TTC budget proposal calls for fare freeze, no extra service in 2018
Transit advocates charge the spending plan merely “keeps our heads above water.”

Thestar.com
Ben Spurr
Nov. 14, 2017

The TTC is asking the city to increase its budget next year, despite a direction from council that all departments find ways to hold spending at 2017 levels.

According to a report the transit agency released Tuesday, the $37.6-million in additional funding it’s seeking in 2018 would represent a 5.5-per-cent increase compared to its 2017 net operating budget, and would grow the subsidy provided by the city to the TTC and Wheel-Trans to a record $727.1 million.

After six straight years of fare increases, the proposed budget would also keep the cost of riding transit at current prices. The fare freeze in 2018, which would come ahead of municipal elections scheduled for October, was backed by the agency’s board last year.

TTC Chair Josh Colle said that despite council’s direction, he expects the city will always need to increase the subsidy it gives to the agency year over year.

“I don’t see how it couldn’t, just based on our inflation pressures,” he said, adding that “a lot of good work has been done by our staff” to ensure that “every dollar is stretched and spent well.”

The additional money wouldn’t be used to improve service on existing routes next year, however. Instead it would be used to address mounting costs resulting from the opening of the Toronto York Spadina Subway Extension next month, the ongoing rollout of the Presto fare card system, rising labour costs, inflation, and other sources.

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross said the agency isn’t planning a service increase because it doesn’t expect more people to ride transit next year. The report anticipates there will be 539 million TTC trips in 2018, only slightly more than the 536 million the agency is now expecting in 2017.

Shelagh Pizey-Allen, executive director of the non-profit advocacy group TTCriders, argued the TTC should be adding bus and streetcar service in order to relieve chronic crowding and attract more customers.

“This is a mediocre budget at its best. It really keeps the problems that we have. There’s no funding to tackle overcrowding, no funding for increased service, and no funding for fare reduction,” Pizey-Allen said. “It just keeps our heads above water.”

According to the report, the TTC initially projected its costs would rise by $97.3 million next year. However, the agency determined it could offset much of the pressure through measures like lowering maintenance costs by using federal funds to replace its older buses, swapping out its older streetcars with the new Bombardier fleet on some routes, cracking down on fraudulent employee benefit claims, delaying hiring at its Leslie Barns streetcar facility, and finding efficiencies in its purchasing processes.

It also revised anticipated costs for Wheel-Trans downward after a spike in demand expected this year as a result of expanded eligibility criteria failed to fully materialize.

The remaining $37.6 million the TTC says it needs to fill its budget gap would primarily be used for the conventional transit system, with $0.7 million going toward Wheel-Trans.

There are signs the debate over the 2018 TTC budget will be much smoother than this year’s.

The 2017 budget process became politically fraught after the agency’s CEO Andy Byford had told the board the TTC would be unable to meet council’s budget reduction targets without resorting to drastic measures like slashing service.

Mayor John Tory reacted by threatening to call in a task force to cut the agency’s costs, but he and council ultimately voted to increase spending for TTC and Wheel-Trans by $79.2 million.

Don Peat, a spokesperson for the mayor, wouldn’t say whether Tory would support the TTC’s 2018 budget proposal as is. But in an email he noted that the mayor has backed funding increases for the transit agency in the previous three years of his term.

Peat added that “Mayor Tory absolutely will be supporting the proposed 2018 TTC fare freeze.”

The TTC’s 2018 budget proposal will be debated at the agency’s budget committee on Friday, before going to the full TTC board on Nov. 28. City council is scheduled to vote on all city agencies’ budgets in February.