GTHA Transit Fare Integration

[TransitBart]

If this keeps on going nowhere, I suggest the federal government step in and impose fare integration onto the GTHA. Is this even an option though (or possible)?

@Leo_Chan, no this is not an option. There is no legal reason to cause a senior level of government to do this and this jurisdiction is not a federal jurisdiction. In theory, a province is a mature, senior level of government (in the eyes of the Canadian fathers of confederation) able to govern itself responsibly.

In contrast, municipalities are "creatures of the provinces" and are subject to the kind of potential action that you have suggested in their respective provinces should the municipality fall afoul of the legislation creating and regulating it.

Sadly, the fathers of confederation did not see fit to retain such powers over the provinces for the federal government.

 

[rbt]

I suggest the federal government step in and impose fare integration onto the GTHA. Is this even an option though (or possible)?

Technically the federal government has zero influence over the provinces and their internal affairs (municipalities exist for the convenience of the province). In reality, the federal government has authority over anything they put their money into via contract law, provided that money and the strings for using it are accepted. That's how Health Care works; federal government buys certain rules country-wide by injecting enough cash into it that the provinces are willing to put up with the rules.

So, they could ask the province to implement fare integration and write a big cheque to make it happen. Of course, they'd have to inject operating dollars country wide or voters would get seriously pissed. This might cost them $500M/year just to enforce fare integration in the GTA.

 

[Leo_Chan]

So the federal government stepping in is 99.9999999% not happen. Therefore, either the province has to do the imposing, or we'll be stuck paying double fares until something (or someone) breaks.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Putin should impose sanctions on Canada until we get fare integration in order. Can he do that?

 

[Northern Light]

The challenges here are clear.

Fare by distance (pure) comes with a high risk politically, lots of change for folks, more expensive transit rides on local services for those with long (but one region) commutes; and a high uncertainty factor for ridership volume.

Zones are easier, but assuming they roughly follow the current regions may not produce a material benefit w/o new subsidy; while zones that don't follow the current regions (been looked at) carry all the downsides of fare by distance and perhaps even greater complexity.

A straight-subsidy for cross-border trips is the easiest to implement, with the highest degree of certainty on ridership and cost; but also has the least potential and most clearly requires net new subsidy dollars.

Anything other than the last one is unlikely to go anywhere before the next provincial election (May 2018).

*****

Personally, I support a hybrid model of zones, following existing regional lines with straight cross-border trip subsidies and/or wiggle room for common cross-border trips (ie. DRT trips to UTSC might be considered one zone, but only for those routes)

I think GO can modify to zones, or retain fare by distance; but local/regional providers, need to keep a flat-fare model for now. Too much change, is a potentially costly mistake. Walk before you can run.

 

[TransitBart]

Putin should impose sanctions on Canada until we get fare integration in order. Can he do that?

At this stage, judging by tonight's news, we should check in at the White House on how that might work.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The challenges here are clear.

Fare by distance (pure) comes with a high risk politically, lots of change for folks, more expensive transit rides on local services for those with long (but one region) commutes; and a high uncertainty factor for ridership volume.

Zones are easier, but assuming they roughly follow the current regions may not produce a material benefit w/o new subsidy; while zones that don't follow the current regions (been looked at) carry all the downsides of fare by distance and perhaps even greater complexity.

A straight-subsidy for cross-border trips is the easiest to implement, with the highest degree of certainty on ridership and cost; but also has the least potential and most clearly requires net new subsidy dollars.

Anything other than the last one is unlikely to go anywhere before the next provincial election (May 2018).

*****

Personally, I support a hybrid model of zones, following existing regional lines with straight cross-border trip subsidies and/or wiggle room for common cross-border trips (ie. DRT trips to UTSC might be considered one zone, but only for those routes)

I think GO can modify to zones, or retain fare by distance; but local/regional providers, need to keep a flat-fare model for now. Too much change, is a potentially costly mistake. Walk before you can run.

The political controversy over fare by distance would be immense. The Liberals are not going to let their government sink over such a small issue. They didnt even have the corage to allow the City to implement road tolls; they definitely don't have the courage to impose fare by distance on a dozen municipalities.

The best we're getting is some kind of fare subsidy.

 

[rbt]

Putin should impose sanctions on Canada until we get fare integration in order. Can he do that?

