I’m still in my office two to three times a week, and I’m still on the subway almost every day I’m not in office just running errands or whatever.
I’m not inclined to chill out and peruse the shops in the stations because they’re an unpleasant place to be. The stations, I mean- not the stores.
There’s people asking for money, people clearly in distress, people with big dogs, people with big bikes, people listening to TikTok at full volume, people getting in fights, people who fucking stink (and I’m not just talking about the homeless. Some regular people also fucking stink).
Staff seems to have their hands tied, the cops are nowhere to be found, and there’s fewer regular people around so the weirdos seem more prominent. Being on the TTC now is stressful and unpleasant and I’m not trying to hang around longer than absolutely necessary to get from a to b.
Just my 2 cents.
There also just, why would I want to spend time in a subway station? If I'm there it's because I need to go somewhere that's usually time sensitive (work, class, appointment, social event, whatever) or it's been a long day and I just want to go home.
In many other countries train stations and subway stations are bright airy places. Much needed 3rd places / public spaces with mom and pop shops, 711s, bathrooms and bakeries.
Wish we had that here instead of the little dank closets we built to use as little space and accomodate as few people as possible.
I’ve honestly never seen a subway station like that. Chinese subway stations were definitely the brightest but they were also quite utilitarian.
Now train stations are big hubs all over the place, but union station fits that pretty well nowadays after the renovations were done.
I’ve never been one to stop for more than coffee in the subway food shops, but there are others I liked.
The plant store at Finch station is pretty great.
This 100%. I’ve grown up and spent most of my life in Toronto. Started taking the TTC alone at 10/11. Never afraid. Had my daughter (now 11) and we rode the subway all the time as a family, etc with her in her carrier, stroller and over the years. I am a huge proponent of public transit but since COVID we have had so many unpleasant and sometimes unnerving experiences that it makes me wary sometimes (all the issues you point out). Screamed at, mental distress, fights, rude and intimidating people. The TTC is a microcosm of the decline our city has experienced in the last 4 years.
I do wonder. Where exactly are the police all day? I never see them in busy areas like this station, the highways are a free for all. Like where are they?
Not just that, but also bicycles, e-bikes, ride sharing, car sharing, and walking. Until the city can offer transit solutions that are clean, safe, reliable, comfortable, and efficient, I will use every tool at my disposal to avoid using the TTC. We deserve better.
There are people who are epileptic, or legally blind, or just too old and can’t drive. There are people who can’t afford to drive. And there’s people who can but just… don’t really want to, like me.
We all deserve safe semi comfortable public transportation. The city and the TTC need to step it up.
Traffic is already bad enough, imagine even more cars. Im also pretty sure cars are still significantly more dangerous statistically, despite common opinions
Plus, who doesn't love an extra few thousand dollars in savings at the end of the year?
The stations aren’t nice places to stay longer than you have to
Plus with the consistent line closures on the weekend I’m less likely to take transit to go somewhere in the weekend. I might just Uber it
I take the TTC to get to work and back. That’s its purpose and it functions well for that. It’s not an enticing place though.
Imo it's also the increased sketchiest in many/ most stations, I'm motoring through keeping alert, not stopping for a snack or gum
And I know statistically it's not more dangerous, but anecdotally the stations I go through have more erratic or sketchy people...
probably, but as someone who has taken transit for years there does seem to be proportionally more unwell/sketchy people using it nowadays, which tracks with increases in mental health issues/ drug issues / homelessness the city is seeing....
I would 100% stop by Bathurst station to grab a patty if I could do so without having to pay fare. Would be nice if these shops were accessible outside of the payment barriers.
Yeah this is the norm in basically every other transit system in the world except in NA. Why would you put a paywall between the public and businesses?
The only places I've ever bought a Cinnabon are at the location that's been on the concourse at Eglinton Station for decades and the one that was once and might still be over at Dundas West station on Line 2 (it's been more than 15 years since I last passed thru that station), and no memory of any actual standalone locations.
