Despite boasting no significant improvements since the most recent price hike, the TTC will implement a 25-cent cash fare increase starting in January.
That pushes the price of one ride to a frustratingly uneven $3.25 if you’re paying cash.
Tickets and tokens will jump up by 10 cents while the price of a Metropass, which requires a comparatively high 50 rides/month to justify its utility, will be frozen for at least the first three months of the year.
Given Major John Tory’s consistent misinterpretation of the word ‘frozen’, you can expect its $141.50 price to increase shortly as well.
“I believe that fares should be adjusted every year,” he told CBC News Monday with composed disregard for last year’s promise to freeze TTC fares. This isn’t even the first time he’s failed to deliver on that either.
The commission’s board feels the increase is necessary to address a $53-million budget shortfall, which can probably be made up in several more reasonable ways – like demanding a higher subsidy from the city, not paying ticket collectors $100,000 a year, or committing some of that potential Bombardier settlement money – than pricing people out of taking public transit.
This, incidentally, is the primary reason for the budget deficit. The TTC predicted it would transport 540 million riders in 2015, a number that has since been reduced by around 15 million. Around $30 million in revenue is lost from this decrease based on the estimate that every million riders generates $2 million for the TTC.
“Every year we go back to our customers and add a nickel or add a dime,” he said. “That is the death of a thousand cuts; eventually people will say [they’re] just going to go out and buy a car,” says Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker.
Uber, meanwhile, will be thrilled.
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