TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[Steve X]

The convenience of the Metropass is not having to carry around tokens. Presto is already putting some pressure on the TTC, since a lot of people (especially commute-only users) are going to realize that there's no more convenience difference and it's cheaper to pay for 40 trips/month than a metropass.

I don't think that's entirely true. People with metropass make many more short trips than if they were paying separate fares. Some of those trips are so short it doesn't justify $3 in the first place and wouldn't have been made without a metropass. Vancouver has a better fare system than the flat rate system here. People would likely pay $2.20 for a 10 minute ride there than $3 here.

The break even cost for an adult metropass is at 49 trips exceeding the number of weekday commuter only trips in a month. If people are only taking it for 40 trips a month, they are loosing $27 ever month just to have a metropass. That's too much to pay for convenience.

The only game charger with presto is the introduction of daily capping (They said it will happen but I still don't think it's implemented yet). One doesn't have to choose to buy a day pass or not. If people chooses to make all their errands on a few selected days in a month. They can do 6-8 trips on those days and occasion trips on the other days. They could make 60 trips a month and pay for 40 trips which is cheaper than a metropass. Of course those trips will be short trips oppose to long commuting trips. The cost to operate the service would roughly be the same as today and TTC is not going to rack up expenses. They just won't make the revenue.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The break even cost for an adult metropass is at 49 trips exceeding the number of weekday commuter only trips in a month. If people are only taking it for 40 trips a month, they are loosing $27 ever month just to have a metropass. That's too much to pay for convenience.

I think you underestimate how much people are willing to pay for convenience, and underestimate how many people don't really care about saving money. TTC has a ton of higher income riders, and I'm sure many of them haven't even bothered to count the number of trips they take to determine whether or not Metropass saves them money.

You should also consider that most TTC riders have access to a car. As long as the Metropass is cheaper that whatever a car might cost, while still offering reasonable convenience, they might not care that their TTC trips aren't as cheap as they could possibly be. If someone is saving $300/month, they likely aren't going to care about losing $30/month to make their trip a little more convenient. Furthermore, having to worry about having enough tokens might be enough of an inconvenience to push many of these rider to take the car instead.

 

[Steve X]

I think you overestimate how much people are willing to pay for convenience, and underestimate how many people don't really care about saving money. TTC has a ton of higher income riders, and I'm sure many of them haven't even bothered to count the number of trips they take to determine whether or not Metropass saves them money.

You should also consider that most TTC riders have access to a car. As long as the Metropass is cheaper that whatever a car might cost, while still offering reasonable convenience, they might not care that their TTC trips aren't as cheap as they could possibly be. If someone is saving $300/month, they likely aren't going to care about losing $30/month to make their trip a little more convenient. Furthermore, having to worry about having enough tokens might be enough of an inconvenience to push many of these rider to take the car instead.

BUT not everyone is rich and likes to be wasteful like the typical North Americans. There is a significant portion of people who live under low income situation too and doesn't have the money to spare. Shame on all of the people out there that buys a bag of fruits for a cheaper price than individually and throws half of it away while the rest of the world suffers. Wasteful spending for small convenience isn't my problem. It helps out the TTC and the economy but it's this kind of behaviour that is bring the harm to the world. High income North Americans' convenience are the evil doing in this world. All the garbage and pollution just cause they have money to burn. People could have spent that $30/month on charity instead.

 

[amnesiajune]

You should also consider that most TTC riders have access to a car.

This isn't true. Most TTC riders do not have access to a car. They may live in a household that has a car (more than three quarters of Toronto's households do), but in most cases there's one person driving to work and the other taking transit - the one taking transit can't choose to drive that car to work. That's the typical Toronto household - no matter where you are in the city, half of homes have one car (downtown has the lowest percentage, 46%, while East York and North York have the highest at 50%).

If someone already owns a car, taking transit isn't going to be cheaper than gas and additional insurance for driving to/from work. All there might be is the rare case where a family has both parents working downtown and leaves the car at home during the day because of the cost of parking.

 

[smallspy]

This isn't true. Most TTC riders do not have access to a car. They may live in a household that has a car (more than three quarters of Toronto's households do), but in most cases there's one person driving to work and the other taking transit - the one taking transit can't choose to drive that car to work. That's the typical Toronto household - no matter where you are in the city, half of homes have one car (downtown has the lowest percentage, 46%, while East York and North York have the highest at 50%).

Seriously, do a bit of reading.

The TTC themselves say that over 70% of their ridership have access to a car. They've been saying this for years, and that'd despite the fact that the number hasn't really fluctuated more than about 3% in the past 30.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

This isn't true. Most TTC riders do not have access to a car. They may live in a household that has a car (more than three quarters of Toronto's households do), but in most cases there's one person driving to work and the other taking transit - the one taking transit can't choose to drive that car to work. That's the typical Toronto household - no matter where you are in the city, half of homes have one car (downtown has the lowest percentage, 46%, while East York and North York have the highest at 50%).

