Fares & Fare Collection

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Metropass Turns 30

Saturday, May 1, 2010 brings the 30th birthday of the Metropass.

Back in the dark ages when creative cheating on one’s transfer produced roughly the same effect as a ride-at-will pass, TTC management said a pass would simply not work in Toronto.  Over the years, they have trotted that story out for a lot of things, sadly, and the record is wearing out.  (It would have been a record, probably a wind-up grammaphone knowing the TTC back in those days.)

Then a strange thing happened.  Hamilton, little often-ignored Hamilton down at the end of the lake, got a monthly pass.  If it could work there, why not in Toronto?

Metropasses now account for over half of the rides taken by adult customers on the TTC.  With some luck we may see a shift to some form of smart card (that’s an article in its own right) and a much more flexible fare system on the TTC sometime this decade.

On Saturday, go have a coffee and a small pastry of your choice with a little candle, and sing Happy Birthday to your Metropass!

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Electronic Fare Collection: Lessons From New York

The TTC will present an information session on Open Payment systems:

Thursday, April 15, 2010
6:30 to 9:30 pm
Committee Room 1, Toronto City Hall

Here is the meeting description:

Open payment is an exciting breakthrough in fare collection. Instead of using a traditional farecard, it allows transit riders to use their credit or debit cards – even cell phones – at the turnstile or farebox. A prepaid card will also be available for children and others who choose not to use their personal cards.

By using the same technology as every bank, business and retailer, transit operators can be assured that their fare systems will have the highest level of security and will never be obsolete. Visitors from across Canada and around the world will be able to tap and go without having to figure out how to buy a fare.

The TTC is a full participant in the Presto farecard project and continues to work with the provincial agency to identify funding to bring farecards to Toronto. By proceeding with open payment in parallel with Presto’s traditional farecard the TTC is leading a revolution on how riders experience public transit.

Come to an information session on open payments led by Paul Korczak, former Chair of the Transportation Council of the Smart Card Alliance, a current member of the Near Field Communications Academy, and is actively involved in peer reviews and public forums on transit fare payments around the world.

With all the discussion of Smart Cards, this will bring a much-needed update on the evolution of payment technology to Toronto.

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Service Changes Effective May 9, 2010

Construction diversions on several routes will begin or continue in May.

504 King and 508 Lake Shore: 

King cars will continue turning back at Roncesvalles and Queen, but will reach there via Shaw and Queen Streets.  Watermain construction which last year caused Roncesvalles to be torn up last year moves to King between Ronces and Jameson.

The 504 shuttle bus will be rerouted and extended to run between Shaw and Dundas West Station bothways via Roncesvalles looping via Strachan, Douro and Shaw.

No date has been set yet for resumption of streetcar service on Roncesvalles, but this is expected to be in the late fall.  The diversion via Queen and Shaw is expected to last to the end of August 2010.

502 Downtowner and 503 Kingston Road Tripper

The reconstruction of Bingham Loop, deferred from 2009, will occur this summer.  Buses will replace streetcars over both routes until mid-August.

Replacement bus services will loop via Victoria Park, Meadow and Blantyre to Kingston Road.  The peak service on both routes will be improved from 7’30” to 6’00”, but offpeak service on the 502 will remain at 20′.

22 Coxwell and 70 O’Connor

Reconstruction of the bus loop at Coxwell station requires the removal of all bus service.  Routes 22 and 70 will interline, and all of the “O’Connor” service will run through to Queen or to Victoria Park depending on the time of day.

Existing interlines between the O’Connor, Gerrard and McCowan routes will be discontinued during this period.

72 Pape

Construction at Pape Station requires that the Pape bus be rerouted to loop at Donlands Station.  Passengers transferring to this route from the subway at Pape will do so using on street stops.  This diversion will last until the end of 2010.

The seasonal extension to Cherry Beach will operate during the evenings Monday to Friday, and all day on weekends and holidays.  This will run until Labour Day.

512 St. Clair

The mixed streetcar and bus operation on St. Clair is expected to last until the latter part of June 2010 at which point the TTC hopes to restore streetcar service to Gunn’s Loop.

509 Harbourfront and 510 Spadina

The seasonal fare collection scheme on Queen’s Quay will be in effect until Labour Day.  No fares will be collected eastbound on Queen’s Quay between Bathurst and Union Station on weekends after 3 pm, and there will be collectors stationed in the tunnel linking the Union Station Loop to the subway.

