Protesters at city hall demand more money for TTC from city, province

Thank you to Rahul from Inside Toronto for writing this article about our rally today at City Hall calling for more funding to the TTC.

Protesters at city hall demand more money for TTC from city, province

Group wants $700 million from province to keep in line with transit subsidies across Canada

A group of boisterous demonstrators gathered outside Toronto City Hall Wednesday afternoon to demand better transit funding for the TTC.

Chanting “cut fares, not service”, many of the demonstrators held placards with slogans like “2014, the year of the rider revolt” and “This train ain’t gravy” while blowing into noisemakers and banging on tambourines.

With attentions focused on budget deliberations taking place inside at city council, the protesters, made up of various non-profit groups organized by TTCriders the city’s largest transit advocacy group, called for more financial support not just from the city but the province as well.

“These people are here because they care,” said rally co-organizer Jessica Bell.

“They’ve got to make tough choices between paying for food or getting on the TTC, and they’re sick of it.”

The group of approximately 75 demanded city council provide the TTC with an additional $70-million to fund its operating expenses for 2014.

They also called for the province to resume subsidizing the transit commission to the tune of $700 million which would translate to a 45 per cent increase in service levels.

Bell said pressuring the province for more operating funds was a reasonable request.

“We are only asking for what we feel is a fair deal for Toronto, because even if we got the $700 million we’re asking for, the TTC would have the average amount of subsidy for public transit systems across Canada,” said Bell.

“If we got as much as Vancouver got, we’d get another $1.5 billion per year, and we’re asking for half of that. We think we’re asking for a reasonable amount.”

Protester Laurel Rothman, representing the non-profit agency Family Service Toronto, said transit is an essential service, and said it was time for the city, and not riders, to pay its fare share.

“Toronto expects its transit riders to pay a larger share of the costs than anywhere in North America, and that’s ridiculous. We need better, and that’s what this push is all about,” said Rothman.

No city councillors were seen at the rally, which lasted a little more than 30 minutes.

However, TTC CEO Andy Byford braved the cold to stand in solidarity with the protesters, none of whom were officially affiliated with the transit commission.

Byford, who has called on the city to provide the TTC with an operational subsidy of $27 million for this year, said the TTC was the third busiest network in North America, but by far the least subsidized. “We can’t keep going hand to mouth, we’ve got to have sustainable funding,” said Byford.

Bell said the TTC was taking too conservative an approach to securing more city funding.

But she praised Byford’s efforts to organize a transit task force to lobby both Ottawa and Queen’s Park for long term stable funding.

“We would call the TTC an ally,” she said.

“Everything we hear from them indicates they’re going full bore to get more money from the province and Ottawa, so we think their heart’s in the right place.”  

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