Routes 60, 196 among several dozen to be reduced in service
Jacqueline Perlin
Assistant News Editor
@jackieperlin
It is about to become much harder to catch a bus to York.
Over 50 service reductions will be affecting commuters, including those critical to York—such as routes 60 Steeles West and the 196 York University Rocket—much to the dismay of commuters who depend on the essential service.
The reduction comes on the heels of a cut to the commission’s operating subsidy of 10 per cent, even though city council approved an omnibus bill at the last Toronto City Council meeting on January 17 to allot the commission $5 million to restore funding.
According to Steve Munro,
a Toronto transit advocate, city council decided to give the money not to maintaining bus routes, but to wheel trans services.
For Munro, the cuts to bus routes are part of the larger agenda of Mayor Rob Ford to ensure that the left-leaning councillors that support increased Light Rail Transit (LRT) and buses do not get their way.
“Ford has already said council is irrelevant,” says Munro, referring to the mayor’s recent comments with regards to council’s vote to install an Eglinton LRT, despite Ford’s opposition.
“He talks a fabulous line about increasing bus routes, but when rubber hits the road, that’s not what happens,” notes Munro, explaining that despite Ford’s comments to Excalibur last January that promised to increase bus routes to York, the mayor continues to push specifically for an Eglinton and Sheppard subway line in the sum of $8 billion, resulting in an obvious deficit that causes services to be cut.
TTC spokesperson Brad Ross says the reduction in routes needs to occur because of the loss of subsidy, prompting the organization to find savings across the organization.
“We looked at all of the service and rather than eliminating routes outright, the best way to save network is to change the crowding standards for our routes,” says Ross.
“Crowding standards” refers to the maximum number of people allowed on a bus. According to Ross, the maximum number has increased from 48 to 53.
Second-year business student Joni Iljazi says while the changes to routes are frustrating, the increase in crowding standards makes routes “very uncomfortable.”
“It’s an express bus so it moves pretty fast, and if it’s crowded it’s difficult to hold onto the rails and such,” says Iljazi. Changes like these, she says, only encourages her to skip the gruelling transportation process entirely and simply miss class.
Ross notes that the changes to crowding standards were necessary to keep all the routes in tact.
“Nothing is so dramatic that it would cause you to find a different route,” says Ross of the changes, explaining that the commission essentially evaluated the poorest routes and reduced them, meaning that buses will come less frequently by a few minutes.
However, to pharmaceutical biochemical student Jean Chen who frequents the 196, the changes are problematic—especially with the cold.
“It’s pretty terrible,” she says, pointing out that the service reductions are coming on top of the fact that buses are always late.
Second-year political science student Nicole Griffiths feels that commuters don’t have any other options, and is frustrated of the additional fare hikes that took effect earlier in the year.
“The prices just went up already, and now it’s going to go up again,” she said. “And god knows how long it’s going to take for the subway to be completed. I’m not happy about it.”
Ross says there will be more human monitoring and use of GPS systems to tracks buses on their routes to avoid situations where there are late buses, or buses that arrive several at once.
“We need to do a better job at route management,” he says. “Then changes might not be as noticeable. The TTC is working on monitoring buses more frequently to spread the buses out and avoid situations where three buses on the same route all arrive at the same time.”
Munro, however, maintains that the city is in fact wealthy enough to provide even better transit services, but that the crux of the problem lies with the fact that better services is not a part of the agenda Mayor Ford is choosing to push.
“It’s a part of the fictitious ‘budget problem’ the city has. The TTC is back to the mode where they only talk about cuts,” states Munro.
With files from Mike Mannarino
