FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Essential workers: “Invest in TTC service and masks”
December 17 2020 (Toronto, ON) -- On the morning of the 2021 TTC budget launch, essential workers called on the TTC to address crowding and ensure that face masks are being used.
“Essential workers like me depend on public transit to get to work,” said Malinda Francis, a personal support worker. “We need more buses across the city to ensure that riders are distanced on the TTC, equalized across the city. If there needs to be 100 more buses on certain bus lines then let’s make it happen.”
TTCriders, a membership group of transit users, called on Premier Ford and Prime Minister Trudeau to invest in permanent transit operating funding. The 2021 TTC budget projects lower ridership and hundreds of millions in budget shortfalls into 2022 and 2023.
“Essential workers are paying the price of decades of underfunding,” said TTCriders spokesperson Vincent Puhakka. “Premier Ford and Prime Minister Trudeau must invest now in permanent public transit support.”
“Communities that are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 are also those who rely on the use of transit. We need an increase in services to support physical distancing. We also need better public health communication campaigns to support masking and for those who need it access to mask to travel safely,” said Surkhab Peerzada, Regional Manager of Chronic Disease, South Riverdale Community Health Centre.
“Early childhood educators and families can't keep each other safe if our transit system is putting us at risk, which for many is the only means of getting to and from child care and work. We need more transit service, especially in communities where people are already disproportionately impacted by COVID,” said Abigail Doris of the Toronto Coalition for Better Childcare.
The TTC plans to provide 303,000 fewer service hours in 2021 than planned for 2020. Fares will be frozen in 2021, the second freeze in the last ten years, but full funding for the low income Fair Pass is not committed. The TTC Board will vote on the 2021 budget on December 21, 2020. Transit users will depute at the meeting to urge investment in service and face masks.