‘The TTC always lets me down’: Students react to rising fares, reduced service

Mar 27, 2023 | Headlines, News

By Andrew Raghunandan and Eric Reid

The daily commute for some TTC riders is about to become longer starting this week and more expensive starting next week.

Cuts in the 2023 city budget that went into effect Monday will impact the service of 37 bus, streetcar, and subway routes.

Riders on Line 2 Bloor-Danforth will be waiting eight minutes, representing what the group TTCriders calls a 67 per cent increase in wait times for riders.

Riders on 24 routes will see shorter wait times during the day, while two routes will have shorter wait times permanently.

Advocates are speaking out against these impletened service cuts, as most of the cuts are on already crowded routes.

“Service cuts mean being late for work and school,” Shelagh Pizey-Allen, TTCriders executive director, told Humber News.

“Without federal and provincial transit operations funding, the TTC could make even deeper cuts. Prime Minister Trudeau and Premier Ford must invest now in transit funding,” she said.

The service cuts come a week before next Monday when the TTC will increase fares by 10 cents for youth and adults.

Students that Humber News spoke to on Monday were unaware of the new service cuts however had some questions.

“I usually take the 996 to commute to campus, but today I am on a different route. What services will be cut?” said Sam Constanio.

“I take one trip here and then I have an additional way of getting home,” said John Yan.

Some students at the transit hub at Humber’s North Campus on Monday expressed disappointment with the service overall.

“I was not aware but I was pretty sure that these would be coming, because the TTC always lets me down,” said Misha Tomilian while waiting with a group.

Debbie Taylor said she would be concerned about any potential cuts to her trip to campus. “ I use the TTC to commute to campus everyday.”

Students can find a full list of the routes that are impacted here https://www.ttc.ca/riding-the-ttc/Updates/TTC-service-adjustments

A new study by Toronto Metropolitan University found that the service cuts will have a larger impact on the city’s marginalised communities who depend on public transit to get around the city.

The research group used data from the 2016 Ontario Marginalisation Index to find locations across the city with a high number of marginalised populations.The study found that while some of the impacted routes are in high transit use neighbourhoods,while most are in less travelled areas where riders are more dependant on the transit system.

Pizey-Allen said the situation is serious for many disenfranchised communities

“The majority of these route changes are happening in neighbourhoods where lower income people and new immigrants live,” she said.

Shift workers, women, and racialized people rely heavily on the transit system in the city and for these changes to happen is totally unfair,” Pizey-Allen said.

“We have been doing a call to action where at 18 of the stops where the changes are going to happen, we’re handing out flyers to inform transit users to take action and send the provincial and federal governments a message to stop the cuts,” she said.

A total of 39 routes which includes one street car, two subway trains, and 36 bus routes will be impacted by the service changes. This is as result due to the lower pandemic ridership and it represents 20 per cent of all TTC services across the city.