Stop the cuts: How to get involved

Send an email to the Mayor and City Councillors

Pack the TTC Board meeting on January 9th at 10am

It is too late to register to speak (deadline: Jan. 6th at 12pm) but you can sign up to attend in support!

Attend TTCriders’ budget training on January 12th

Sign up to speak to City Councillors on January 17 & 18 

We will make sure you get registered and can support you to help write and practice your speech to City Councillors. 

More events and actions TBA!

What is proposed in the TTC budget? 

Service cuts in peak and off-peak hours

Compared to service before the pandemic, the budget proposes a 9% cut. Service is currently at 96% of pre-pandemic levels, with a 5% additional cut proposed for 2023. 

• Subway wait times could be up to 10 minutes in “off-peak” hours. Subway service will be 6-minutes-or-better during "peak" periods. 
• Service will be less frequent and more crowded:
  • Crowding standards will increase to pre-pandemic levels during peak hours.
  • Crowding standards will increase above pre-pandemic levels during off-peak.

• For example, the off-peak “crowding standard” is planned to increase from 35 to 45 people in a bus. This will result in less frequent, more crowded buses outside rush hour, when many transit users travel with strollers and groceries and need more space.

• Cuts to off-peak service will affect shift workers, women, and low-income and racialized riders the most, who travel more outside of rush hour, according to TTC data.
  • These riders typically “make longer bus trips to destinations spread out across the city and women often trip-chain, making multiple stops during their trip.”
  • The 2023 TTC Budget says that rush hour ridership is not coming back as fast as other periods because many office workers are still working from home. 
  • Current ridership numbers: 79% of pre-COVID levels for weekend use and approximately 68% of pre-COVID levels for weekday use.

Fare increases

• A proposed increase to single fares for adults and youth will generate $16.1 million.
• Mayor Tory is asking the lowest-income Toronto residents to pay more to get to school and work, rather than raising revenue from those who can afford it.
• A single TTC fare cost $1.80 in 2002. If TTC fares had been indexed to inflation rates over the past 20 years, riders would be paying $2.74 per ride in 2022.
• TTC data shows that shift workers, women, and low-income people are the three key groups of people who have been relying on transit throughout the pandemic. This fare increase falls most heavily on them.

Fair Pass Expansion

• The TTC’s 2023 Operating Budget proposes a small expansion of the Fair Pass low income discount to 8,000-12,000 people.
  • The city’s Social Development Finance and Administration department budget briefing note states that they expect this expansion to be accessed by only ~8,000 - 12,000 people in 2023 based on low rates of Fair Pass usage during the pandemic and barriers to Fair Pass access for people who are unaware of the program or don’t use Presto. The TTC budget released on January 4, 2023 states that 50,000 people will be eligible, but the budget briefing note released publicly on January 10, 2023 clarifies that only 8,000-12,000 people will benefit this year. 
  • $2 million will fund an expansion to low income residents with a family income of 75% of the Low-Income Measure or lower (ie. an annual after-tax income of less than $19,927/single person household, according to 2020 LIM figures).
• This arbitrary expansion represents a fraction of people who are supposed to be eligible for the last phase of the Fair Pass discount, and does not cover all Toronto residents under the poverty line.  
  • The final, 3rd phase of the Fair Pass was meant to start in 2020. It was designed to expand the discount to all low-income residents with a family income below the Low-Income Measure plus 15% (ie. an annual after-tax income of less than $30,555/single person household, according to 2020 LIM figures). 
  • Updated cost estimates of expanding the Fair Pass to all eligible low-income residents including low-wage workers have not been released since 2021, but earlier estimates were between $20 million to $30 million per year.
• Increasing costs for some low-income transit users to fund a tiny discount expansion for others is wrong. This is a shell game, not a meaningful investment in affordability.  
  • To date, the Fair Pass program has been funded by the City of Toronto through the Social Development, Finance, and Administration department, not by rider fares through the TTC budget as the Mayor is proposing. 
  • The Mayor's proposed Fair Pass expansion does not cover everyone under the poverty line, which means low-income transit users are footing the bill.
• The Fair Pass discounts single fares to $2.10 and monthly passes to $123.25.
  • Low income residents depend on transit the most. 65% of Fair Pass users continued to ride the TTC in 2020, compared to 35% of overall riders, according to the Poverty Reduction Strategy mid-term strategy report.
  • The Fair Pass was first approved in 2016. City Council voted in February 2022 to "proceed with the implementation of the next phase of the Fair Pass program as quickly as possible" but did not include funding in the 2022 City Budget. 