An important lesson I leaned from a vetrain planner at the TTC is that there are no captives to transit - nearly all TTC customers have access to a car in some form. If transit is inconvenient enough, people will get rides from family or friends or carpool. When car ownership is as high in Toronto is as high as it is, it isn't too difficult to find alternate means of transport.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

If someone already owns a car, taking transit isn't going to be cheaper than gas and additional insurance for driving to/from work. All there might be is the rare case where a family has both parents working downtown and leaves the car at home during the day because of the cost of parking.

Yes. And in these cases people are taking transit for the convenience, even if it's costing them more money. And given that 25% of TTC riders have a family income of $85,000+, I'd expect a ton of the TTC's ridership is coming from riders taking it for pure convineuce, and not because they have no other option due to affordability.

 

[nfitz]

There's certainly plenty of us who only have one car, that would simply go out and buy another car if we wanted to. They barely cost anything these days, compared to the house prices.

We only got rid of the second car, as we realised that the majority of the mileage on it in the previous year, was driving all the way from Gerrard to Danforth for service and repairs.

 

[Johnny Au]

The price of electric cars is dropping as well! They're rather affordable by Toronto standards.

Even individually owned electric vehicles are greener than the buses the TTC uses.

 

[amnesiajune]

Parking is usually a big constraint for car #2 - a lot of houses and the vast majority of condos in Toronto only have room to park one car.

Anyways, nobody's going out and spending $300/month on a second car because they want to, when a metropass costs half of that. People who have two cars do it because they don't have an alternative to the second car. Either there's no feasible transit commute to work, or they can't manage the lives of themselves and two or more kids with one car.

Even individually owned electric vehicles are greener than the buses the TTC uses.

They're also greener than biking if you aren't a vegetarian

 

[rbt]

Even individually owned electric vehicles are greener than the buses the TTC uses.

I doubt that very much. I would expect manufacturing of 300+ electric vehicles (or however many people a bus carries in a peak day) will be much much larger than the entire life-cycle of a single bus; nor does that consider that those 300 electric vehicles would (on average) be replaced 3 times (so 900 vehicles) over the lifespan of the bus.

And that's before you get into construction of the driveways/parking lots/garages to hold those vehicles or even the extra roadway width required to accommodate them during the trip.


I would believe that if you assume all of the above would exist anyway or are free, and focus strictly on emissions during a single trip that a 90% Nuclear/Hydro/Wind charge in an electric vehicle (as would be typical in Ontario) would have lower carbon emissions than a diesel bus; but that's not a full cost accounting of the problem for either side.

 

[amnesiajune]

Nor does that consider that those 300 electric vehicles would (on average) be replaced 3 times (so 900 vehicles) over the lifespan of the bus.

That's not true at all. The average car in Ontario is just as old (around 9 years) as the average bus in the TTC's fleet.

 

[cplchanb]

That's not true at all. The average car in Ontario is just as old (around 9 years) as the average bus in the TTC's fleet.

i beg to differ at this moment in time. most of the EVs that are driven today are less than 6 years old and are most likely leased. The tech is just too new and unproven for the general
consumer to outright buy for long term usage. As for ICE cars, that comment is true though

 

[amnesiajune]

Most of the EVs that are driven today are less than 6 years old and are most likely leased

That's because most of the EVs that are driven today didn't exist six years ago. If anything, they'll have longer lifespans because they don't have many of the problems that send ICE cars to junkyard - no engine lubrication concerns, no automatic transmission issues, no emissions testing failures.

 

[amnesiajune]

Looks like New York City is adopting the same policy (albeit more bluntly) than the TTC: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/nyregion/mta-subway-announcements-delays.html

The New York City subway has always had a code. Delays are explained with stock phrases that may or may not actually apply — “we are delayed because of train traffic ahead of us”; “we are being held momentarily by the train’s dispatcher.” There might be “police activity” or “an investigation,” which are often used to mean someone has been struck by a train. New Yorkers know this perfectly well, but the words have no emotional force.

So the bluntness of “a passenger just jumped in front of the train” did something. This time, what we were experiencing was a human tragedy instead of a personal inconvenience. Someone, a living person who had been standing unhurt on the platform just moments earlier, had been struck mere yards away. Later, news reports would confirm what we had already guessed: The victim had died. And so we did not complain that we were stuck underground in a packed rush-hour subway car.

The specificity was not a one-off, the M.T.A. confirmed, but a new policy: part of a shift from recorded to live announcements.