TTC Chicanery -- Your Tokens Come April will be Useless

I had noticed that the usual signs stating one could only buy a maximum of 10 tokens were not up. I was puzzled. I assumed that meant they were not completely committed to the fare hike, because as Royson James pointed out in the Toronto Star, the province gave the city $15 million more than it needs to prevent a fare hike. However, despite lack of signs, some operators would sell 10 tokens only; others whatever you wanted. Recently, I was told that the machines would not accept the old tokens, and one will have to pay 10 cents plus the token come April 1st. I had not heard this. Have you heard of this?

Why are there no signs to announce this new move? Because the TTC is going to surprise us with this underhanded move on Saturday.

What are we going to do about it? Torontonians traditionally grumble, complain, whine in the face of a hike. And do nothing. We will swallow this unjust hike; we will swallow our anger when we have to pay the extra 10 cents we were never warned about by anyone in the media or by politicians or the TTC via signage; and we will do nothing.

We ought to picket the stations. We ought to slow down the flow of pedestrians into the stations. We ought to stand where buses exit stations and prevent them from leaving. We ought to stand in front of streetcars at random intersections for a couple of light cycles each. And we ought to carry signs proclaiming civil disobedience to this unjust, unfair, totally UNNECESSARY fare hike. But we won't. We'll swallow our anger and pay. And David Miller -- the one who gave the unions more than they asked for -- is counting on Torontonians being too passive to do a thing, too individualized to band together and use union tactics to fight city hall, too self-absorbed in their own busy-ness to take a stand and do something, and too stupid to remember come November.

Comments

Mark Dowling said…
I heard the token rumour but I don't think there's anything to it - the TTC would have to offer token refund the same as with tickets

http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/fares.htm#token

They tried the same thing last time, restricting machines to single tokens etc. Fortunately King subway still sells them!
Interesting link. There's no mention of tokens on the refund page.

It was a TTC employee who told me -- I wasn't sure if he was messing with my head or if it was true. It still seems odd to me that there are no signs anywhere. I did notice signage on those token machines though, mostly along the lines of out of order or "single" tokens at $2.50 each!