Just implemented service adjustments will reduce Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) services to nine percent below pre-pandemic levels.
A Toronto Metropolitan University report (2023 TTC Service Changes and Transit Equity in Toronto), while acknowledging TTC’s challenging fiscal situation, notes that “Toronto’s most marginalized neighbourhoods will likely be disproportionately affected by the TTC service cuts.” The report continues: “These neighbourhoods may not generate the highest amounts of public transit trips, but residents in these neighbourhoods may be more dependent on public transit for their everyday needs compared to other parts of the city.” This “will likely make these neighbourhoods more mobility poor, creating additional barriers to the residents’ participation in employment, education, and society in general.”
Moreover, the report finds “At a time when all levels of the government are committing to address affordability and inequality, the proposed TTC service cuts are not justified.”
Note: The TTC principally serves the city (municipality) of Toronto, which accounts for 45% of the Toronto census metropolitan area population.
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a founding senior fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, Houston, a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.
Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.
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