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Riding out the storm

The TTC needs rescuing.

News of another fare increase, the second in three years, is making the financial argument for public transit advocates more difficult to justify.

Check the commuter cost calculator on the TTC’s website.

Even with gas again hovering at a buck a litre, it’s cheaper for many to take the old clunker to work than it is to spend $109 a month on a regular adult Metropass ($126 under the proposed fare increase).

Yes. If you add the cost of parking downtown to the equation (and auto insurance and maintenance and repairs), driving gets more expensive.

But the reality is that they’re costs that most motorists are willing to bear. For many, it’s part of the cost of doing business, if not a deduction at tax time.

For those closer to jobs in the core, or not for that matter, cycling is the preferred mode of transportation over the TTC, with maybe the exception of a few months through the winter. No crowds. Fresher air. Cheaper. Better for your health.

Gotta figure that more than a few of those increasing legions of commuters on scooters and e-bikes are transit castaways.

But what about the thousands for whom there is no other choice but the TTC?

There’s the rub.

A captive ridership, they’re the ones who continue to bear the brunt, in the pocketbook and in worsening service, of financial neglect from senior levels of government.

The TTC is North America’s third largest transit system, moving about 1.5 million riders every weekday, some 471 million people per year.

Was a time when the trains ran on time and the TTC was the envy of the continent. No more. The rep has been tarnished. The nostalgia is gone. There’s no joy in the TTC experience for riders, just diesel and drudgery.

The rapid decline of the TTC began in earnest under the Harris Tories, who completely pulled the plug on provincial funding in the mid-90s.

The Libs have been better, but haven’t restored the badly-needed funding. The TTC still raises a staggering 70 per cent of its revenues from the fare box. The city’s left holding the bag.

That’s no way to run a modern transit system, at least not one that’s sustainable.

The feds have historically viewed mass transit as a local issue, and so don’t feel the need to fund its day to day operations. Curious, and none too smart, considering the importance of efficient transit to the economy of cities.

It’s time that attitude changed. Works for Europe and other jurisdictions south of the border where fares are almost half of the TTC’s.

The TTC can’t afford service cuts to make ends meet. That’ll just turn more people off transit. The province needs to restore funding to pre-Harris levels. And the feds need to start treating transit as an economic issue.

They seem willing to fund mega-billion dollar contracts for subway lines to nowhere. Of course, those tend to line the pockets of their friends in big business and capture the headlines.

Maybe the Tories should take some of that money and put it toward saving the system we got instead of expanding one that we’ll never be able to pay the costs of keeping up a decade from now. It might even win them a few votes, right?[rssbreak]

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