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The transit system is full of subsidization amongst riders.

Long haul travellers are subsidized by those going just a few stops. City employees and other group MetroPass buyers are subsidized by all other MetroPass buyers.

Subway rides subsidize bus users ad infinitum as the subway cars are both cheaper than buses and cheaper to operate over time, particularly on a per user basis. This is the very nature of a non-zoned, large city transit system for the main part. Goodness, MetroPass users in general are also subsidized by all other taxpayers across the country, let alone Toronto.

You want to encourage TTC use, you do not impose charges on people who drive from outside Toronto. No, you should be building bigger, multi-storied, unmanned parking lots for them to disembark at.

You definitely do not tell Toronto residents they should walk for five or 10 minutes (in bad weather for five months of the year), wait several minutes for a bus (in the same inclement weather) and then take 12 minutes to get to the subway station. Do you realize that is adding about one hour every day to your journey?

Does Councillor Glenn De Baeramaeker also realize that there are instances where MetroPass holders simply use the pass to access the lots but another person immediately drives the car out of the lot to continue elsewhere?

It is exactly that imprecise thinking by the likes of Councillor de Baeremaeker, other councillors who voted for the new parking charge, and city and TTC staffers alike, that prevents us from getting to a TTC system that will work.

If they wanted more money for parking, simply increase the MetroPass cost so it is the same for everybody; it is after all, completely tax-deductible and so worth several dollars in tax savings. At the very least think of selling a MetroPass with parking privileges and one without parking privileges, so the whole cost remains tax-deductible.

M. Haynes