month is earning more than $12,300 a year?

What adult is making over 42 trips a month, but neither earning $12,300 a year, nor having a spouse who can make the claim? I'm struggling to think of a scenario. The only obvious one to me is students, but don't pay $133.75 a month.

Fair enough, though as a full time student who works part time, even in the summer, it has been a few years since I've qualified to get anything back from my monthly pass.

Still, a YRT pass by this standard pays for itself after 34 rides, at $112.20 after rebate and ticket prices at $3.30. To compare with a slightly larger system, an Ottawa monthly pass comes to $83.94 after rebate and with Presto fares at $2.72, pays for itself after 30.9 rides. Montreal after rebate is a mere $67.58 after rebate, leading to a break even point of 26.5 rides at $2.55 a pop.

So without rebate applied most systems break even at about 40 trips, and with the rebate applied it is comparable to getting about a week of travel free! Meanwhile even with the rebate applied, the TTC still doesn't break even after 40 trips!

 

[nfitz]

Still, a YRT pass by this standard pays for itself after 34 rides, at $112.20 after rebate and ticket prices at $3.30. To compare with a slightly larger system, an Ottawa monthly pass comes to $83.94 after rebate and with Presto fares at $2.72, pays for itself after 30.9 rides. Montreal after rebate is a mere $67.58 after rebate, leading to a break even point of 26.5 rides at $2.55 a pop.

Montreal is very heavily subsisized by the province and city. If you look at the budget in Montreal, they get (looking at 2012) about $600 million of their $1.2 billion operating budget from the farebox. The rest is subsidy from various governments. That's on about 400 million trips. So $1.50 a trip from the farebox and $1.50 a trip from subsidy.

Toronto in 2012 got about $1 billion from the farebox, and only about a subsidy of about $480 million, for 514 million riders. So roughly $2 a trip from the farebox, and $1 a trip from subsidy.

Ottawa got $173 million from the farebox and a subsidy of 163 million for 101 million riders. So about $1.70 a trip from the farebox, and $1.60 a trip from subsidy.

Interesting that costs are quite similar. $3 for both Toronto and Montreal, and $3.30 for Ottawa.

But if TTC received the same kind of municipal/provincial subsidy that OCTransport or STM received, we could have similar prices for metropasses!

And then there is York Region. With a 2012 ridership of 22.1 million they spent $158 million in 2012. That's about $6.65 a trip (using the 22.5 million that was estimated, before the transit strike). Their revenue is about $46 million, so about $2.09 a trip (just a bit higher than Toronto). Meaning the York Region subsidy is a whopping $4.56 a trip.

That's right, York Region pays more per rider, than TTC spends per rider.

If TTC got the same subsidy per rider as in York Region, not only would transit be free ... but they'd be given $1.50 every time they got on transit.

 

[Electrify]

Definitely agree. The province AND the city need to stop being so cheap with funding the TTC. Especially the latter, because as much noise is made about the province not paying their fair share (looking at you TTCRiders), the truth is that in Canada the bulk of transit subsidy comes from the municipality. If the city doubled its subsidy, we could have things like transit passes which pay for themselves after a reasonable number of rides, two hour transfers, faster construction schedules, etc.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Montreal is very heavily subsisized by the province and city. If you look at the budget in Montreal, they get (looking at 2012) about $600 million of their $1.2 billion operating budget from the farebox. The rest is subsidy from various governments. That's on about 400 million trips. So $1.50 a trip from the farebox and $1.50 a trip from subsidy.

Toronto in 2012 got about $1 billion from the farebox, and only about a subsidy of about $480 million, for 514 million riders. So roughly $2 a trip from the farebox, and $1 a trip from subsidy.

Ottawa got $173 million from the farebox and a subsidy of 163 million for 101 million riders. So about $1.70 a trip from the farebox, and $1.60 a trip from subsidy.

Interesting that costs are quite similar. $3 for both Toronto and Montreal, and $3.30 for Ottawa.

But if TTC received the same kind of municipal/provincial subsidy that OCTransport or STM received, we could have similar prices for metropasses!

And then there is York Region. With a 2012 ridership of 22.1 million they spent $158 million in 2012. That's about $6.65 a trip (using the 22.5 million that was estimated, before the transit strike). Their revenue is about $46 million, so about $2.09 a trip (just a bit higher than Toronto). Meaning the York Region subsidy is a whopping $4.56 a trip.

That's right, York Region pays more per rider, than TTC spends per rider.

If TTC got the same subsidy per rider as in York Region, not only would transit be free ... but they'd be given $1.50 every time they got on transit.

