TTCriders opposes five-cent fare hike on City TV News

TTCriders spoke out in opposition to the TTC’s proposed five cent hike to fares last Thursday September 27th on City TV News. The TTC approved by the budget and the five cent hike in fares later that day at the TTC board meeting.  The proposed fare hike, however, is not a done deal.  The TTC budget will also need to be approved by all city councillors at a future date.

TAKE ACTION

• Dial 311 and tell your city councillor you’re opposed to the five cent fare hike.

FIND OUT MORE

• Read our press release “Transit User Group, TTCriders, Opposes Five Cent Fare Increase”

• View the TV interview, and read the news article below.

“TTC considering 5-cent fare hike: Stintz”

Contracting out cleaning jobs and a five-cent fare hike will be among the items discussed at a TTC meeting on Thursday.

The transit union has threatened to take action, possibly a work-to-rule campaign, if the jobs are privatized.

“We are most definitely going to react,” Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 president Bob Kinnear said.

“We’ve heard very clearly from our membership, all 10,000 of them, that we are supportive of each other. We are going to support each group in whatever endeavour that we move forward with.”

CityNews’ Cynthia Mulligan is tweeting from the meeting.

The commission wants to outsource 159 bus cleaning jobs in an effort to save money. The TTC claims the move would save it $500,000 in the first year and wouldn’t result in job losses.

“[TTC chair Karen] Stintz keeps conveying the message that they’ve got to contain costs,” Kinnear said Wednesday.

“I’d like to know where her concern with containing costs was last month at the commission meeting when [CEO] Mr. Andy Byford made a recommendation to the commissioners that they endorse [a wage increase for management.]”

ATU members held a protest on Tuesday outside TTC headquarters at Yonge Street and Davisville Avenue in an effort, the union says, to preserve decent-paying jobs.

A proposed five-cent fare hike will also be discussed at the meeting. The commission is trying to reduce $30 million worth of red ink on the books for the 2013 $1.4 billion budget. The fare hike would generate about $18 million.

Kinnear claims that money nearly equals a management pay increase discussed last month.

The transit advocacy group TTCriders slammed the proposed hike.

“The TTC Commission should be doing what’s best for all Torontonians.  Raising fares by some $30 a year doesn’t help anybody, especially our most economically vulnerable,” spokesperson Jessica Bell said in a statement.

The bulk of the fare is paid by riders, not the municipal, provincial or federal governments. Bell argued that this must change.

“More funding for public transit must come from other sources,” Bell said.

TTCriders is calling on the three levels of governments to invest more in transit, so users will pay less.