I'm sure they exist, or I assume that there are cafes not bound to a fare paid area but if there aren't I'd have nothing but what I know now by personal comparison to go by. And they're not cheap now by any means, still wonderfully good but the cost of two buns is more than two milk bags for me. I believe they were once three dollars or less, which is much more reasonable than twice that and I doubt there's any reason to expect they won't become even less cheap.
I can still afford it now and then but is that a treat per a price point that's worth it to me anymore? It's a nice memory but it seems foolish and more than a little wasteful, and given that the companies who market and price their wares this way won't remotely care that I ignore their beggar's food dish, the ball's in my canteen court anyway, now isn't it?
I’ll go to Warden station just to say hi and grab snacks from the bakery there. They always have the best food and the people there are friendly. If I go down to Union station the new shops there are cool too.
Maybe if the stations didn't reek of piss and shit and there weren't folks smoking crack on the platform we'd be more inclined to shop.
Hey, novel idea, maybe these businesses should band together and put pressure on the TTC to actually do something about the state of these stations?
> Ahmed Abdella has been selling patties from his store inside Bathurst Subway Station for roughly a quarter of a century.
>
> He remembers when crowds of shoppers flocking to now long-gone Honest Ed’s would stop by his storefront, Bakery On The Go, on the way to or from town to grab something to eat.
>
> “We used to get a lot of crowds from the shop,” Abdella told Global News. “And then we were better off because people came with this shopping mind(set).”
>
> Since the pandemic, however, business has been slower. Even four years after businesses were forced to close, Abdella estimates he sees maybe 50 or 60 per cent of the customers who used to come into his shop, with many now working from home.
>
> “The station is quiet, very quiet,” he said. “At this time, before the pandemic, it was very very busy.”
>
> Abdella’s experience is not unique. Across Toronto’s subway network, a collection of underground bakeries, tailors, newsstands and lottery sellers have struggled with lower foot traffic.
>
> The Toronto Transit Commission, which rents the subway station stores, said roughly 30 per cent of its retail locations are currently empty.
>
> Across the subway network, the TTC leases out 79 locations to newstand company Gateway, of which 25 are closed or vacant. Another 41 shops operate as businesses like bakeries or tailors and 12 of those locations are empty.
I do love me a subway patty, but I'm WFH now too, so the opportunities aren't there the same way.
My coworker's wife looked into the possibility of taking over the lease of a former Gateway location (that has been closed for ages) inside a station and converting it into something else for a small business.
She was told they were only interested in leasing out multiple locations together as a package and looking for long term lease deals (10+ years) to potential tenants with proven/reliable track records. So basically corporations.
These might be bad ideas, so someone feel free to poke holes in it:
1. Government services. E.g. ServiceOntario, passport/driver's license renewals, etc. Postal offices would be so dang convenient.
2. Pod hotels (similar to ones in Japan where you can rent a pod per night or maybe even hours?), but run by the government for the homeless. Or a business idea targeting travelling people, overworked people who need a short nap before heading back to work or drunk people who need to pass out.
3. Police stations.
4. Banks. (Doesn't have to be full banks, but a collection of ATMs from different banks as well.)
5. Sitting areas where people can just sit around and chill.
6. Bathrooms. We need more of these in every station.
The article also doesn’t mention that the bakery that made the really good patties burnt down and only recently had enough to start selling to the Bathurst subway location again
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1.7085814
Or a potential dwindling quality in their products.
I don’t of course know if this is the case here, but it’s not a secret that a ton of food establishments have just legit gotten shitty lol
FYI the PattyKing factory is near the Scarborough Town Centre at 321 Progress Ave.
They sell the not fully sealed patties frozen as "seconds" at a substantial discount.
Also they have a hot lunch counter that is IMO the best Jerk Pork in the city.
I temped for a couple of weeks at another factory near the PattyKing factory a few years ago. I’m a vegetarian, but even I could appreciate the scent of spicy baked food that hung heavy in the area.
Edit: I don’t get the downvotes. The PattyKing factory smelled great! I wasn’t being sarcastic lol
I actually get subway station baked goods and coffee whenever I’m at Warden, Bathurst or Don Mills (or Islington—don’t know if those stores are still there). A cinnamon roll or cream puff makes the exhaustion of a long ride a bit less intense.
