This article includes observations and updates from the January 10, 2025 TTC Board meeting. For background information on the Operating and Capital Budgets, please refer to my previous articles:

• TTC 2025 Operating Budget – Preliminary Review
• TTC 2025 Capital Budget and Plan – Preliminary Review

The budget report and presentation deck are available on the TTC’s site:

• Recommended 2025 TTC Operating Budget; 2025-2034 Capital Budget and Plan and 15-Year Capital Investment Plan and Real Estate Investment Plan Update
• Presentation Deck

This was the first Board meeting for Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik and Councillor Alejandra Bravo as Commissioners. They replaced Councillors Chris Moise and Stephen Holyday.

There was relatively little debate on the details of the budget with the overall sense being relief that the TTC will be able to make some improvements in service in 2025. However, three Commissioners proposed amendments to the recommendations that foretell a more actively involved Board in setting policy in the coming year.

Normally the Board agendas are released at least a week before meetings in keeping with practice by the City Clerk for Council and Committee agendas. Although it appears, according to Commissioner Matlow, that the budget report was completed a few weeks ago, it was not released until a few days before the meeting when the Mayor and TTC Chair held a press conference to announce the high points. This may serve their post-holiday scheduling, but not the public’s (or other Board members’) ability to digest and comment on the budget in time for the Board meeting.

Motion by Commissioner Matlow

[The Board] Directs the TTC CEO and Director – Commission Services, to publicly release the TTC’s annual budget at least 10 business days prior to its consideration by the Commission.

For many years, the budget has arrived as a fait accompli at the Board with no room for debate about priorities or changes in underlying assumptions about the Board’s goals even when a new Board inherits the philosophy behind an outgoing Board’s budget. The Board has taken a very hands off approach leaving decisions to management with, as we have seen recently, less than ideal results as the priority for tight budgets compromised system integrity.

The motions below are intended to re-establish an active Board as the TTC and City look to establish a stronger role for transit, and to set priorities before budgets lock in past assumptions.

Motion by Commissioner Bravo

[The Board] Establish a Strategic Planning Committee to assist the TTC Board in managing strategic planning and priorities, including through a Ridership Growth Strategy and other existing strategic documents, and direct the Director, Commission Services to report back to the February 24, 2025 TTC Board meeting on a proposed structure and meeting schedule after canvassing Commissioners’ interest in committee membership.

Amend the 2025 Schedule of Meetings to add a Special Meeting of the Board in September 2025 to consider recommendations from the Strategic Planning Committee, receive an update on the 2026 Budget, and discuss budget priorities informing the development of the 2026 TTC Operating Budget; 2026-2035 Capital Budget and Plan and 15-Year Capital Investment Plan and Real Estate Investment Plan Update.

Direct the Director, Commission Services to include a Special Meeting to consider recommendations from the Strategic Planning Committee, receive an update on the next year’s budget, and discuss budget priorities informing the development of the next year’s budgets in future year’s recommended annual schedule of Board and Committee meetings for the Board’s approval, in accordance with Section 20 of the By-law to Govern Board Proceedings.

Chair Myers proposed overlapping goals based on the TTC’s Ridership Growth Strategy. The original RGS from 2003 operated from the premise that management should tell the Board what might be possible as a menu of costed options, rather than precluding discussion on the basis that “we can’t afford it”. The 2018 update was written in the context of rising demand and crowding, and included changes such as the two-hour transfer and GO Transit fare integration. Unsurprisingly, it flagged key factors for both existing and potential new riders: trip duration, wait time, crowding, affordability and reliability. Fare changes can only go so far, and service quality is inherent in four of these five.

The points about hiring strategy are important because past attempts to implement service improvements were hamstrung by “we have no staff”. Establishing priorities well before the budget is finalized can reduce lead times to expand service. (A related change in the 2025 Operating Budget speaks to the need for an improved recruitment process within the TTC.)