One PCC car will operate on the Harbourfront route on Sundays until September 5, 2010 between 1130 and 1930.  This will run as an extra, and will be subject to availability of both a car and an operator.

Seasonal Route Extensions

  • 72 Pape to Cherry Beach (see above)
  • 28 Davisville to the Brick Works
  • 29 Dufferin to Ontario Place (service south of Dufferin Loop will be split between the 29B Ontario Place and 29D Princes Gate branches)
  • 86 Scarborough to the Zoo
  • 85 Sheppard East to the Zoo
  • 510 Spadina King short turn extended to Queen’s Quay on weekends
  • 165 Weston Road North to Wonderland

Other Route Changes

  • 25 Don Mills service north of Steeles removed (York Region request)
  • 29 Dufferin trial service in Exhibition Place rerouted to operate via Manitoba Drive, Canada Drive, Princes’ Blvd., Nunavut Rd., and Nova Scotia Ave to Manitoba Drive.
  • 224 Victoria Park North service extended to Elgin Mills (York Region request)
  • 96B Wilson route changed via Claireville Drive
  • 96C Wilson service removed from Thistledown Blvd. early mornings and late evenings

Service Level Changes

Many route have new schedules starting on May 9 primarily for seasonal changes in demand.  The details are in a spreadsheet linked below.

2010.05 Service Changes

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Found Millions

Toronto’s media are abuzz with news and criticism of the City’s discovery that the 2009 operating budget surplus was $100-million higher than previously expected.

This all began with a media advisory Tuesday night that there would be an important announcement the following morning.  Don’t be left out in the dark.  Get there early with your cameras for the best position!  The next twelve hours brought rampant speculation about Mayor Miller resigning to take a job elsewhere, about a reversal of his decision not to stand for a third term, or just about anything else the pundits could spin to fill air time, print columns or websites.

The announcement was an anti-climax after the buildup.  Commentary switched to “why didn’t you know sooner” and variations on how the Miller crew had been misleading the public about the severity of Toronto’s financial position.  Lost in all of this chest-beating was the fact that this surplus is a windfall, a one-time benefit of circumstances coming out better in 2009 than expected.  Many of the savings that produced the surplus have already been factored into the 2010 budget, and we cannot expect a repeat performance — a $350-million surplus overall — in future years.

That’s where the TTC comes in.  For 2010, the City will provide all of its operating subsidy, roughly $440-million, and not a penny will come from Queen’s Park.  The total operating budget is about $1.4-billion, and if it rises as projected by 5% or so in 2011 (through a combination of wage and service increases), this will add $70-million.  Oddly enough, this is almost exactly the amount of the proposed tax stabilization reserve that would carry forward into 2011.

Mayor Miller claims that we could see a 2011 with no fare increase, a 3% property tax jump and a balanced budget.  The kicker is that he assumes he will be able to conclude an agreement with Queen’s Park for the resumption of shared operating subsidies in 2011.  The response was predictable given that this is an “ask” of about $250-million for 2011 before the province has even published its budget for 2010.  I was rather surprised that Miller spoke as if this were a done deal when, if we are to believe Queen’s Park, it is at best still under discussion, and the question of a partial or complete TTC takeover by Metrolinx is still bouncing around the rumour mill.

Regardless of whether the province steps in with operating subsidies, my position on this situation is quite clear.

First, we should not prejudge the use of surplus money from 2009 in the 2011 budget.  Over and over politicians and advocates who support transit speak of the importance of good transit service.  Fare freezes make good pre-election sound bites, but they don’t address the issue of providing better transit service.

Second, this is one-time money, not an ongoing revenue source.  If we use $70-million to freeze fares in 2011, that amount will have to be found anew in 2012 in addition to another $70-million to handle that year’s cost increases.  That’s a prime recipe for big jumps in fares and cutbacks in service, especially if the City is governed by a less transit-supportive Council and Queen’s Park hasn’t stepped in to help out with TTC costs.

Yes, there may be ways to increase the effectiveness of transit spending.  I don’t want to get into a big debate here about everything from wage controls to outsourcing or breaking up the TTC.  These are, to an extent, red herrings in the long term because they will at best achieve a temporary drop in cost pressures.  Eventually, costs will reach a new plateau from which they will grow and we will be back to the same debates about fares, subsidies and service levels. 

