6 ms·

Get rid of the unions and lower revenue/fares at the same time.

JayNeely 17y ago
I'd agree with the first, but why the second? As I mentioned in another thread, nothing I've seen suggests that fares are a barrier to use of the bus or subway. With the MBTA, subway rides are $2, bus rides are $1.50, and a week-long pass for unlimited use of both is $15. Even New York's $89/month for unlimited use of subway and local bus is many times more cost-effective than cab fare or car insurance.
- shalmanese 17y ago
  4 week long passes cost $29 less than month long pass?
  - eworoshow 17y ago
    $89/month is in New York. $15/week is in Boston.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - JeffJenkins 17y ago
    The former was Boston, the latter is NYC. NYC's 7-day card is $27
    - shalmanese 17y ago
      Ah, thanks
9oliYQjP 17y ago
You know, I try to give unions the benefit of the doubt. I think they still serve a function and I am not ideologically opposed to them. But then we come across incidents like this: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ttc/article/754297--is-he-sleeping-photo-of-mccowan-ttc-booth-goes-viral?bn=1 http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ttc/article/754297--is-he-sl... Toronto's transit system is amongst a select few in North America where middle- and upper-middle class folks make up a significant chunk of the ridership. Other cities dream of trying to convince folks to give up their daily commute by car. We've achieved this for a good number of people. It also happens to receives the least government funding in all of North America. But the union is really holding our system back. For crying out loud, it is 2010 and we still have manned booths whose sole purpose is to convert one kind of coin into another. We also have -- I kid you not -- workers that wait on the side of the road with crow bars to switch streetcar track paths during rush hour. Also, I'm embarrassed for anyone visiting our city to ever think of going to the washroom at a subway station. They're absolutely vile.
- JayNeely 17y ago
  What can you say on how Toronto's succeeded in getting more people to give up on commuting by car?
  - r7000 17y ago
    The reasons I commute by transit in Toronto (despite the very accurate drawbacks mentioned above - bring in smart-cards already!) are because it is faster and less expensive. Arguably Montreal's system is better on both counts. The people on the transit system here are the same people you see everywhere in the city. One note: Toronto never ripped out its streetcar lines. I have always wondered why Toronto's streetcars were spared while most other cities in North America lost theirs.
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    I lived in Toronto for a while, and was a subway commuter: - Built really early. There are a lot of cities that are just getting into the mass transit game, Toronto has been in it for 50 years, and this has allowed time for the culture to adjust, and for large housing complexes and shopping centres to develop around subway stations. - Expansive, a lot of American cities start with small mass transit systems that don't run very far away from downtown. Toronto's advantage is that the two extreme ends of the subway line are very, very far from the downtown core, so subway commuting is a realistic option for people looking to live in cheaper neighbourhoods. - Not reserved for poor neighbourhoods. In fact, the poorest areas of Toronto are entirely unserved by the subway system - the subway covers large swathes of lower middle class, middle, and upper-middle, and even upper-class neighbourhoods. This forced demographic has made the system in general much more welcoming as an option for people who would otherwise have the freedom to buy cars. - Extreme density downtown. Once you leave downtown the distance between stations grows very dramatically, but in downtown there really is a station every 2-3 blocks, and you are never more than 5 minutes away from the subway. This type of convenience has encouraged an incredibly dense downtown (for Canada/USA anyhow) that is a destination. - Discouragement of "multiple downtown" model. Here on the west coast we tend to develop smaller downtowns in multiple municipalities that are close together. Linking these by mass transit is difficult, and spreads your population thin. Toronto has a unique model in that the suburbs don't have as much of a "downtown", and all the hubbub and activity feeds into a very "mega-city" like downtown core by the lakeshore.

I'd agree with the first, but why the second? As I mentioned in another thread, nothing I've seen suggests that fares are a barrier to use of the bus or subway. With the MBTA, subway rides are $2, bus rides are $1.50, and a week-long pass for unlimited use of both is $15. Even New York's $89/month for unlimited use of subway and local bus is many times more cost-effective than cab fare or car insurance.

shalmanese 17y ago
4 week long passes cost $29 less than month long pass?
- eworoshow 17y ago
  $89/month is in New York. $15/week is in Boston.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- JeffJenkins 17y ago
  The former was Boston, the latter is NYC. NYC's 7-day card is $27
  - shalmanese 17y ago
    Ah, thanks

9oliYQjP 17y ago

You know, I try to give unions the benefit of the doubt. I think they still serve a function and I am not ideologically opposed to them. But then we come across incidents like this: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ttc/article/754297--is-he-sleeping-photo-of-mccowan-ttc-booth-goes-viral?bn=1 http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ttc/article/754297--is-he-sl... Toronto's transit system is amongst a select few in North America where middle- and upper-middle class folks make up a significant chunk of the ridership. Other cities dream of trying to convince folks to give up their daily commute by car. We've achieved this for a good number of people. It also happens to receives the least government funding in all of North America. But the union is really holding our system back. For crying out loud, it is 2010 and we still have manned booths whose sole purpose is to convert one kind of coin into another. We also have -- I kid you not -- workers that wait on the side of the road with crow bars to switch streetcar track paths during rush hour. Also, I'm embarrassed for anyone visiting our city to ever think of going to the washroom at a subway station. They're absolutely vile.

JayNeely 17y ago
What can you say on how Toronto's succeeded in getting more people to give up on commuting by car?
- r7000 17y ago
  The reasons I commute by transit in Toronto (despite the very accurate drawbacks mentioned above - bring in smart-cards already!) are because it is faster and less expensive. Arguably Montreal's system is better on both counts. The people on the transit system here are the same people you see everywhere in the city. One note: Toronto never ripped out its streetcar lines. I have always wondered why Toronto's streetcars were spared while most other cities in North America lost theirs.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  I lived in Toronto for a while, and was a subway commuter: - Built really early. There are a lot of cities that are just getting into the mass transit game, Toronto has been in it for 50 years, and this has allowed time for the culture to adjust, and for large housing complexes and shopping centres to develop around subway stations. - Expansive, a lot of American cities start with small mass transit systems that don't run very far away from downtown. Toronto's advantage is that the two extreme ends of the subway line are very, very far from the downtown core, so subway commuting is a realistic option for people looking to live in cheaper neighbourhoods. - Not reserved for poor neighbourhoods. In fact, the poorest areas of Toronto are entirely unserved by the subway system - the subway covers large swathes of lower middle class, middle, and upper-middle, and even upper-class neighbourhoods. This forced demographic has made the system in general much more welcoming as an option for people who would otherwise have the freedom to buy cars. - Extreme density downtown. Once you leave downtown the distance between stations grows very dramatically, but in downtown there really is a station every 2-3 blocks, and you are never more than 5 minutes away from the subway. This type of convenience has encouraged an incredibly dense downtown (for Canada/USA anyhow) that is a destination. - Discouragement of "multiple downtown" model. Here on the west coast we tend to develop smaller downtowns in multiple municipalities that are close together. Linking these by mass transit is difficult, and spreads your population thin. Toronto has a unique model in that the suburbs don't have as much of a "downtown", and all the hubbub and activity feeds into a very "mega-city" like downtown core by the lakeshore.