Month: February 2024

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Ontario Confirms Co-Fare Restoration for TTC (Updated)

Updated Feb. 5, 2023 at 6pm: Metrolinx has clarified aspects of the One Fare operation on Presto. See the end of this article for details.

Updated Feb. 5, 2023 at 6:30pm: The TTC has an extensive FAQ page about One Fare.

On February 5, 2024, Ontario announced that it will extend the co-fare arrangements between GO Transit and local municipal transit systems outside of Toronto to the TTC. The branding for this scheme is “One Fare”.

As of February 26, any trip including GO Transit will be discounted by the removal of local transit fares at either end of the journey. Trips beginning or ending on a local system will only pay the GO Transit fare.

Trips using only local systems (such as TTC+Miway) will pay the local fare on the system where they begin, but will transfer free onto any connecting system.

This arrangement corresponds to “Option A” in the Metrolinx Initial Business Case Final Report detailed in a previous article here.

Timed transfers will be valid for 2 hours for trips starting on a local system, and for 3 hours for trips starting on GO Transit. The Metrolinx announcement is not clear about whether a trip beginning on local systems but shifting to GO gets the expanded 3 hour window from paying a GO fare. In effect, does the tap on to GO “top up” the remaining transfer time with an extra hour, or does starting on a local bus fix the transfer window at two hours. I have asked Metrolinx for a clarification.

Update: See the end of the article for further information on the transfer window.

The new fare scheme will be funded by Ontario and local systems will be reimbursed for the foregone fare revenue. The anticipated ridership growth is about 8 million per year.

The anticipated saving for riders, on average, is $1,600 per year. That corresponds roughly to two local transit fares per weekday.

There will be no change in fare payment procedures. Riders will only tap on to the local systems, but must tap on and off for the GO Transit portion of the ride where the fare is distance based.

The provincial press release states “The government will continue to work with municipal partners to identify opportunities to make transit more seamless for riders by harmonizing discounted fares and other measures.” What this will actually entail remains to be seen.

Update: Metrolinx Clarifies One Fare Issues

The following responses were provided by Metrolinx in response to my queries.

On transfer windows:

The initial two-hour window begins when the customer first taps onto the local transit service. When a transit rider transfers and taps onto GO Transit, a new three-hour window begins. For example, a customer who takes an HSR bus (local transit) and then transfers to GO Transit starts with a two-hour window upon their first tap on the HSR bus. When they tap onto GO Transit, a new three-hour window begins. 

On the monthly pass: 

PRESTO transit passes for TTC, Brampton Transit, Durham Region Transit, MiWay and York Region Transit are eligible under Ontario’s One Fare Program.  Please note, customers transferring to GO Transit using a transit pass will not receive any additional discount using a transit pass.

On concession fares: 

Customers also benefit from concession fares through Ontario’s One Fare program because the second fare is always free on local transit, or reduced on GO Transit. For example, in the case of a senior, if the customer begins their journey on the TTC and they transfer to YRT, they pay only $2.25 (the TTC fare) because the second fare is free on local transit. This saves them $2.40 on the trip.  On a TTC to GO Transit trip, in the case of a senior, the GO fare would be reduced.

Metrolinx Media Relations Email of Feb. 5/24

It is possible that the GO Transit fare is less than a TTC fare, for example for a short GO trip by a senior where the TTC fare is $2.25 and the GO fare (using Union to Long Branch as an example) is only $2.13.

The TTC FAQ clarifies that the UP Express is not part of One Fare due to technical constraints. It is not clear when or if this will be fixed.

Thanks to reader Adam Chojecki for providing the link to the TTC page.

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The Vanishing Business Case for Regional Fare Structure

Anyone who deals with Metrolinx from the outside knows that getting information can be a real struggle, but every so often the veil of secrecy lifts, although not always intentionally.

The implementation of “regional fares” is supposed to happen in March 2024, but this will be on a fairly limited scale, at least according to anything published so far. The TTC will come into the same arrangement as the 905 systems with recognition of each other’s fares across the 416/905 boundary, and the reinstatement of a GO Transit cofare.

Like the elusive Toronto sun of recent weeks, a report appeared, and then disappeared on the Metrolinx website called Regional Fare Structure Initial Business Case Final April 2023. This is not a draft, but gives a sense of Metrolinx thinking on the subject and how little some of their fare objectives have changed over the years.

To be blunt, fare planning at Metrolinx has always eyed the Toronto subway as a “regional” facility and its riders as potential cash cows who will help fund other parts of the system. I wrote about this back in 2017-18.

A major problem with earlier proposals was that the Toronto subway was treated as a premium service, like GO, where riders should pay more for the speed and comfort compared to the surface system. This utterly ignored the fact that the TTC system is designed as a single network with subway lines as the backbone and feeder/distributor surface lines. The underlying reason for pushing up subway fares was to make the model revenue-neutral, in effect, to subsidize the elimination of extra fares for cross-border trips with more expensive subway rides.