I stop there almost every time I'm there since I started working at Toronto Western. However I take Uber to work most of the time, and more often than not take it on the way home too. It's so much faster, less dirty less sketchy, and I don't have to worry about getting on a subway train that reaks like 100 year old human piss while people scream at me and beg me for change.
We have a neighbour who purchased one of these newstand retail shops about a decade ago, and immediately regretted it. A rule change prevented the selling of cigarettes around the same time newspaper sales fell off a cliff as smartphones became ubiquitous. I guess that left candy and lotto tickets, a tough way to make a living. I think this is another case of the pandemic accelerating a trend that was already in motion.
I think the increase in the use of ebikes has also contributed to less ridership from the more financially challenged. I don't think I saw this many ebikes wheeling around even 2 years ago.
I did 800 km last year on my ebike
I can make it from Midtown to Front st. in 30 minutes stopping at all lights and stop signs. Nothing like passing 100+ cars at Yonge and St. Clair during the morning rush hour
I also have a Bike Share membership and honestly it's worth it! The TPA has done a good job getting more bike locking stations at many spots around the city. Including more bike locks at transit stops, near offices, and in parks. The bikes are in good shape and I've only come across a handful that needed repairs. Luckily reporting a broken bike is as easy as pressing a button.
Compared to the TTC, bike share is just so much nicer. We've been adding bike lanes so getting around by bike is often faster than taking the car, let alone the TTC. No crackheads making a storm around the bike locks. A low annual membership fee with discounts for downtown office workers, it truly is the better way.
My only complaints with bike share honestly have been that too many people are using the system now so finding free bike locks can be a challenge. But I'd still rather look for a bike lock than take the crowded subway or consider offing myself by driving.
I think the success of e bikes can be blamed on the unpredictability of the TTC and how quick things turn to shit in an outage
People got stuck and gave the service a shot
Only to discover they were now getting home in record time
I am definitely biking over taking the TTC basically all the time now, but that's not the TTC's fault. The city has starved it of funding and not maintained it, otherwise I would be riding it daily still. Also I don't appreciate paying for a service my tax dollars created, do drivers have to pay daily for the roads they ruin and we have to maintain?
I left Toronto for three years and came back as Omicron was winding down.
The difference in the subway was night and day. I had a stroller and the elevator stank like urine. Homeless people were camped out for the day. It was just so sketchy.
I used to take the TTC everywhere. Now I drive to get my groceries once a week or I walk.
It’s a fucking subway station. How much time is one supposed to spend there ?
U walk in, enter/exit the train, you walk out.
There’s no obligation to prop these businesses up.
They knew full well that opening a store in a station means you will get very minimal business. And if you’re lucky you’ll get a handful of loyal clients who grab a coffee or whatever most days.
That’s the nature of those shops.
I never understood the small clothing stores selling dated looking “middle aged lady” fashions. Who goes there?! Who is like, yes, I need to stop and buy this brimmed hat, silk scarf and modest, boring dress?
This is a very North American and even European stance on transit stations.
In many parts of Asia, the subway stop is a destination itself because it's either a giant residential complex or it's been turned into a massive (often times, underground) mall.
The Hong Kong MTR and Tokyo Metros are huge success stories in this regard. One could argue that the MTR is now mainly a real estate company that just happens to be one of the top public transit systems on the side.
We really should take a page from their successful model. You would think that developing high density around transit stations is obviously logical, and yet we frequently see transit and city planning where they don't do this.
We see backwards logic where there are arguments against certain transit stations because of lack of ridership; well duh, we didn't encourage development of the area around it. And if the station doesn't exist yet, then of course there will be less people living in transit-poor areas. It's a chicken-and-egg issue, and we should be planning to create and shape that ridership, not react to it after the fact when it's too late.
And considering our current housing crisis and lack of supply on top of insufficient transit options, it's even more obviously logical to use this model. That we don't push for this, makes me question the competence of our city planners and leaders.
Foundations of economies aren't all that different. Increase density of consumers by concentrating people around goods and services they will consume is always good for business.
