Better TTC

The Toronto Transit Commission or TTC services is targeting fare hike and service cuts. As per the chief general manager of TTC, Gary Webster, the monetary problems of the agency are getting worse than earlier situation.

The transit employees are stimulating the city to decrease its annual subsidy by ten percent in the following year. This can widen the gap of budget up to more than eighty million dollars. This is without causing the new labor agreement with workers for adding millions of them more. This is because every one percent increase in wages would add around ten million dollars to the bottom line of TTC.

The numbers are turning a bit scary for the management of TTC. There is a huge investment of money done for the upgradation of the system since past five years. There is an addition to range of services. The task is turning out to be pretty challenging for finding efficiencies which would involve a huge part of that.

Hence, there is a good amount of pressure on the TTC system. The steps that are to be taken for controlling the pressure have to be determined. However, the chairwoman of TTC, Karen Stintz, has confirmed that the final sheet is ready which involves fare hikes and service cuts.

The promises made for finances are not new for this biggest public transit system of Toronto. They are not getting any financial help or cash from the federal government for daily operations. They have also not received any kind of subsidy from Queen’s Park area for the last two years.

The enhanced rider ship of TTC has expected to rise up to five hundred and two million dollars by the next year. This is also a factor that can contribute immensely to the financial crunch faced by the system. The subsidies of TTC are of about one dollar for each ride. The increasing fuel costs also sums up to the increasing budget.

This is all in total to about one point five billion dollars in the year 2012. The chair woman of TTC concedes that this is a tough task. As per Karen, in order to meet the expectations of Toronto citizens, they will have to cut their subsidy by ten percent. However, they are also viewing some gleams of opportunities.

The TTC system is expecting to make huge from advertising since it calculates to five percent of its total revenue. This is done by trying to reduce the fuel costs and viewing at surplus land that can be sold by them.

The TTC services may also find different methods to rationalize their organization. They can get the audit department of Toronto to work on the completed task. This can be done by making an exclusive audit department in the TTC.