NF: Interesting post on the ratio of farebox revenues to local subsidies...

Let me know if I get this right - the noted farebox percentages are:
Toronto - 66%; Ottawa - 55%; Montreal 50% and York Region - 30%...

I would not mind seeing how other Canadian cities "fare" in their funding percentages...

I believe that NYC Transit - NOT including any other MTA services - has one of the USA's
highest percentages of revenue to subsidy at about 75 percent as a comparison...

LI MIKE

 

[doady]

If you compare the subsidy per population, TTC is comparable to OC Transpo.

Montreal is different because the province of Quebec provides a lot more funding for transit than Ontario. All Ontario systems are relatively underfunded compared to Quebec system.

As low as the subsidy to the TTC is, the $160 million in provincial gas tax funding is only enough to cover one-third of it! Back in the day, the province covered 50% of operating subsidy and 75% of capital costs. Now its 33% and 33%! Furthermore, the Liberals also eliminated Ontario Transit Vehicle Program that the Harris government introduced, which was replaced by the Ontario Bus Replacement Program, so that's 0% subsidy for replacing buses, and more pressure on the municipal budgets. Although the loss of OTVP and OBRP was made up by the federal gas tax funding, that still puts Ontario systems at a disadvantage compared to the rest of Canada.

Bottom line, more subsidy for transit, that's up the province to decide.

 

[JasonParis]

I just wish the TTC would price their passes at about 40 rides, as not only would it be more convenient for regular commuters than tokens, but said group would be more encouraged to take transit for regular trips. With a Metropass at $133.75, you could price cash fare at $4 and tokens at $3.50 each ($3.34 to be exact, but let's give people more of an incentive to buy a pass). Being someone who uses York Region Transit, these prices do not seem as outrageous as you would think.

Largely agree, but I think $4 is pretty steep for a single ride, especially if you are going a few stops on a bus/streetcar. Admittedly though, a time-based transfer would sweeten this quite a bit (and be easier than implementing a zoned system).

 

[Electrify]

Two hour fares would be included in such a setup (should have mentioned that, my bad). And for what it's worth, YRT despite being heavily subsidized charges $4 for a single ride.

Making such a shift overnight would be political suicide, but such a transition could be implemented over time.

That said, if currently average commuter buys tokens to the tune of about $108 per month, if such a fare structure did take effect that commuter would now be paying $133.75, even if they only still took 40 rides per month. This would mean more money for the TTC.

 

[PL1]

I made an complaint using the online form a couple of weeks back about missing buses on the 56 Leaside route, specifically the bus leaving Donlands at 7:19 am on Monday Feb 24 and Wednesday Feb 26. Shockingly I received a telephone call last week Thursday explaining what happened (mechanical failure of a bus on one day and bus late leaving the depot on the other). I realize that crap happens, and sometimes buses breakdown, but I appreciate that they made an effort to explain the problem. I can live with occasional problems, but twice in one week is hard to take. It would be nice if they could post a note on the Next Bus board in the station so that we don't have to wait a week to find out why I was late for work. Anyway, I thought I'd relay this.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Will TTC subways ever run really late into the night?

Read More: http://www.blogto.com/city/2014/05/will_ttc_subways_ever_run_really_late_into_the_night/

Politicians and journalists do much squabbling over whether Toronto is a so called world class city. Whether we are or we aren't, it's tough to argue that our subway service doesn't measure up to what's offered by cities that indisputably carry that title. New York City, for example, keeps its subway lines open all night. And in London, five lines will remain open overnight on Friday and Saturday nights, beginning in 2015. Could something similar ever work in Toronto?

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross doesn't offer a whole lot of hope. --- "The reason we don't stay open later is quite simple: it's maintenance," he says. I ask him why is then that whole chunks of some lines are routinely shut down over on weekends. He says those closures aren't for routine maintenance; they're for major upgrades. Daily maintenance takes place from the time the subway closes, at 1:30 a.m., and opens again at 6 a.m.

For a city that ranks consistently at the top of the list of priciest transit cities in North America, a subway closure time that falls half an hour before last call makes me feel a little irate. But Ross says our comparatively early closure time is a function of our system's infrastructure. --- Subways in New York and London, of course, require maintenance as well, but they have alternate capacity available to them. Lines in London, for instance, run "both fairly close to one another and parallel," Ross says, allowing some lines to close for maintenance while proximate ones remain open for service. And similarly, in New York, there are parallel express tracks, allowing one track to close while the other one continues to run.

.....