Increased policing

• A total of $4.4 million is being spent on policing, outreach, and cleanliness measures:
  • Hiring more Special Constables will cost $2.4 million;
  • Hiring additional Streets to Homes workers will cost $1 million;
  • Additional streetcar cleaning will cost $1 million. 
• TTCriders is calling for more supportive staff presence and crisis intervention supports on the TTC, who are able to de-escalate crisis situations and provide wayfinding and accessibility services, rather than more resources for special constables and fare enforcement that disproportionately target Black and Indigenous people.
• Creating a welcoming, accessible TTC won’t be achieved by expanding policing. 

TTC subsidy and COVID-19 impacts on the budget

• Total 2023 TTC and Wheel-Trans budget is $2.237 billion in gross expenditures.
• Total City of Toronto subsidy proposed for the TTC in 2023 is $958.7 million, increased by 5.9% from 2022.
• If the subsidy is going up, why isn’t service improving? 
  • The cost of running the TTC has increased, partly due to new lines set to open (Line 5 Eglinton Crosstown LRT, Line 6 Finch West LRT), as well as other factors like the Scarborough RT closing in 2023 (Transit Expansion and Conversion in the chart pictured above).
  • Replacing the Scarborough RT with 70 buses per hour costs more than running the RT because buses have less capacity (more buses and bus operators are needed to provide the same level of service as the RT did). 
• The TTC faces a COVID-related budget shortfall of $366.4 million in 2023, comprised of: 
  • Lost passenger revenues of $328.1 million, based on a projected 2023 ridership to average 73% of pre-pandemic levels;
  • Lost ancillary revenues of $14.5 million, including lower than budgeted commuter parking, advertising and subway concession revenue; 
  • Incremental expenses of $23.8 million, including PPE, use of HEPA filtration on vehicles, hand sanitizer, etc.
• The TTC still has an outstanding 2022 budget shortfall of $125.3 million related to COVID-19 impacts.
• Estimated future anticipated impacts of COVID-19, combined with future budget increases (not including any service increases):
  • $461.0 million in additional subsidy would be required in 2024 
  • $379.0 million  in additional subsidy would be required in 2025

• Public transit is a public service that requires government funding to operate. 
• Pre-pandemic, transit user fares covered nearly 70% of the TTC operating budget, the highest “farebox recovery ratio” of any major transit system in Canada or the U.S. 
• Lower ridership during the pandemic has created major budget shortfalls for the TTC. 
  • The provincial and federal governments provided emergency COVID-19 funding during the pandemic, but their future support is uncertain.
  • TTCriders is calling on all levels of government to invest in ongoing transit operating funding so that ridership recovers and Toronto can meet our climate goals. 
  • The TTC Budget report states: “The COVID experience has clearly exposed the high dependency on the farebox as a key vulnerability that will challenge the TTC’s ability to provide safe, reliable transit service and put at risk the critical role it plays in the City and Region’s economic recovery, vitality and well-being.”
  • This is why TTCriders is pushing for new funding tools for transit, like a parking levy on big malls and commercial landlords. 

Minor service improvements

• A small amount of service ($0.7 million, or 240 weekly service hours) is being invested in “routes with a high proportion of boardings at stops serving Neighbourhood Improvement Areas.”
  • Research by John Stapleton, Yvonne Yuan, and Richard Maaranen shows that some of Toronto’s poorest neighbourhood are left out of “Neighbourhood Improvement Areas,” particularly in northern Scarborough.
• The increase in service hours will provide additional weekend afternoon service on major shopping corridors to account for capacity requirements of customers.
• The TTC is also establishing a base grid of 15-minute overnight service on the Finch Avenue, Jane Street and Wilson Avenue corridors. The budget says that these changes will “provide more frequent, 15-minute overnight bus service to more than 1,200 customers every day.”

Read more

Analysis by Steve Munro  

Link to the 2023 TTC & Wheel-Trans Operating Budget

Link to the 2023 TTC Capital Budget

Stay tuned for more analysis on Wheel-Trans service and the TTC's Capital budget.