- Kingsley Kwok of Scarborough Transit Action, who repped the #TTCwoes of Scarborough residents.
- Nour Alideeb from Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario, who told us that cutting the Volume Incentive Program will impact students.
- Jane Rowan of the Toronto Seniors’ Forum, who spoke about the need for accessibility for seniors.
- Tony Bolla of Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas and Regal Heights Village BIA and John Keating of the Regal Road Community Association, who joined us to call for 2-hour fare transfers.
To cap it all off, we made a stop at the Executive Committee meeting to serenade John Tory and other councillors with a rendition of the “Woes on the Bus,” before heading into the TTC Board meeting to make deputations. You can read the lyrics
here.
The TTC budget process has just begun, and will be in play until February 2018. Stay tuned for next steps that we're going to make sure the TTC's 2018 budget works for riders, as well as news about the Fair Fare Pass. Details about the Fair Pass are expected to come out this Thursday, November 30 with the release of the City budget.
Keep reading for our take on today’s Board meeting and see the pictures below.
What happened in the TTC Board meeting?
A two-hour fare policy was approved by the TTC Board today, and the Board is asking that it be rolled as soon as possible. Two-hour fares has been a long time coming and this is great news for transit riders and businesses in Toronto. Now we need to get on with it. Why will it take Metrolinx nine months and 5 million dollars to implement time-based transfers when they are used in all other transit agencies in the GTHA?
The operating budget will not improve service and tackle the overcrowding of one quarter of TTC surface routes, although the TTC Board passed a motion to direct the TTC to adhere to its own loading standards and to report on the numbers quarterly. But TTCriders argues that without funding for improved service, the motion will fail to make a difference for riders in 2018.
We need better service to fix overcrowding, unreliable service, and long wait times. We are disappointed that this operating budget fails to improve service. If John Tory wants to keep his promise to fix transit, we need more funding for the TTC.
There is no funding in the budget for the TTC’s Ridership Growth Strategy, a long overdue and much-needed plan to tackle the TTC’s dropping ridership problem with incentives like more express bus service. The RGS was delayed until 2018.
City Council is scheduled to vote on the 2018 city operating budget in February.
