TTC: New Fare Gate Installation

[WillTo]

I saw the weirdest thing today at Sheppard-Yonge. Two of the automatic entrances are under construction and have temporary collector boxes. I walked in at one of them and there was an employee in the red information vest. He wasn't collecting fares; he was telling people that there was no collector on duty and they could just walk in for free because the fare box was locked up.

*facepalm*

I'm sure it's union rules that the red helpers can't perform duties of TTC staff.

Likewise at Eglinton "automated" entrance there has been a crash collector since the Presto gates have been installed. Sometimes there is no one there and just a big open gate.

 

[TransitBart]

*facepalm*

I'm sure it's union rules that the red helpers can't perform duties of TTC staff.

Un - believable.

 

[smallspy]

I saw the weirdest thing today at Sheppard-Yonge. Two of the automatic entrances are under construction and have temporary collector boxes. I walked in at one of them and there was an employee in the red information vest. He wasn't collecting fares; he was telling people that there was no collector on duty and they could just walk in for free because the fare box was locked up.

The people in the red vests are not TTC employees. They are contracted, part-time helpers, and have not been given training in handling cash.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[TransitBart]

The people in the red vests are not TTC employees. They are contracted, part-time helpers, and have not been given training in handling cash.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

What on earth would prevent (competent) managers at an organization with tens of thousands of employees from properly staffing an entrance under these (temporary) circumstances?

 

[Leo_Chan]

What on earth would prevent (competent) managers at an organization with tens of thousands of employees from properly staffing an entrance under these (temporary) circumstances?

Budget cuts.

It’s not about the TTC managers being competent enough, they just don’t have resources for these situations.

All the problems with the TTC can be solved with a higher subsidy since the culture of the TTC has already been greatly improved by Andy Byford.

 

[amnesiajune]

All the problems with the TTC can be solved with a higher subsidy since the culture of the TTC has already been greatly improved by Andy Byford.

Throwing money at a lack of common sense isn't going to fix anything. A fare collector would easily make his/her salary in revenue. This was the fourth-busiest station in the system during rush hour. I'm sure they collect at least one token every couple of minutes.

Now, I figure that the problem is related to the unions - the TTC presumably has very little flexibility to increase employees' hours or hire temporary employees for a few months of construction. But throwing money at that problem won't accomplish anything either.

 

[WillTo]

Throwing money at a lack of common sense isn't going to fix anything. A fare collector would easily make his/her salary in revenue. This was the fourth-busiest station in the system during rush hour. I'm sure they collect at least one token every couple of minutes.

Now, I figure that the problem is related to the unions - the TTC presumably has very little flexibility to increase employees' hours or hire temporary employees for a few months of construction. But throwing money at that problem won't accomplish anything either.

But let's say you have one person working a booth, but that person gets to go to lunch. Is it worth it to have a second person working that day just to cover the breaks? Probably not.

The smart thing to do would be to have the red helper tell people to put their tokens in the farebox, or to tap their Presto. If they want to buy tokens, they would direct them to the machine if there is one. But union rules...

 

[LNahid2000]

A fare collector would easily make his/her salary in revenue. This was the fourth-busiest station in the system during rush hour. I'm sure they collect at least one token every couple of minutes.

It was the automatic entrance leading to the Sheppard Subway platform. Barely anyone uses that entrance. A fare collector definitely wouldn't make their salary back, so I think the TTC made the right decision.

 

[amnesiajune]

It was the automatic entrance leading to the Sheppard Subway platform. Barely anyone uses that entrance. A fare collector definitely wouldn't make their salary back, so I think the TTC made the right decision.

You seriously think that only one or two dozen people from that 30-floor office building will take the subway during rush hour?

 

[DSC]

You seriously think that only one or two dozen people from that 30-floor office building will take the subway during rush hour?

I suspect that a collector or supervisor called in sick at the last minute and there was nobody available at that moment to unlock the temporary fare box at thsi temporarily manned entrance. Rather than the Red Coat trying to stop people entering (throwing his/her body in front of them?) they decided to let anyone pass. We have no idea if this situation lasted 5 minutes or 5 hours and remember - about 50% of TTC users use a Metropass. Sounds like common sense to me.

 

[amnesiajune]

I suspect that a collector or supervisor called in sick at the last minute and there was nobody available at that moment to unlock the temporary fare box at thsi temporarily manned entrance. Rather than the Red Coat trying to stop people entering (throwing his/her body in front of them?) they decided to let anyone pass. We have no idea if this situation lasted 5 minutes or 5 hours and remember - about 50% of TTC users use a Metropass. Sounds like common sense to me.

It's not the first time this has happened. I've gotten three or four free trips from that entrance (construction started three weeks ago), and a couple other times I saw people walking in without paying as I was leaving. This is just the first time I've seen it during rush hour. The guy in the vest obviously isn't going to tell people to use another entrance, but it's just wasteful.

And since it came up, here's the problem for people who blame everything on the lack of subsidy... Subsidy increases require public support. Public support requires confidence that money won't be wasted. The TTC inspires very little of that confidence, and this sort of thing - not an entrance with no collector, but someone being paid to stand there and tell people not to pay their fare - reduces that miniscule confidence that the public has in the TTC's ability to use funding effectively.

 

[adHominem]

You're not saying this, but you're certainly edging up close to every populist conservative's favourite infinite loop:

10 Slash funding to a public agency, to the point where it's chronically underperforming
20 Point to underperformance as evidence of that agency's shameful unfitness for your hard-earned tax dollars
30 Goto 10

 

[DSC]

Public support requires confidence that money won't be wasted. .

Yes, that is true but sometimes it makes more financial sense NOT to pay a fairly highly paid 'Collector' to watch and collect at a low-use area. True, the Red Coat should have at least said 'no Metropass, no entry' but I can see this would have zero effect on most people!

 

[amnesiajune]

You're not saying this, but you're certainly edging up close to every populist conservative's favourite infinite loop:

10 Slash funding to a public agency, to the point where it's chronically underperforming
20 Point to underperformance as evidence of that agency's shameful unfitness for your hard-earned tax dollars
30 Goto 10

This isn't "underperformance", and I'm not even remotely a populist conservative. This is just something that makes no sense. If they want to keep the entrance open for convenience but aren't allowed to hire fare collectors, I can understand that - it's not ideal, but their agreement with unions is generally good. But FFS don't pay someone to stand around and tell people that they can walk in for free. There are better (and less embarrassing) ways for the TTC to spend a couple hundred dollars a day.

Yes, that is true but sometimes it makes more financial sense NOT to pay a fairly highly paid 'Collector' to watch and collect at a low-use area.

Again... This is the afternoon rush and more than a thousand people work in that building. I'm not sure why you're under the impression that it's a low-use area, or that it makes any sense to pay someone to stand there and do the job of a paper sign.

 

[LNahid2000]

You seriously think that only one or two dozen people from that 30-floor office building will take the subway during rush hour?

No, but I don't think most people use tokens. Also, I'd say more than half likely don't take the subway from my experience talking to coworkers when I worked in a building near there. It's not convenient to take the subway from that location unless you also live on a subway line. Most of my coworkers either drove or took the GO bus to the outer suburbs.