By Raneem Al-Ozzi
Commuters who transfer between GO Transit, the TTC or the Union Pearson Express (UP Express) for a single trip will soon pay discounted fares for TTC rides, which will make commuting cheaper for some Ryerson students.
Riders who transfer between the transit systems and the TTC will only have to pay $1.50 for their TTC fare.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Toronto Mayor John Tory announced the agreement between the province and the city on Friday morning.
“It needs to be easy, it needs to be seamless and it needs to be affordable for people to make the choice to take transit,” Wynne said in the announcement.
The discount has yet to be approved by the TTC and the Toronto city council, but Tory said that it will not negatively impact TTC revenues.
The fare change is expected to come into effect in January 2018, which will only be available to riders who use a Presto card to pay for their commuting fare.
Third-year RTA student Nicholas Korolischuk who takes the TTC on Yonge Street regularly, said a cheaper transfer will save him both money and time.
“When I heard about [the subsidy], all I thought was, why hasn’t this been done sooner?”
David Matta, also a third-year RTA student at Ryerson, agrees, and said a subway commute to his GO station would be easier than having to drive there.
“It’s piled. There’s no parking spaces past noon [at the station]–and it’s a giant lot too,” Matta said.
Tory said making transit easier and cheaper for users of multiple systems is crucial to getting people out of their cars.
For the average TTC and GO Transit commuter, the subsidy in transferring between transits means saving approximately $720 on a yearly basis, according to Wynne.
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