Reversing former mayor Rob Ford’s decision to slash the municipal budget by decreasing transit service, Mayor John Tory and TTC Chair Josh Colle have announced service improvements on the city’s 33 busiest bus and streetcar routes starting this fall.
With a $95 million transit investment in this year’s City budget, increases to service will be in off-peak times where ridership growth is strongest. Colle estimates that 55 million passenger trips annually will benefit from the service increase, and 2 million additional trips could be generated. Tory linked better transit service to the city’s poverty reduction strategy, saying that people need transit to access jobs. Improvements to 61 bus routes on overnight and all day service were announced earlier this year.
Tory began taking action to reverse Ford’s cuts to transit immediately after winning the 2014 municipal election, approving of many of the TTC’s suggested service improvements released just before the election. Running on a platform of regional express rail, Tory seemed to view transit as at least part of the solution to Toronto’s wicked transportation problem. But recently he took a more conservative stand on the Gardiner Expressway proposal before council, favouring the hybrid alternative rather than removal of the eastern section of the expressway.
