TTC to restart fining people for fare evasion
Critics say agency’s move will only hurt vulnerable and essential workers
The TTC will resume fare inspections on the transit system as early as next month, a decision that’s drawing fire from transportation advocates and anti-poverty activists who say riders shouldn’t be hit with fines while the city is still recovering from the pandemic.
Early in COVID-19 crisis, the TTC effectively suspended fare enforcement, announcing in March that although its inspectors would continue patrols they would be focused on “education and customer service” rather than giving out fines. A message currently posted to the agency’s COVID-19 webpage assures riders “we are not conducting fare inspections at this time.”
But this month, the TTC plans to begin deploying inspectors at key surface transfer points to “remind customers to pay their fare” according to a message on the site. Full enforcement activities, including fines for evasion, will resume in mid-July or August. TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said in order to prevent the spread of the virus, inspectt protective ors will wear personal equipment in the form of gloves, masks and eye protection, and customers will be asked to tap their Presto card on fare verifying machines “from a distance.”
According to Green, the agency decided to reintroduce enforcement because preventing revenue loss “is important to fund TTC operations.”
He cited a February 2019 report from the city auditor general that determined before the pandemic, unpaid fares cost the TTC about $60 million a year.
The TTC is facing a major financial crisis as a result of COVID-19, which has caused ridership to fall to about 15 to 20 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. The agency has estimated it’s losing $92 million as a result of the crisis, an amount that far outstrips its losses from fare evasion.
Faced with reduced ridership, the agency has cut service by about 20 per cent and is temporarily laying off 1,200 employees, most of them operators.
Transit officers haven’t been affected by the layoffs, and a pre-crisis plan to hire 50 more enforcement personnel is delayed but still going ahead, with the first 20 recruits expected to be deployed in October.
Butterfly Gopaul, resident member of Jane and Finch Action Against Poverty, a community group in the city’s northwest, said it’s unfair to start fining riders for not paying during a pandemic that caused an economic strain for many. Tickets for evasion can come with a fine of up to $425, a sum Gopaul described as “exorbitant,” particularly for people who “are really struggling right now, trying to negotiate rent and food and (how to pay) to get to work.” The TTC has acknowledged that many of the riders who have continued to take crowded bus lines during the crisis are low-income residents and workers in parts of the city that house essential industries like grocery distribution centres and industrial bakeries.
Gopaul said resuming enforcement means “the most vulnerable people, who are actually keeping the city of Torontt are o going, are the ones that going to be targeted.” Transit advocacy group TTCriders also opposes the reintroduction of fare enforcement.
“The TTC needs funding, not policing,” TTCriders executive director Shelagh Pizey-Allen said in a statement that called on Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to commit operating funding to struggling transit agencies.
“Fare inspectors will never recover the $92 million per month lost from lower ridership, but they will target the predominantly lower-income, racialized and disabled people rely on the TTC for eswho sential trips to work, get groceries or access medical care,” she said.
During the pandemic, the TTC has converted its buses to rear door boarding only in order to keep bus drivers isolated from riders. The policy required the TTC to suspend the collection of tickets, tokens, and cash on buses.
Green noted that more than 90 per cent of TTC trips are paid for using Presto cards, and said individual instances of fare evasion will “be assessed on their own merits.”
But Pizey-Allen warned that “transit users will be unfairly penalized for not having access to Presto, especially those living in suburban areas” who don’t have easy access to Presto machines at subway stations or Shoppers Drug Mart locations where they can add money to their cards.