TTC riders will soon be able to use credit and debit to purchase tokens and passes at all Toronto subway stations.
During an announcement at Victoria Park Station Tuesday morning, Mayor John Tory, TTC CEO Andy Byford and TTC Chair Josh Colle outlined the details of the TTC's plan to expand the use of debit and credit payment options at all 69 stations in the new year.
Riders are already able to use plastic to buy monthly metro passes but starting Jan. 1, debit and credit can also be used to buy 10 or more tokens or tickets as well as day and weekly metro passes.
"This is a long-awaited step forward," Mayor Tory told reporters Tuesday.
“In a global city like Toronto, the idea that most transactions would have to take place with cash is something that is almost prehistoric. We need to make riding the rocket and using the transit system more convenient and easier for people.”
The TTC said it has decided not to allow credit and debit payments for individual fares just yet.
“If you can buy a single token with a credit card, that would just mean we would have enormous lineups,” Byford told reporters. “That would be counterproductive.”
However the commission will also be exploring a 'wave and pay' system for individual fares next summer.
Ultimately the TTC hopes to phase out tokens, tickets and passes altogether once Presto is available at all subway stations and inside all buses and streetcars.
“We are pushing on Presto. We’ve got it rolled out in a lot of the system,” Colle said.
“We are not going quickly enough and so we are pushing both Andy Byford and his team and Metrolinx... to make sure it is in place and rolled out quickly, especially in light of the Pam Am Games coming.”
Presto has already been fully implemented on a number of transit systems in the GTA, as well as on GO Transit and Ottawa’s transit system.
However Byford said implementing it throughout the TTC is more complex due to its “multimodal system.”
Although he admitted the process has been slow, Byford said he is glad that Toronto was not the “guinea pig.”
“There were teething problems with Presto when it went live in Ottawa,” he said.
Byford said that the TTC hopes to equip 14 more stations with Presto within the next year. The goal, he said, is to install Presto card readers in all subway stations and inside each of the city’s buses over the next two years.