Technically, yes he could. WTO would throw a fit but ultimately they have no control over Russia. Last time Russia put sanctions on Canada (2014 over the Ukraine thing) we had something like $1.5B in total exports to Russia and almost nobody in Canada was impacted by sanctions. I think they just banned food imports from Canada though; a fraction of that $1.5B.

I kinda like silly questions like these; they show the stark difference between what's possible and what's practical. A reminder that who you vote for matters because the political environment restricts bureaucrat options more than the legal system.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

If you were designing our system from scratch, fare-by-distance - of one kind or another - would make sense but, yeah, politically it's impossible now.

I think the fairest system (or at least the one easiest to make a reality) is for the province, via Metrolinx, to have a subsidy fund to off-set co-pays. It's not reinventing the wheel, right? If you transfer from YRT to GO, you only pay $0.75 for YRT. So, you do something similar for the other systems so a rider can transfer from GO or YRT or whatever to TTC and only pays (for the sake of argument) $1 and the provincial subsidy makes whole the rest of the fare. Obviously most of this money would be going to TTC.

The practical math would be a bit more complicated, I'm sure, but Presto should make it easy for Metrolinx to insert itself and it should still be easier to implement than something like zones. It's not ideal, but it's probably the most practical solution there is. I presume some bureaucrat somewhere knows how much it would cost for the province to off-set those costs and I'd presume they're really not that exorbitant.

 

[TOareaFan]

If this keeps on going nowhere, I suggest the federal government step in and impose fare integration onto the GTHA. Is this even an option though (or possible)?

constitutionally, no I don't think it is an option.

 

[Zach6668]

I think fare zone are the way to go.

Except, you're allowed to cross a boundary once for the base fare (equivalent of a TTC fare today).

Very rough example:

You'd be allowed to go from Mississauga to Brampton or Etobicoke for 1 fare. Or from North York to Vaughan. Or from Ajax to Scarborough. Or however you want to draw the lines. (And of course, they'd go well beyond where I stopped drawing them). They're basically concentric rings around downtown Toronto, each divided internally as needed.

And you'd pretty well be able to travel within Toronto, with the exception of Etobicoke to Scarborough (but that could be tweaked).

For something like Vaughan to downtown Toronto, you'd be looking at crossing 2 fare boundaries, so you'd pay a base fare plus some surcharge. Maybe 1.5 fares total, or 1.3 or something like that. Not a double fare.

Some bugs to iron out, as I just whipped this up on the fly, but I think it's the most fair and convenient, clear way to implement a sort of fare by distance across all agencies.

 

[amnesiajune]

And you'd pretty well be able to travel within Toronto, with the exception of Etobicoke to Scarborough (but that could be tweaked).

If you're tweaking that, then it would be a lot less disruptive to just adopt/impose the co-fare system - same fares throughout the GTA, and you'd pay an extra charge (75 cents or a dollar) to transfer between the TTC, Go Transit and any 905 system (the 905 transit agencies already allow no-charge transfers to/from each other).

 

[pman]

Distance-based fares seem sensible: the more you use the more you pay. They can also be structured to encourage riders to travel in off-peak hours by introducing a time of day component. One or both of these features are common in other cities' transit systems. If I understand correctly, this is yet another area of transit where it's impossible to do the right thing because suburban councillors would oppose it. It seems we'll never have sanity on transit until we offload the TTC to Metrolinx and find a way to insulate the latter from provincial meddling. Maybe by making board appointments 15 year terms and giving ML some predefined taxing power?

 

[jje1000]

Wonder why we just don't do it so that the suburbs are one combined zone and Toronto is one zone (for a total of two zones) to save on the grief of municipalities squabbling- pretty sure that it would also be far easier to strongarm the suburbs into one even fare than it would be to do so for the TTC.

 

[TOareaFan]

Wonder why we just don't do it so that the suburbs are one combined zone and Toronto is one zone (for a total of two zones) to save on the grief of municipalities squabbling- pretty sure that it would also be far easier to strongarm the suburbs into one even fare than it would be to do so for the TTC.

didn't the "suburbs" solve that a while ago....are there double fares between systems in the 905 now? I can't speak for all of them, obviously, but the one I am most familiar with is Brampton Transit and it seems to have transfer agreements with the rest of 905 systems