We should have these debates, if only to satisfy ourselves of the validity (or not) of alternative ways to provide transit in Toronto, but the long term issue of rising transit costs will not go away, particularly if we expect large-scale increase in transit use throughout the GTA.  The underlying policy issue, however, is what we expect our transit network to accomplish, and what the failure to improve transit’s market share means for the future of the region.

Meanwhile, Toronto must concentrate on maintaining and improving the attractiveness of transit, and anything that artificially hides the ongoing increase in costs simply threatens transit in future years when the increases must be faced.  The 2009 surplus should be seen for what it is, a one-time benefit to a city that tightened its belt and came through the year in better shape than expected.  Toronto should not prejudge transit policies for 2011 and beyond based on a one year windfall and an as-yet unseen provincial funding agreement.

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GO Transit To Raise and Standardize Fares (Updated)

Updated February 22 at 4:00 pm

As expected, the Metrolinx Board approved the proposed increase in GO Transit fares at its recent meeting.  The contrast with the debates about TTC budgets and fares was quite striking.  The greatest potential for discord came with the presentation of an anti-increase petition.

The bottom line for this increase is “to ensure fiscal responsibility and meet the needs of a growing market of commuters” (presentation to the Board, page 2).  That’s shorthand for keeping the subsidy requirement under control, paying for the operations we have now and giving us some headroom to do more.

GO customers are, after all, from a very different market than the TTC.  Their median family income is $100k, they live well outside the core, and auto travel is already an established part of their lifestyle.  85% are fully employed, 9% are students and 1% are seniors.  They are travelling on GO overwhelmingly by choice and good service, in all aspects, matters.

40% of GO riders use monthly passes and another 40% use 10-trip tickets.  This is not unlike the TTC where the monthly pass accounts for over half of the adult trips, and a large majority of those remaining use token fares.

The purpose of the fare increase was to raise revenue by $14.6m in fiscal 2010.  Provincial subsidy will also jump for 2010 from $52.6m to $72.1m, but over half of this changes adjusts for one-time revenue in 2009/10 that allowed for a lower subsidy in that year.  GO’s total operating budget is $386.7m, and they expect to carry 56m rides.

By comparison, the TTC’s fare increase is project to raise somewhere between $36m and $50m depending on which figures you believe.  In 2010, the City will carry the entire $430m TTC subsidy while Queen’s Park spends its way through this budget cycle propping up Ontario’s economy.  The TTC’s proposed total operating budget is $1.37b, and they expect to carry 462m rides.

GO’s workforce, including contract staff, is 1,938.  The TTC’s proposed “conventional system” workforce for 2010 (as discussed in another thread), excluding contractors, is 10,491.  This number omits Wheel Trans, Capital Projects and Toronto Coach Terminal.

The TTC’s budget is only 3.5 times GO’s, but there are far more staff (5.4:1) and riders (8.2:1).  The subsidy per rider on GO is $1.29.  On the TTC it is about $0.93.

Earlier, I mentioned the potential for discord at the Metrolinx meeting.  The protocols for these meetings accept the public’s presence only grudgingly, unlike meetings for municipal agencies such as the TTC where in camera discussions are allowed on only a handful of grounds.  There are no deputations at Metrolinx, unlike the City of Toronto where a long history of public involvement would be impossible to silence.

The Directors, with few exceptions, ask no questions in the public session, and everything has clearly been worked out beforehand.  They’re just one big happy family.

Alas, thanks to an email slip-up, Metrolinx’ attitude slipped into view.  An internal email from Rob Prichard, Metrolinx CEO, was cc:ed to the petion’s originator in error.  From this, the clear intent was to give the petition as little exposure at the meeting as possible and assume that the Board would ignore it.  They did.

The original article from February 12 follows the break.

Continue reading →

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How To Raise Fares 11% and Make Almost Nothing At All

At the recent TTC meeting, the Operating Budget for 2010 was up for review, not that there were many questions in the public session.  All of the heavy lifting took place, no doubt, in private session and in other discussions leading up to the final version.  (The information in the linked report does not exactly match the material presented at the meeting, and that presentation is not available online.)

