More TTC Factoids

[bcholmes]

• Between 1991 and 2001 the City of Toronto grew by 9% but transit funding was cut by half in the same time period. Funding cuts led the TTC to cut the bus fleet by 22% and to close two operating garages.
• The TTC is more reliant on revenues from fares than any other transit system in the developed world.
• The TTC is the only major transit system in the developed world to fund regular operations entirely from the property tax base and from fares.
• In Toronto, 80% of the TTC's operating budget is paid by riders. This compares with 58% in Montreal, 46% in Vancouver, 59% in New York and 52% in Chicago. The Canada-wide average is 62%. In the US, the overall average is 41%.
• Fares have more than doubled since 1990 and ridership has fallen by 10%.
• The Province of Ontario used to provide 50% of the operating costs for the TTC but under the Harris Tories, this was eliminated entirely.
• Capital investment per capita in public transit in Canada, at US$60, is less than half the recent level of investment in Seattle, New York, Denver and San Francisco.

I think that these numbers are a coupl'a years out of date (I think they're for 2005) but I don't think they've changed that much in the last few years.

Comments

[suitablyemoname.livejournal.com]

They have and they haven't. What we're seeing right now is what I call "subwaying".

Biggest problems at the moment:
- Near-annual fare hikes driving down ridership.
- Crumbling infrastructure, especially subway signals, subway stations, warehouses and car barns, streetcar loops, bus and streetcar stops and shelters, and a website that hasn't had any significant change since 1999. (It sounds small, but while cities like Seattle have route finders and web-based predictions of when the next bus will arrive at a stop and a fare calculator and online help and promotional materials, we've got HTML that hasn't been standards-compliant since the Geocities era.)
- Shortage of operators.

But what's all the money going to? Building a light rail network by 2020 and extending the Spadina subway 3-4 stations. Both of these are important projects in their own way, but focusing on them won't actually address the endemic issues that the system's been facing for a decade now. The politicians are focusing on highly-visible projects like subways into new parts of the city rather than on projects that would improve the system as it stands: "subwaying".

[the_axel]

Which is because federal & provincial governments want to spend money on capital projects that they can announce 4 or 5 times with a photo-op each time rather than the much less sexy work of funding operations.

Makes me want to beat Liberals & Tories over the head with a big stick.

[dragon3.livejournal.com]

I don't have the facts to hand for post secondary education, but I know they paint a similar picture. Rather than tar any flavour of provincial government, I would tend to lay the blame on transfer payments that no longer reflect reality.