Motion by Chair Myers

TTC Staff conduct public consultations and develop a Ridership Growth Strategy 2.0, building upon the Ridership Growth Strategy 2018-2022 and report back to the Board in July 2025;

TTC staff develop a hiring strategy on the basis of the approved Ridership Growth Strategy 2.0 and report back to the Board by October 2025; and

TTC staff use the approved Ridership Growth Strategy 2.0 and associated hiring strategy to inform the 2026 TTC Budget process.

Targeted Service Improvements

The TTC plans service improvements on the three subway lines, and on selected bus and streetcar routes, as well as efforts to improve reliability reducing bunches and gaps on some routes.

For comparison, here is the summary of subway service in January 2025.

Here are the summaries for routes 505, 506 and 512.

Reducing the Unfunded Backlog

With the announcement of funding for 55 new subway trains, plus other money coming the TTC’s way notably from Provincial assumption of Gardiner/DVP expressway costs, several major lines totalling $5.1 billion are now “funded”. However, this is partly offset by new items including surface and subway infrastructure, and added requirements for the City’s Net Zero plan.

During the meeting, we learned that the federal subway car funding is not yet a signed deal. Whether this will be locked down before an election is called remains to be seen.

The TTC is still deep in the woods on long term funding. The charts on the right below show how available funding has been allocated. Note that monies repurposed for the Gardiner Expressway rebuild run out in the early 2030s when that program would have ended. On an ongoing basis, the upload does not have as significant effect as in the early years.

eBus procurement faces a challenge because there is no guarantee that special incentives to purchase electric buses and charging infrastructure will continue indefinitely. It is far too soon to bank on operating savings to offset extra costs including both capital (buses and infrastructure) and operating (extra dead mileage/hours for vehicle charging).

Fare Capping

Several people made deputations to the Board with a common theme that the TTC should implement fare capping. The premise is that instead of pre-paid monthly passes, there would be a cap on the number of fares charged. Once a rider hit that limit, travel would be free.

This is similar to the system already in place on GO Transit for Adult Presto users who travel free after 40 trips. It does not apply to those like students and seniors who already receive a deep discount.

With capping, a rider does not have to commit to the full cost of a pass at the start of each month, but would automatically receive the benefit if their travel reached a threshhold. The same scheme could also be applied on a weekly or even daily basis, although the two-hour transfer already provides some benefit to riders taking many trips. (The question of extending the two-hour window to three hours was also raised by some deputants.)

Fare policies generally are discussed in the TTC 5-Year Fare Policy and 10-Year Fare Collection Outlook. Activity on this has been quiet in recent years, but it is an obvious topic for engagement by the Strategic Planning Committee.

Fare Evasion

Fare evasion is a constant issue at Board meetings, but the discussion is often clouded by inadequate data and by varying attitudes to fare enforcement. The number $140-million comes up regularly as the revenue lost to evasion, and Board members routinely hope that this can somehow be recovered to aid in funding the system.

The Operating Budget contains a provision for increased enforcement and an anticipated return in added fare revenue.

To support the implementation of a Fare Compliance Strategy, $2.6 million is recommended to fund 69 new positions. This is comprised of 56 fare inspection staff deployed in the bus network with the support of 10 Special Constables and 3 program staff to monitor and manage the program, integrate the Fare Compliance program’s actions and track, analyze and report on the program’s results. The investment in fare compliance is expected to generate $12 million in recovered fare revenue in 2025, with $7.5 million being allocated to offset this program’s cost and contribute to funding new priority action investments while alleviating a $4.5 million base revenue pressure from an emerging seasonality trend.

Unscrambling the figures in that paragraph:

• $12 million in new revenue will be generated
• Of this:
  • $2.6 million will go to the cost of staffing new positions
  • $4.5 million will offset an anticipated change in ridership levels in fall 2025 vs fall 2024
  • $4.9 million will fund other priorities including service improvements

Note that these will be part-year costs and revenues because the fare compliance program will not staff up immediately. It is not clear how the TTC will measure the change in fare revenue from this program as opposed to general growth across the system, or what cuts it will make if the $12-million target is not achieved.

