Let a while tell you a story…
About 10 years ago when in high school, I took a few buses to my part time job. I took a Yonge St. bus south to 16th Ave, a bus across 16th to Woodbine, and down Woodbine about a kilometer. Note that this is also before York Region implemented a 2 hour transfer, and had similar rules to the TTC.
The bus on Woodbine came every half hour or so at the time, and was contracted to the TTC. For a while it came on time as scheduled, but then one rainy day it was running late. It only goes up one side road North (Major Mackenzie) before returning south, I decided to ride it around the loop. After all, you can do that with the subway.
Well this driver was threatening to throw me out of the bus if I didn’t pay an extra fare for riding through the loop. Nevermind the fact that it was raining. Nevermind the fact that I was now 3km away from my stop. Nevermind the fact that if I had come across on Major Mackenzie my transfer would have been valid. He wasn’t going to leave until I paid an extra fare. He said it was my responsibility to check the website everyday, not the TTC’s to inform me of schedule changes (ie: notices at bus stops or in buses).
So I paid and called the TTC the next day, since at the time their call centre closed at 5PM. The guy said that since it happened in York Region, I had to call York Region Transit. YRT told me to call the TTC. Despite the fact that there was only one bus which operated north of Steeles at a time on that route, because I didn’t have the bus number they claimed there was nothing they could do. After playing a bit of telephone tag, I settled for the “explanation” that there were notices inside the bus (which was clearly false since the TTC doesn’t do this).
In retrospect, I probably should have contacted my local councillor if not the Ministry of Transportation. Maybe the Toronto Sun, because they will print anything.
On topic, if the TTC’s creative accountants claim they will loose $20 million, it is $20 million ill-gotten money. While my sad tale is an outlier, the fact is that the TTC’s transfer policy is not only not customer friendly, it is not designed to human nature! People don’t buy a Metropass because they commute between three separate destinations every single day or to “steal” free rides, they buy one because it is the most economically and convenient way to meet their travel needs. People who don’t have a Metropass who need to make multiple trips will likely drive or find alternative means, so right now the TTC is getting $0 from these people. Likewise someone who generally takes transit 40 trips per month will resent having to do a stop over, and pushes such person away from transit altogether.
But assuming that the TTC will lose an exceptional amount of money, then I would accept a fare increase to create a more logical fare structure (Metropass = +-40 tokens). I also think the city should increase what it gives to the TTC as well, since such a setup could see an increase in business tax revenue since passengers can stop over at their establishments now without getting penalized for it.
Steve: And to cap that all off, it is TTC policy that you can ride around loops for one fare. However, operators who take layovers along the way can get a bit annoying about this because they want a private break. Suck it up guys — it’s called “customer service”.
