By: Rishika Verma
The Toronto Transit Commission is putting more severe measures in place to deal with the ongoing fare evasion problem that is happening at bus platforms around the city.
As part of the fare enforcement program, the public transit agency announced that starting this week, fare inspectors wearing body-worn cameras, will be highly alert at bus platforms where they will be asking bus riders to provide their proof-of-payment after they get off the bus and transfer to subway stations.
"I don't really feel that passionate about (the recent actions), it doesn't affect my life. I always pay my fare,” says Neela Basra, a York University student who takes the TTC to commute to school everyday.
Some cases of fraudulent acts of fare evasion is when an adult is tapping a PRESTO card that is set to a child fare type, and it can lead up to a fine of $425, and if riders simply don’t tap their card, they can face a $235 fine.
Basra says that she has seen people not paying their fare, and believes that it's terrible that those who are able to afford for a transit, are still not tapping their card.
The first two weeks of the new rules will be like an educational course as bus riders will be given the chance to pay their fare, after that grace period, the real enforcement will come into effect.
“I feel like educating people isn’t really gonna do anything. I mean if people want to cheat, they’re gonna cheat,” says Harm Payne, a Seneca Polytechnic who also takes public transit to get around the city.
Payne says that instead of focusing solely on the crackdown on fare evasion, she hopes that the City of Toronto should make more efforts in making Toronto a walkable city, hoping that can help with resolving the crisis of people not paying their fares.
“There would be less people scamming out of a public transit problem,” she said.
According to TTC Spokesperson Stuart Green, fare evasion costs the TTC approximately $140 million a year, and that is a significant amount that could be used to improve services as well as station cleanliness, safety, and keep the fares low. 40 per cent of the company's revenue comes from the fare box.
This is the transit agency's third attempt in the past several months in handling the issue, with how in December that they introduced that there would be plainclothes fare inspectors and inspections had already been carried out at subway stations and on streetcars.
The first move that the TCC had taken in tackling the problem was back in September, where they began to close out 'no tap' gates at subway stations, beginning with the Line 4, which is also know as the Sheppard Line. The 'no tap' gates were originally designed for those who didn't have to pay such as children below 12, person with a support person assistance card and riders who held paper transfers. It wasn't until TTC riders began to abuse the gates by walking past them without paying, that changes had to be done.
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