Some students around Toronto may catch a break when it comes to the planned TTC fare hike.
TTC chairman Adam Giambrone says he supports allowing post-secondary students to travel under a student Metropass, which had formerly been reserved for high-school students.
Spacing.ca, which first broke the story, says Giambrone is also talking about raising the price of a Metropass to $121 instead of the planned hike to $126. Giambrone has since confirmed the comments to CP24.
Both ideas will be introduced at TTC’s next meeting, on Tuesday.
The announcement came at the end of a day that some TTC riders used to protest the pending hikes. TV producer Nicole Winchester helped launch a grassroots protest Friday through Facebook, calling on TTC riders to find another way around town.
She wanted to send a message that the transit system needs riders as much they need public transit. Winchester says the fare hikes are going to put the TTC out of reach for a lot of people who rely on the service.
Ridership on the TTC was not visibly affected Friday, but the transit system says it will be sometime before it can determine whether ridership was down.
Meantime, the TTC is further clamping down on the sale of tokens before the possible fare increase in early January.
Since word of the possible fare hike was made public, the TTC has reported a 20 percent increase in token sales. It has been limiting sales to just five tokens per person at subway stations.
The TTC also says it will begin restricting the number of tokens supplied to authorized ticket agents.
