[URBAN NOTE] Two notes on the ill-thought campaign against the Toronto Metropass

[rfmcdonald]

Torontoist noted that a recent suggestion by councilor John Campbell that Metropasses are unfairly cheap and lead to underfunding is ill-founded.

In fact, compared to the largest North American, Canadian, and local transit system, TTC riders pay the largest percentage toward the fare box.

On a percentage basis, the TTC works with less subsidy than any other transit agency on the continent. This is in large part due to the Province getting out of funding the TTC’s operating budget. But the City didn’t pick up the slack—in large part because of councillors who are too afraid to raise property taxes or support other revenue tools to make up the difference.

And so here we are, with a councillor floating the trial balloon fare discounts like the Metropass is the TTC’s biggest problem, and that we can solve transit by making it more expensive. If that’s not indicative of larger problems, it’s hard to know what is.

Steve Munro goes into greater detail in the context of the budget cuts demanded. Removing the Metropass would save only 80 million dollars, and, notably, is not recommended by the TTC.

The relatively small saving through elimination of Metropass discounts gives a view into how riders actually use the system. Passholders account for over half of all adult “trips”, but one cannot simply assume that they would continue to make all of these journeys if they had to pay for each of them separately. The idea that all pass trips represent a huge subsidy (because the lower average fare one can achieve with very frequent use is “lost revenue”) simply does not hold up. Unfortunately, TTC management has encouraged this view ever since passes were introduced.

The total number of trips taken using any form of pass in 2015 was 292.983 million, or 55% of all ridership. With a projected saving of $80m, the average per pass trip is about 27 cents. However, eliminating pass-level pricing would represent a large fare increase and would affect ridership numbers, a counterproductive move when getting people onto transit is supposed to be one of the City’s priorities. Pass usage as a percentage of total ridership has grown from 25% in 1987 to 50% in 2008, and to 55% in 2015. This is now the primary way in which riders pay for travel, and the bean-counting politicians who agonize over TTC fares should stop thinking in terms of tokens, tickets and cash. Riders prefer to purchase their service in bulk at a fixed price, and this should be encouraged to simplify the fare system for as many riders as possible.

Mayor Tory’s financial schemes have been “running on the fumes” for two years, and the 2017 budget marks the point that his fantasies simply will not be tenable. Does Council have the will to tackle this problem, or will transit riders (not to mention users of many other City services) be forced to suffer through the effects of the tax cutters’ naïve belief that they can control costs through searches for “efficiency”? Will voters, especially those represented by Tory’s henchmen on Council, tell their representatives that cuts are unacceptable, or will those who languish awaiting suburban buses put their faith in myths about “waste” that prevents their having frequent, comfortable service?

If we want good things--and necessary things, as I would call the Metropass--we need to pay for them. This includes adequate levels of government funding.