Rider group sees cuts in TTC shifts

Fewer buses, streetcars on certain routes defended as standard tweaking.

Thestar.com
Nov. 14, 2016
By Ben Spurr

Service on more than a dozen TTC bus and streetcar routes across the city is being reduced. The TTC says it’s a routine adjustment to meet changing demand, but a transit advocacy group is calling it a service cut.

“Riders are going to be waiting longer for their bus and their streetcar starting this month,” said Jessica Bell, executive director of TTCriders, who in a news release last month described the proposed service changes as “outrageous.”

The TTC is facing lower-than-expected ridership this year, and Bell said the agency should be trying to attract more customers by improving transit. “They should be increasing service, not cutting it,” she declared.

As part of the planned changes, which will start Sunday, buses and streetcars will run slightly less frequently or have pared-down operating hours. According to the TTC website, the 43B Kennedy bus will run every 15 minutes during midday, instead of every 10, while the 73C Royal York will run every 15 minutes instead of every 13. Service on the 514 Cherry streetcar will start slightly later in the day and end earlier.

Service on the 504 King streetcar, the transit agency’s busiest surface route, will be “reduced slightly” on Roncesvalles Ave. and Broadview Ave. between 5:30 a.m. and 7 a.m., and 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., Monday to Friday. The streetcars will still run every ten minutes or less.

At least 15 routes will be affected. TTC spokesperson Brad Ross didn’t characterize the changes as a cut.

“As a regular part of maintaining service efficiency staff routinely adjust service to more closely match demand,” he wrote in an email. “This can result in a reduction in service or an increase.”

“The service reductions that will be implemented in November are being done in order to offset resources allocated to other routes earlier this year,” he added. Ross stressed that the reductions “remain within the TTC approved (service) standards” and are “designed to match service to actual demand.”

According to ridership figures published by the TTC, as of August the transit agency had carried 349.4 million passengers, short of the 358.6 million it had budgeted for.

The transit agency is facing a budget crunch in 2017 because of millions of dollars in increased costs that must be covered in order to maintain existing service levels. Mayor John Tory and city council have also asked that all departments cut their budget by 2.6 per cent, which has led TTCriders to predict deep service cuts. Tory has pledged not to cut transit service.

TTC CEO Andy Byford told the Star on Monday that the agency has reduced its projected operating shortfall for next year to around $100 million, down from the $172.6 million it reported in September. Byford wouldn’t disclose how the shortfall had been reduced, saying that the numbers were still being finalized and a report on the agency’s 2017 budget expected later this week would provide more detail.

Byford said the report would also lay out options for further reducing the shortfall.

In an internal memo drafted in August, the CEO said meeting the 2.6-per-cent reduction target would require measures like significantly reducing service, eliminating fare discounts for seniors, students, and other groups, and deferring the opening of the Toronto York Subway Extension.

In the memo, Byford described these options as “unpalatable” and declined to support them.