That scheme would have seen any trip longer than 10km charged an extra fare, and that would have affected the vast majority of suburban commuters who already complained of long bus+subway trips to get to work and school. This idea appeared to die off, and with the ascension of the Ford government in 2018, nothing more was heard. Ford concentrated on large-scale capital projects, not on tinkering with fares.

In the Final version of the business case, the subway fare proposal has changed so that it would only apply to cross-border trips of 10km or more. This would have the effect of undoing part of the supposed benefit of the pending 905/416 fare boundary elimination where riders will not face an extra fare for the subway portion of their journey.

Future Richmond Hill riders look forward to a single fare to central Toronto, but this scheme might not be attractive as a 10km ride will only get them to roughly Yonge and Sheppard (8km for the Yonge extension, plus 2km on the existing subway). In the tariff modelled in the Final Report, the fare to Union Station would be $7.50. Similar issues face trips in other parts of the future rapid transit network.

Removing of the 416/905 fare boundary so that the TTC’s relationship with systems in the 905 and with GO becomes the same as every other system remains an option, but it is presented as the least attractive choice. The clear intent is to pave the way for higher subway fares for “regional” travellers while preserving the flat fare, for now, within Toronto. The political considerations are obvious, but so is Metrolinx’ intent to move forward in their implacable way. Both the Draft and Final versions of the report speak of a path from the current fare arrangements to a totally “integrated” future, albeit one that is not clearly defined.

Options with further levels of “integration” perform well as riding stimulants because they involve significant reduction in GO fares at a time when service will be increased through the GO Expansion program.

A major barrier to fare-by-distance on the subway is the need to “tap out” from the subway fare zone. This is not simply a question of putting Presto readers on the “inside” face of every fare gate, but of establishing fare lines between the surface and subway portions of stations. This has a substantial cost and creates a barrier to free flow for the vast majority of trips that would still pay a flat TTC fare, Moreover it would be a Trojan horse making future conversion of the subway within Toronto to a separate fare zone much simpler.

This is not a “fare integration” scheme, but rather a plan to increase GO rider subsidies while also setting the stage for subway fare increases. The idea of a revenue neutral change in the tariff has been abandoned, at least for now. The historic pattern emphasizing GO capacity for longer trips has been turned on its head to give GO rail a larger part in local travel within Toronto.

In order to sell this concept, Metrolinx now includes rebalancing the GO fare structure under the “integration” rubric. This is a completely separate issue and it should have been addressed years ago on GO independently from the cross border fare problems.

An intriguing caveat in all of this is that the Ministry of Transportation is listed as a “partner” in the study, and its conclusions will be referred to MTO for review. One has the sense of Metrolinx being on a short leash.

It is not surprising that this report was pulled from public view, but it is worth discussing because it reveals Metrolinx’ thinking. A document does not become a “Final” report, even if it is only a “Final Initial” version, without a lot of policy signoffs along the way.

Note: In this article, I use Draft and Final (capitalized) to refer to the two versions of the Initial Business Case.

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Scarborough RT Busway Funded in Mayor’s Budget

On February 1, 2024, Mayor Olivia Chow announced her version of Toronto’s 2024 operating and capital budgets at Scarborough Town Centre Station. There are many parts to this budget, including a slight reduction in the proposed tax rate, but the location of the event was no accident.

After much hand-wringing, political gesturing and activism by would-be users, the uncertainty over the busway in the former Scarborough RT right-of-way is gone. Toronto will pay for the project, and the delaying tactic of waiting for provincial funding is over. The text below is from the Mayor’s proposed budget at pages 35-36.

This is a fairly common shuffle of funding allocations between projects, something that is relatively easy because:

  • the amounts involved are small on the scale of the overall capital budget,
  • some of the spending is beyond 2024, and
  • the primary source is a placeholder for future as-yet uncommitted work.

What is needed now is a sense of urgency by the TTC to make every possible change in their project timetable to get things moving now. This could include:

  • Identifying work that can proceed without the mini Environmental Assessment known as a “TPAP” that will consume six unexpected months. Obvious candidates for this are the removal of existing SRT infrastructure – track, power, lighting – and demolition work at Lawrence East Station so that buses can pass through the station.
  • Examining whether the project can be split into south and north stages with the Lawrence to Eglinton section opening first. This would give some of the busway’s benefit including direct access to Kennedy Station as early as possible.

A change in focus is needed from delay, a common tactic in the Tory era to sweep budget problems under the rug, to creating the most expeditious project plan.

Transit planning should be about ambition and what we can achieve, not endless excuses and the deadly words “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow …”.