The TTC should be free during extreme weather alerts.

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.

It also only makes sense that the city can find the funding for such a critical need. We know that the city actually saved money on transit in 2012 by cutting services, even though ridership was up significantly. Inexplicably (and outrageously) city council chose to reallocate the $22M surplus from the TTC to its general revenues. So it’s only fair that the city allocate money to cover the minimal cost of making TTC buses and streetcars free between 1:30 and 5 a.m. during Cold Alerts, without taking away funding from other critical services.

TTCriders is a public transit advocacy group made up of transit riders who believe that more affordable transit is a first priority for changing transit in this city. We see public transit as a right for all members of our community and are particularly concerned about the rising cost of the TTC (which has exceeded the inflation rate for a number of years) and its impact on those in our city who are most vulnerable.  This mandate makes us strongly support free transit at night during extremely cold weather.  We suggest that the service should also be free on days when we have extreme heat and smog for all of the same reasons.

Read more about the issue. 

Read Councillor Colle's proposal.

Send a message to the province calling for more TTC funding.

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