The People Speak Out On Improving TTC

A free ride not as goofy as it sounds
By JOE WARMINGTON

Is it time to make every ride on the TTC free?

Of course, it would not really be free. But free as in you don't have to drop $2.75 every time you jump on. Free in that you don't have to pay for a monthly pass.

I'd love your feedback on this. Remember the first ride on the Toronto subway in 1954 was 10 cents.

What I am asking is for government to think outside the subway car, steetcar and bus and think about a new approach to fund the service so important to our city.

With my suggestion, it essentially becomes a road. It's the Gardiner Expressway, the Don Valley, the 401. Same thing.

You don't pay anything (yet) for each trip on those highways, so maybe it should be the same with your subway, bus or streetcar ride. Should it be covered in your tax bill?

Now before you scoff, consider what this leftist council is setting up to do.

Down the road you can see a rider's increase, you can see tolls on highways and you can see a downtown car fee, as they have in London, England. That will suck and we have to prevent it.

They are trying to find ways of getting themselves on environmentally friendly magazines as green crusaders. So let's do it.

But let's not nail the working stiff anymore. Let's not penalize them for having a car or penalize them for not having one. Let's help them. Let's surprise and delight them.

They are good people -- people like Danny Elabd and Petra Hamspey who ride the TTC every day and think it's not far off from being great.

They are what it is all about.

More than 400-million trips each year, that's what the transit system accommodates.

The TTC is no different than a school or hospital or the police or fire department.

It belongs to everyone.

So let's end the charade. Let's get on with it, fund it as a vital service and let the working person gain the benefit.

And the green mayor can't balk. You want green? You want fewer emissions? People will definitely ride it and leave their cars at home if it's free.

That should help David Miller get his blond hair a magazine cover. But equally as important (more actually) is it would really help the working Torontonian. There would be fewer cars on the road and less traffic.

Now I know you're thinking. "How would this work?" It's not hard. Take this year's TTC operating budget request for 2007. They estimate their needs to be just below $1.1-billion.

To get there, they estimate they'll get $811 million from fares and $297.8 million from city subsidy. The city is expected to offer $246 million, leaving a $33.5-million shortfall.

It's a pittance for what it does every day and how important it is to families. The overall taxes can absorb that easily. They waste so much more on their collective silly projects.

With the province, federal government and private sector, this would be a new way of doing things that would acknowledge the transit system as sparkplug in the biggest engine of Canada's economy.

Councillor Rob Ford said yesterday he liked the idea of "privatizing it" or "selling it off to the province" and let them run it. Ideas are good.

Whatever way it works best for the rider is what I am for. If privatizing part of it, or letting certain companies sponsor certain stations, is a way to getting to where we need to go then why not?

Let them ride for free.