Rocco Rossi says he would bring Toronto’s “failing” transit system into the 21st century with the Presto smart card.

Councillors on the TTC board say his choice of a technology is premature, but on Tuesday, July 20 the mayoral candidate said people running the system – and the rest of the city – have chosen the status quo over change and “let us down.”“They have dragged their feet and invented excuses” rather than replacing transit tokens and tickets with refillable smart cards, as other cities have, said Rossi, who promised to convert the entire system if elected mayor Oct. 25.

At his Avenue Road headquarters, the candidate accused the TTC of being stuck in the 1970s and unwilling to cooperate with the province and neighbouring municipalities in adopting Presto, a system “simple and convenient, what everyone can and should expect in 2010.”

The card can be enhanced to Presto Plus+ to pay for services from meter parking to zoo admissions and could pay for itself in two to four years, Rossi said.

Later, however, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone called the Presto card – already in use on all 12 stations on GO Transit’s Lake Shore West rail line and in seven Toronto subway stations – a “last-decade technology.”

The TTC was prepared to adopt Presto, but found other cities, including some using smart cards, are moving to an open-payment system that also allows tap-payment by credit or bank cards, he said.

Since the makers of Presto “haven’t yet been able to demonstrate their system will work” to its satisfaction, the TTC expects to sign a contract for an open-payment system, which should be simpler and less expensive
for the city, by this fall, Giambrone said.

“We could no longer wait for Presto to actually meet the needs of the TTC.”

The transit commission in April estimated the installation cost to install Presto across the system, including street cars and buses, at $356 million.

Rossi told reporters the province would pay $140 million and the system should save the $52 million to $77 million a year in fare-collection costs – cities opting for smart cards, he said, have averaged a five-per-cent savings in this area – and another $3 million through fraud reduction.

Exploiting commercial opportunities for the smart card, as cities such as Hong Kong and London do, would net another $20 million, Rossi said.

But Giambrone and Joe Mihevc, the TTC’s vice-chair, both said Rossi’s expected savings – coming mostly from reducing the number of employees collecting fares – would be replaced or even exceeded by other costs.

“There’s no savings here that we have been able to identify,” said Mihevc, who denied the TTC is “dragging its feet” on Presto but also suggested Rossi’s schedule for installing the smart card is too optimistic. “We’re looking at a seven-year rollout and that’s a good-case scenario.”

Giambrone added removing a collector, who is often the only employee at a subway station, could pose a safety risk.

Rossi said the TTC is “trying to ride two horses at the same time” by introducing its own system, instead of integrating transit across Greater Toronto using Presto, as York Region, Mississauga and the province wish to do.

The province won’t help pay for an open-payment system solely for Toronto, he said, because it would bring no benefit to the region.

- Mike Adler

Tags: Mayor's race
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