Toronto Transit Budget Gap

: Image by Allan Rostron via Flickr

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) operates 3rd busiest transit system in North America.

Ridership 280M per year
Annual Operating budget 1.4B
Employees 11,861

This would make the cost per ride about $5. If you compared this against New York Public Transportation (MTA):

Ridership 1.6B per year
Annual operating budget of 11.3B
Employees 69,756

where the cost per ride is $7, which indicates we are running a more efficient transit. It is also worthwhile to note, if you are a resident of Toronto, $257 of your property tax goes towards Transit. With over 1.8M households in Toronto, this translates to $462M per year. Assuming a fare of $2.5 for all rides this would mean about $700M is generated through fares. Given the transit system needs about 1.4B in operating costs we have a shortfall of at least $238M.

Miller is asking the province for $4B to cover this gap and more. In an interview with Toronto Star he has conjured up a disastrous future in terms of city traffic grid lock if the city does not receive the necessary funding. It leave one to wonder are we just waiting for the disaster to happen or it is time for us to discuss and evaluate other possible options like increasing fare for commuters who are not living in Toronto or introducing higher road tolls from them.

After all Toronto residents are paying their share through property taxes and $60 increase in Vehicle Registration. Perhaps the master plan is just to have Toronto residents use the bicycle path and pay the bill for others.