I will review the budget and the sources of increased costs for 2010 in a separate article, but the fare increase deserves special mention.  TTC staff have a bad habit of stating almost everything relative to something else, and this makes reference to a zero base tricky.  Money shuffles around rather like a game of Three Card Monte, and only if you’re very good, can you find the lucky card. Continue reading →

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What Should We Do About Fares (3)

Last week, the TTC approved new fares to take effect January 3, 2010.  This scheme represents roughly an 11% increase for adult tokens with proportionate increases in other fares.

Oddly enough, the projected increase in revenue is well under 11% thanks to the estimated loss of riders due to such a big jump in fares.  The idea of a freeze last year may have seemed good at the time (going into a recession), but the consequences of having two years’ worth of increase at one time is the downside.

The Commission overrode staff’s recommended fare scheme and held the Metropass multiple at the same level as in 2009 so that it would rise to $121 rather than $126 (to $111 instead of $116 for subscribers).  In a major new policy, the Commission, reacting to a large and well co-ordinated campaign, removed the age limit for student passes and extended them to post-secondary students effective September 2010.  This will save them $22 off of a regular Metropass.

The Commission also agreed to pursue a target of 60% farebox recovery to bring Toronto’s system to a level closer to other Canadian systems.  What remains to be decided is how that 60% level would be achieved.

Fare policy should never be made in the heat of a budget debate, but nobody seems to want to discuss the issues at any other time.  This brings gains, if any, to the squeakiest wheels, not necessarily the most deserving.

I expect all sorts of ill-will to come my way for saying this, but we hear a lot about the effect of transit fares on “the poor”, whoever they may be today.  Are students “poor”?  In past fare debates, they have been painted by advocates for welfare recipients and the working poor as coddled members of a class who could look forward to substantial incomes.  Yes, some students come from backgrounds of limited means, but does this entitle them to fare discounts?

The poor, those for whom budgeting consists of day-to-day decisions about what they can spend, choose not to buy passes because this would represent a single large outlay and because they are unsure of actually needing a pass for the entire month.  The sad fact is that “the poor” tend to pay single fares, or at best token fares, because that’s what their cash flow permits.

Taking the farebox recovery to 60% is presumed by many to mean “freeze the fares”, but that’s both shortsighted and not necessarily the best policy.  The TTC budget for 2009 was roughly $1.3-billion, and a 10% reduction in fare recoveries represents $130-million of new “expense”.

  • The reduction might be achieved by running more service, changing the standards so that buses and streetcars ran more frequently with more empty space (even seats!).
  • It might be achieved by changing the fare structure.
    • The TTC has already priced the implementation of a time-limited fare (unlimited riding for one fare for two hours) at about $15-million annually.
    • Over a decade ago, the cost of senior/student fares relative to adults was bumped in a revenue grab to stave off a larger adult fare increase.  Should this be reversed?  All in one go, or over a few years?  How much would it cost?
  • As a fare freeze, that might last two years, after which we would be back into a debate about a fare increase at least at the level of inflation.

Better service benefits everyone not just by making the system attractive and improving its political base (without which better subsidies are unlikely), but also by reducing the time wasted by riders trying to get from “A” to “B”.  The time spent waiting for a bus or streetcar to show up can be a significant part of someone’s trip, and unreliability further extends the period a rider must allow for the “routine” delays that may occur. 

Time-limited fares would simplify the entire transfer mechanism (establishing a clear yes/no test for transfer validity), but would also act as a limited-time pass giving people who must make a number of linked, short trips the ability to travel without paying many fares.  (Yes, there are day passes, but they’re not always available when and where you need them, and four fares may be more than you want to pay.)

Adjusting the ratio of senior/student fares to adults would improve the lot, financially, of a group that were treated in the past as cash cows, a captive market that would bear any increase.  There will always be fare increases eventually, but there is also a strong argument for restoring the ratio between adult and the concession fares to historic levels.

Smart cards are mentioned often, but the system should allow someone to qualify for bulk discounts (equivalent to passes) based on their usage history without having to pay for an entire week or month of transit use up front.

If the intention of that 60% target is simply to freeze fares, that’s nothing more than a call for greater subsidies without the riders putting any money into the pot, and it will do nothing to change the quality of transit (or the fare structure).  Two years from now, we will be back in exactly the same place.

