Protestors dressed as sardines are seen outside city hall ahead of a march to Queen's Park to protest cramped transit conditions in Toronto on Monday, May 5, 2014. (CP24/Arda Zakarian)[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
TTCriders released a transit voters’ guide yesterday that shows the provincial political parties are failing to improve TTC service and lower fares.
The Vote Transit guide reveals that no party has committed to regularly contribute fair funding of $700 million a year to the TTC so riders get more service and lower fares. Only the Liberal Party is presenting a specific and credible plan to expand public transit. Only the NDP has said it will not privatize the TTC.
Omni TV news covered our rally where we gave MPP Glen Murray an award for failing to properly fund the TTC. We gave the award to the Liberal Government because they have failed to give fair funding to the TTC even though they have had the power to do so. This video shows the visuals!
About 100 protestors, some of them dressed as sardines, rode the subway from Queen’s Park to Transportation Minister Glen Murray’s Parliament Street constituency office Friday to present him with TTCriders’ first annual Sardine Award.
As the city begins to emerge from winter’s fierce grasp, the merits of making buses and streetcars free on the TTC’s overnight Blue Line service during Cold Alerts seem especially clear.
City services provided during Cold Alerts to those who are homeless reflect a vision of Toronto as a caring community: Warming Centres, street outreach to bring more people into city shelters, and health care for those who get frostbite and hypothermia. It only makes sense for the city to also provide free transit at night to make it much easier for those on the street to get to a warm place to sleep.
The new more accessible longer more reliable street cars are great, but did you know there will be less street cars overall on downtown lines once these new street cars are up and running? That means we'll be waiting even longer for our ride.
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Jane-Finch residents have a lot to say about the transit needs in their communities[/caption]
Last month TTCriders, the United Way Jane-Finch Action for Neighbourhood Change committee and the Toronto Environmental Alliance met at the North York Civic Centre to discuss how residents of Jane and Finch and surrounding neighbourhoods feel about public transit. We decided that the best way to engage Jane and Finch residents was to host an information session to explain a little bit about the history around public transit in Toronto and how it relates to present and future transit service. Our goal was to use this information session as a starting point to have a dialogue with the community about what we as citizens can do to shape the future of public transit in Toronto.
TTCriders will be hosting an information session next Friday March 14th from 10:00am-noon at Brookview Middleschool 4505 Jane St. north of Jane and Finch.
There will be a presentation and discussion period followed by more fun activities. You guessed it: bring your whole family as there will be colouring books for the kids!
