QUOTED: Mayoral candidate David Soknacki on 2014’s TTC fare hike

“By raising prices on passes, while holding the line on cash fares, Transit Commissioners implicitly made [a decision] in favour of infrequent transit users over those who use the system regularly enough to purchase Metropasses.”
—Declared mayoral candidate and former city budget chief David Soknacki, in a blog post about 2014’s TTC fare increases, which are set to go into effect on Wednesday. His point is that the TTC board’s decision to hold cash fares steady at $3 while increasing the prices of tokens and Metropasses (by five cents and $5.25, respectively) effectively puts the burden of propping up the TTC’s perennially wobbly budget on the shoulders of frequent users. Soknacki thinks that the narrowing price gap will discourage people from becoming regular public-transit riders.
metro passes are already a thing of convenience anyway. A pass at $137.25 is ridiculous to begin with, if you simply go to work and back “approx 21 times a month’ it is substantially cheaper to just buy tokens. You would need to use the subway twice daily including the weekends in order for it to be any sort of useful for savings.
Put the blame on the TTC not get a sustained operating subsidy from BOTH the provincial AND federal governments.
The pass is for those whos only mode of transportation is public transit. If you have a vehicle which you use on days when you are not at work, you better just get tokens….
I guess they want everyone to invest in cars to add to the already ridiculous traffic the city has not to mention the pollution. Or I guess the auto industry needs a lift and the top of the food chain is making the appropriate moves to make it happen…lol