A fundamental issue here is that recouping the “lost” revenue from evasion will never achieve 100% recovery. Staff to ensure compliance cost money. Some evaders will never be caught simply because it is impossible to monitor everyone. How much of the $140 million will reappear in TTC coffers remains to be seen. Linking service improvements to revenue recovery risks the possibility that hoped-for service will not appear.

Reduced Speed Zones: Status and Mythology

The question of eliminating Reduced Speed Zones (aka “RSZs”) came up as it has at past Board meetings. Management repeated a line they have used several times about how they only have 90 minutes nightly to make repairs, and that they have already reached their target of no more than 12 RSZs.

There is no other way to say this: that is flatly not true. TTC routinely takes longer “possessions”, as they are called, of sections of routes for major repairs. Work over the coming two weeks has already been announced by the TTC. Indeed, this practice was advocated by management years ago to the Board as the only way critical repairs could be made on a timely basis.

A further piece of creative writing is that trains travel slowly through affected areas to extend the life of the track. No. They do so for safety so that they do not derail. If slow operation were a way to extend track life, we would all be walking faster than the subway trains. What is “extended” is the length of time management try to get away with failure to make timely repairs.

The issue is not just the number of slow zones, but how promptly they are addressed. The TTC still has long-standing RSZs, and this has an ongoing effect on service for Line 1 in particular. It is difficult to expect better, more frequent service with new trains and Automatic Train Control if the TTC cannot keep track in good condition.

A related problem is the availability of specialized work cars needed to perform these repairs. Improved reliability of subway work cars is a line item in the Operating Budget, and riders deserve to know when this will show up in elimination of slow orders across the system.

By contrast, the Boston system (MBTA) has just achieved a zero slow zones status after a Herculean effort to attack hundreds of problems across their system. The Boston system is much older than the TTC’s – the earliest part of what is now called the Green Line opened in 1897, the oldest subway in North America. It has always operated with streetcars. The Boston system is about 50% larger than Toronto’s with a variety of operations in tunnel, at grade, on elevated, and in street-level rights-of-way.

Using Toronto’s metric, proportionately, they would aim for about 18 slow zones at any time. They have achieved zero and intend to stay there with only short periods to address problems on an urgent basis.

Toronto (TTC)		Boston (MBTA)
Line 1	38.4km	Green	43.0km
Line 2	26.2km	Red	36.2km
Line 4	5.5km	Blue	9.7km
		Orange	18.0km
Total	70.1km	Total	106.9km

Expecting a steady state of 12 RSZs is the sort of half-baked goal that allowed the TTC to underperform for years. Toronto deserves honesty from TTC management, not continued excuses and misinformation about what can be achieved.

• Mass Transit Magazine: The MBTA is slow zone free. How much faster are trains running?
• MBTA Performance Metrics: Speed Restrictions

Vehicle Hours and Mileage: Measuring the Quantity of Service

The metric routinely cited by the TTC in discussing the return to the pre-pandemic service level is vehicle hours. However, this value does not provide a valid comparison.

The Operating Budget presentation gives a clear illustration of how vehicle hours and actual service diverge over time. The chart below shows bus hours in black, and bus kilometres in grey with the resulting operating speed in red. Since 2013 (the base used here), the speed has been declining and is now only 86.2% of the 2013 value. The slower the buses, the fewer trips they can make per hour, and hence the less service. Moreover, new or extended routes can increase mileage and hours on the system which is a separate change from better or restored service on existing routes.

See the article linked below for a comparison of actual service levels on each route by time of day.

• The Mythology of Service Recovery – November 2024 Update

In 2025, the amount of service hours will increase by 5.8%, but only 2.2% of this is for improved service. The rest goes to adjusting to changing operating environments, and the opening of new LRT Lines 5 and 6. Comparing vehicle hours in 2025 to the value in 2019 is misleading because the two networks and the environments in which they operate are different.