If the intention is to have a full debate about how we might adjust fares and service, then that’s worthwhile.  We can talk about investing in transit, in making the system more equitable, in improving service and reliability.  Those are changes where new subsidies provide lasting results for riders, not bandaids to defer real discussion until the next budget crisis.

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What Should We Do About Fares?

In my previous article, I reviewed the TTC staff report about the proposed fare increase, but didn’t say much (except in the comment thread) about my overall view on the situation.

The most important fact about Tuesday’s TTC decision, whatever it will be, is that it will not set, once and for all, either the fare and service levels for 2010, nor general fare policy for the future.  Any attempt to do so runs directly into the limitations of the TTC’s mandate and the simple truth that neither the City nor Queen’s Park have clearly stated how much the TTC might get in operating subsidies for 2010.

For next Tuesday, as I have said many times, I support the proposed 25-cent token fare increase with all other fares rising proportionately.  The attempt to grab $5 extra a month from Metropass holders is an unfair, precipitous action brought forward by TTC staff who have always fought against making the pass “the better way” to travel.  That the scheme was announced by a press release rather than by a formal proposal from the Commission itself raises serious questions about who is setting policy at the TTC.

If the Commission adopts this fare scheme, the TTC will still be about $50-million in the hole going into the 2010 budget process.  At this point we have no idea what sort of tradeoffs this might entail, and the Commission is asked to implement a fare change without all the facts on the table.

As I mentioned in my previous article, TTC staff claim that the system’s costs will rise by 7% per annum for the foreseeable future, but they do not quantify the source of this magnitude of change.  Some factors listed in the staff report are non-recurring or have a limited effect on future budgets.

Next Tuesday, as we always see when fare increases are on the table, there will be many groups calling for various changes in fare structures ranging from a complete freeze to new discounts for certain groups of riders.  I believe that the Commission, and by extension the City, should not be making fare policy on the fly.  We are all badly served by “debate” that is inevitably presented as a decision that must be taken today lest the sky fall tomorrow. Continue reading →

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TTC Budget Report: Raise the Fares

The TTC staff report recommending a fare increase is now available on the TTC’s website.  This will be formally considered at the Commission meeting on November 17, but of course this subject has already been discussed at length in the media and on blogs.

The new price for adult tokens will be $2.50, up 25 cents, with all other fares increased roughly pro-rata.  The one exception is the Metropass for which the proposed fare multiple (the ratio between the pass price and the token price) would be bumped by the equivalent of two fares.  This places the burden of the fare increase disproportionately on the Metropass users.

The TTC projects essentially flat ridership and service for 2010 relative to 2009.  Projected riding is 473-million, up only 2-million over the likely 2009 level.  Other than the full-year effect of service changes added during 2009, no major service improvements are planned for 2010.

A particularly striking comment in the report is that TTC costs are expected to rise next year by 7% and to continue rising at that rate for the foreseeable future.  A number of factors are cited, but they don’t all make sense over an extended period.

  • Labour costs.  The TTC is committed to wage increases at the currently contracted levels, but unless there is a major change in economic circumstances, the next round of bargaining will almost certainly result in a lower rate of increase.
  • Energy costs.  It is unclear whether all of the TTC’s energy costs (diesel fuel, electric power) will rise at greater than the rate of inflation and if so, by how much.
  • General inflation.  Since labour and energy are already out of the mix, this only affects costs such as materials.
  • Annualized service increases.  This affects only 2009.
  • Low floor bus adjustments.  By the end of 2009, high-floor buses are planned to be less than 10% of the bus fleet, and by 2013, last of them will be retired.  The capacity adjustment for changing to low-floor buses will be completely worked into the system substantially in 2010 when 58 of the remaining 100 “New Look”s are retired.
  • Construction and congestion adjustments.  Some additional construction effects can be expected as programs such as watermain replacement ramp up, but this will hit a new plateau at some point.
  • Increased vehicle and facility maintenance requirements.  I can understand better facility maintenance (although stations are covered in a separate bullet), but if anything the vehicle maintenance costs should start to drop with the implementation of large new fleets of vehicles in all modes.

If we are looking at a sustained 7% growth in the TTC’s operating budget, even without service improvements, the underlying reasons must be clearly understood.  This has very serious implications for transit funding, service and fares in the coming decade. Continue reading →