doublemint
New Member
The problem is he'd be throwing his buddies under the bus too, even if the contract wasn't signed by his government.
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- Thread starter Monarch Butterfly
- Start date
thenorth
New Member
Does anyone know how much we’re charging Mosaic to run bus replacement services when Line 6 is offline? I hope it’s an astronomical amount
thenorth
New Member
Sure, probably.
The problem now is that Mosaic (and others) are now seemingly contractually obligated to provide mediocrity, rather than excellence. We’re now in a position where they (TTC/MX/Mosaic) don’t even want to run trains faster because that’s not what was agreed upon. It’s maddening.
thenorth
New Member
Honest to god I just with the TTC had built, operated and maintained this thing. What a disaster. Having the operator, owner, builder and maintainers being distinct from each other was a horrible decision.
If I had my way, I would legislatively terminate the contract, transfer ownership to the TTC, and give the TTC a big pile of cash and a few years to figure out how to fix this white elephant.
If I had my way, I would legislatively terminate the contract, transfer ownership to the TTC, and give the TTC a big pile of cash and a few years to figure out how to fix this white elephant.
Mr.Tang
Active Member
Whose cash would you give them?
doublemint
New Member
Not entirely sure who the decision rests with but when comparing our fare price with fare prices around the world, our system is very cheap. We should raise fares by at least 5 cents a year for the next 5-10 years. That goes a long way.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
yes, $3.30 is pretty cheap globally but it really varies a lot. New York City is the equivalent fare of $4.10 or so for comparison, which is probably closer to the average.
Obsidian
Active Member
Are travel times at 33 minutes yet?? I don't think you need to worry about them not going below 33 minutes until we reach 33 minutes.
thenorth
New Member
We’ve already seen trips that fast. Just not on a consistent basis. I’m not sure why there is so much variation in trip times.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
That's still better than when it opened.
mikey7767
Active Member
Underfunded? They have an overspending problem. Drivers are getting paid close to $40/hr if not more, close to $50/hr on Sundays (x1.25 on Sundays from what I heard), and this includes station collectors, who often gather around together socializing rather than guarding their entrances. I'm not saying they don't deserve a fair wage, but there is such a thing as too much, and when wages are the highest proportion of expenses for the TTC, they need to control their spending first. They've given into most of the union demands. They are not underfunded, they have a spending problem. Not to mention they've overspent on vehicles, especially electric buses, that didn't even perform to expectations. We didn't need "operators" on the SRT. We can automate subways with ATC so that we don't need an "operator" pressing a button. These are choices. And giving into union demands for extraordinarily high wages is a choice.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
What exactly is Mosaic responsible for in terms of day to day operations and maintenance?
PL1
Senior Member
$40 an hour isn't exorbitant. I agree the staff could do a better job watching entrances.
Perhaps a long term idea is to move the bus platforms at stations outside the fare-paid area so people that sneak in through the bus platforms need to tap to get onto the subway. This would create other problems (people could not board while an operator is taking a break
APTA-2048
Senior Member
urbanclient
Senior Member
I don't agree that they overspend per se on labour. It's a subjective judgement whether you think they are overpaid or not. If you look at the typical salaries for operators in the GTHA they aren't very high compared to the cost of living. Last I checked, TTC ops start at just under $30 and max out around $40. The non-operating staff can kick rocks though. On the new LRTs, I have seen half-a dozen staff gathered in the booths, chatting it up on multiple occasions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TTC/comments/1cuy5o8/ttc_transit_operator_starting_salary/
However, on the subject of labour costs, I agree that the way forward in developed countries is automation. Be it smaller people mover systems like VAL, or light and heavy metro. Ignoring Eglinton, LRTs might cost less to start, but you lose in the long run in terms of operating costs since low floor trams / LRTs in mixed traffic cannot be fully automated yet. Unless you want to count Moscow's "AI Driverless Tram", which still has a human attendant.
And yet there were people unironically advocating against automation on Urban Toronto recently, ignoring the fact that 70.5% of the $3.028 billion TTC operating budget is labour: $2.135 billion.
Page 24/36: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2026/bu/bgrd/backgroundfile-261746.pdf
If we can free up just $500 million per year that can go towards the capital budget instead, that would allow the TTC to partially break away from its reliance on Metrolinx for transit expansion. Rapid transit projects take 10+ years in Toronto e.g. Line 2 Scarborough extension likely taking 10+ years. $5 billion over 10 years can at least pay for a few km of LRT or subway extensions. Or more conservatively, $5 billion over 10 years would go a long way for bus & streetcar lanes, among other quick fixes for the TTC.
In the current economic environment, it's very difficult, if not untenable to pay operators a living wage while expanding transit. Even lower labour cost places like China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, and Colombia have defaulted to driverless instead of driver-operated metros for new lines.
It's not that we should pay TTC operators less, we should strive to have less operators to begin with. At the end of the day, society would benefit from more transit, even if less operator jobs were to exist.