Hi there, thank you for your comment! I really appreciate you engaging with this.
The key difference really comes down to the scale and complexity of the system. In a smaller system like Orangeville, removing fares is relatively easy to absorb because operating costs are low, ridership is modest, and the municipality doesn’t depend heavily on fare revenue to keep buses running. So a small budget shift can create a big impact.
But in a city the size of Toronto, things work very differently. Fare revenue covers a huge share of day-to-day operations so removing them would leave a massive gap. A fare-free or even lower-fare model would only work if there is a much stronger, predictable funding backbone in place, something municipal property taxes alone cant support. That’s why, I believe, transit funding needs to be shared across all three levels of government. The federal government, in particular, has to take a more active role by providing a direct annual operating fund for major systems like the TTC and STM.
Hi there, thank you for your comment! I really appreciate you engaging with this.
The key difference really comes down to the scale and complexity of the system. In a smaller system like Orangeville, removing fares is relatively easy to absorb because operating costs are low, ridership is modest, and the municipality doesn’t depend heavily on fare revenue to keep buses running. So a small budget shift can create a big impact.
But in a city the size of Toronto, things work very differently. Fare revenue covers a huge share of day-to-day operations so removing them would leave a massive gap. A fare-free or even lower-fare model would only work if there is a much stronger, predictable funding backbone in place, something municipal property taxes alone cant support. That’s why, I believe, transit funding needs to be shared across all three levels of government. The federal government, in particular, has to take a more active role by providing a direct annual operating fund for major systems like the TTC and STM.