The TTC is asking for a $2.82 billion operating budget in 2025 — a $300 million jump from last year — to help increase service on a transit system facing a daunting repair backlog, and struggling to get ridership back to pre-pandemic levels.
Riders won’t see a fare increase for the second year in a row, Mayor Olivia Chow said at Wilson Station on Tuesday morning, “because we have an affordability crisis.” Fares were last hiked by 10 cents in 2023.
Just over half of the TTC’s operating budget is funded through existing revenues. The agency needs just under $1.4 billion from the city’s property tax base, which is $85 million more than last year.
The agency is also proposing a $16.4 billion capital budget over the next 10 years to repair and expand the existing vehicle fleet and do necessary maintenance work on the transit system’s infrastructure.
The proposed 2025 TTC budget will:
— Mayor Olivia Chow (@MayorOliviaChow) January 7, 2025
➡️ freeze fares
➡️ increase services
➡️ dedicate resources to a cleaner, safer system
➡️ less bunching and crowding of buses
➡️ more frequent subways and streetcars
All to get Toronto moving! pic.twitter.com/gZOdIaQXHD
Service improvements
“To put it simply, we are working hard to build a transit system where parents don't worry about their kids using the subway at night and buses arrive when they're supposed to arrive,” said Coun. Jamaal Myers, who chairs the TTC board.
The 2025 budget “prevents the erosion of current service levels” through investment in “more frequent service” which “lays the groundwork for an improved customer experience,” the budget document said.
“This budget is moving in the right direction, service that had been cut in previous years is starting to be restored,” said Shelagh Pizey-Allen, head of the TTCRiders advocacy organization.
The agency is promising a nearly six per cent increase in service hours — the amount of time a driver spends on a route — along all routes as congestion slows commutes.
Almost half of the extra hours will go to providing better service on off-peak hours, like evenings and weekends, as ridership growth has been strongest during those times because most offices haven’t returned to five-day work weeks.
Chow also promised the operating budget would help ensure riders on the 505 Dundas, 512 St. Clair and 7 Bathurst routes won’t have to wait more than six minutes for a streetcar between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on any day. On the Yonge-University-Spadina and Bloor-Danforth subway lines, riders can expect to wait no longer than five minutes between trains during off-peak hours, Chow said.
“Imagine that? Faster. You don’t have to wait as long,” she said.
Pizey-Allen welcomed the specific wait time guarantees on the three streetcar routes, but said the service hours promise won’t necessarily translate to a better transit experience.
“Bringing in six-minute or better streetcar service on Dundas, Bathurst and St. Clair, that's very specific and we know exactly what to expect,” she said.
“When it comes to increasing service hours, a lot of that time can get eaten up by congestion. So the TTC may be spending more this year on the hours that buses are out in service, but some of that time is actually being spent stuck in traffic.”
Pizey-Allen said she’d like the TTC to return to using a metric like kilometres travelled, and how frequently a vehicle arrives at a stop. That way, she said, it will be easier to compare service levels over time.
The budget also includes nearly $10 million for a pilot program to cut down on bus bunching and gapping — when several buses arrive one after another following a long gap — as well as fare evasion and more.
“How infuriating it is when the buses are bunched together and you wait and wait and wait and nothing comes and then, boom, three of them show up at the same time. Oh my God. We need to fix that,” Chow said.
The pilot will start in the spring and target the 10 “most problematic routes,” the budget document said, though it did not specify which routes. If it works, the pilot will be expanded across the city.
On top of better service, the budget promises nearly $1 million to fund improvements at six stations: Scarborough Town Centre, Kennedy, Dundas, Finch, Spadina and Lansdowne.
“Torontonians will see better looking, cleaner, brighter stations with public address speakers that you can actually hear,” Chow said.
Like the bus bunching program, the station improvements are a pilot project that could be expanded to other stations.
The agency will also add 10 outreach workers on downtown streetcar routes — such as Spadina, Queen, Kingston Road, and Carlton — “to help connect vulnerable people to actual shelter services,” Chow said. Money for those extra workers will come from the city’s shelter budget.
Clearing the repair backlog
The TTC’s 10-year, $16.4 billion capital plan — which benefits from billions in federal and provincial funding — will cut the agency’s repair backlog almost in half by the mid-2030s, Chow said.
Just under $5 billion will go towards paying for crucial repairs and upgrades that, until this year, didn’t have funding.
It includes money for 55 new trains on the Bloor-Danforth line, 700 new electric buses, 950 charging stations, subway signal and electrical systems upgrades, new data and transit control centres, and more.
With the extra money, the agency’s state-of-good-repair backlog will be reduced to $4.35 billion at the end of 2034, from a projected $8.24 billion at the end of 2033.
However, the TTC’s capital needs over the next 15 years are still short billions of dollars.
From 2025 to 2039, the agency wants to spend over $53 billion to modernize the transit system. The $16.4 billion unveiled today is good for 31 per cent of the 15-year plan, leaving almost three-quarters unfunded.
Higher levels of government need to step up to ensure the TTC remains financially viable, the budget document said.
“The scale of unfunded capital priorities emphasize the continued need for a tripartite approach to developing a sustainable public transit funding model that is predictable and supports the long-term viability of the TTC,” said the document.
The TTC board — consisting of six councillors and four citizens — meets on Friday to consider the proposed budget. In December, Chow made changes to the board by removing Coun. Stephen Holyday, a frequent critic, and Coun. Chris Moise. They were replaced with Coun. Alejandra Bravo and Coun. Ausma Malik, two close Chow allies.
