Disparishun
Active Member
The problem is that the taxpayers in 416 pay to subsidize the TTC through their property taxes. Taxpayers in 905 do not subsidize the TTC through their property taxes.
This is a bit disingenuous.
TTC funding derives from three sources: 69% fares, 24% property taxes, and 7% provincial gas tax.
The Toronto municipality's property taxes revenues are 60% residential (including multiresidential), 36% commercial, and 4% industrial (2008 budget summary). What you're talking about is the residential portion of property tax -- the commercial taxes are very much fed by 905ers commuting to Toronto, including those who employ them, the restaurants they eat at, and the stores at which they shop at lunchtime and evenings and weekends.
So, when you say that 416 taxpayers are subsidizing the TTC and, if 905ers want to use it they should subsidize it to, then -- even accepting the implicit, and ludicrous, argument that it is not of benefit to 416 residential taxpayers that their municipality attract workers and shoppers from adjacent municipalities -- what you really mean is that 416 taxpayers are subsidizing about 15% of the TTC's costs through property taxes.
EDIT: does anyone know revenue/cost ratios for the TTC by mode of transportation (bus vs streetcar vs subway)? It occurs to me that the cost recovery ratios for almost all TTC bus lines are well below the TTC's overall 70%-ish cost recovery ratio.
We know that very few TTC bus or streetcar routes, the lowest cost-recovery services, are much used by 905 residents. Bus routes that actually enter the 905 are subcontracted to the TTC by YRT. And any TTC buses hopped on by 905 residents avoiding the double fare tend to be high cost-recovery routes.
So it is hard not to think that Toronto residents' 15% property tax contribution to the TTC is mostly or entirely to the benefit of Toronto residents, and does not "benefit" 905 system-users whatsoever. (Again, I use this term a bit tongue in cheek. It seems pretty clear that hauling in 905ers to provide labour for Toronto's corporations, shoppers for its restaurants and stores, and consumers of its shows, museums, and other attractions, is a significant benefit to Toronto. If Toronto property taxpayers were subsidizing any 905ers' integration with Toronto at all, surely that would be more of an investment in Toronto's economy than anything else. Thing is, as suggested above, it's not clear that that is taking place anyway.)
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