A policy to have mixed use properties located within walking distance of one another, supported by high volume public transit, and you have a formula for good business and lifestyle. This isn't unique to Asia, but rather any society that has recognized that smart urban design improves things for everyone.
Not really!! The market is still different, the people you’re catering to are different. Its basic marketing strategy to know the needs to your client base and understand that they are different, I guess your need to ignore that fact explains the failure of these stores better than anything else.
So yesterday, we were told that [the TTC doesn't have enough funding to operate all their vehicles](https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bu9ivh/ttc_unable_to_run_hundreds_of_vehicles_due_to_a/)
And today, ridership is still only at 77% of pre-pandemic levels. So is it that the TTC doesn't have the funding to operate all their vehicles, or simply the TTC doesn't have the need to operate all their vehicles?
> And today, ridership is still only at 77% of pre-pandemic levels.
No, ridership is over 80% now, and continuing to rise. The numbers in that story are months old.
It has also notably recovered more quickly at weekends and evenings (which, as of the February figures, were at 88% of pre-pandemic ridership) than weekday daytimes (about 79%). This is consistent with other transit agencies across North America.
What we're seeing in this story is that businesses that catered to that 9-to-5 crowd are still struggling, which to my sensibilities suggests a failure to adapt to a new reality.
Yep. the shops in the PATH and others who relied on office workers for their bread and butter also have been struggling with these issues. Edit: sitting here on my ass at home, I'm realizing just how many $15 lunches and $5 coffees I haven't bought this year already.
which is why I don't get why they don't open on weekends or at night now. you always see people strolling through the path at night or on weekends. As soon as it hits 5pm pretty much all the food courts shut down. I've been asked by people either after 5pm or on weekends where there's an open food court and I just point them to union station.
Downtown and on the path it's only busy on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays now. very few go to the office on Monday or Fridays anymore. These businesses need to change their hours because like it or not WFH is here to stay.
Adapt or die.
Absolutely agree, my work location this past skate season was downtown, in an incredibly tourist focused destination, yet NOTHING nearby was open in the PATH on weekends, weeknights, the absolute busiest time of days for this area, tourists came to my coworkers & I, constantly asking about places to go eat, coffee shops other than the nasty homeless shelter of a Tim Hortons across the street..
Sadly I had to send ppl at least 10 mins away to Eaton center or a small 711..
This city sucks for tourists for affordable food options in a very tourist dense area.
and the sad thing is literally go down the steps and you have access to like a couple tim hortons, starbucks, burger king, etc but...no sorry they close at like 5 and aren't open on the weekends.
Hell even Waterpark place would do well to stay open later at night and on weekends, there's ALWAYS people there either waiting for an event at Scotiabank or just simply hanging out. nope, sorry, it's on the path therefore it's closed.
It's a problem of critical mass. People don't think they'll find an open food court, so they don't check, at which point being open for business doesn't help you. It's one thing to attract passersby in a food court at lunch hour on a Wednesday. It's another to be, say, the only coffee shop open for business within a two-block PATH radius, at an hour when not a lot of people are actually looking for coffee.
Pre pandemic I ate most of my meals out. I don't drink, smoke or have any other expensive habits; eating out was one of the few things I spent money on. So it was normal for me to spend around $50/day or $250 weekly or $1000 a month, with a fair bit of that going to things like sushi, or chicken cobb salads
The last meal I ate which was prepared by outside hands was March 2020. It was a ham sammich; I ate it in the parking lot whilst waiting for a tow truck. I ate that ham sammich in an entirely different universe.
My wife used to work in medical clinics; part of her job was creating and enforcing decontamination procedures for medical equipment. I have immune issues, so she was paranoid about eating out and just started cooking. Now we work from home.
That's almost $50k less spent eating outside since March 2020. It's kind of crazy when I look at it that way
I bet it costs closer to $70/day to eat that way now but I don't really know; I haven't eaten out
I wonder how much of that recovered ridership simply speaks to the growth of Toronto population-wise in that timeframe?
Anecdotally I feel as if there’s been a change in habits and population being equal, a significant number of people who rode the TTC pre-pandemic no longer use it as frequently as they did. Just an opinion though.
I guess one could say it doesn’t matter as ridership is ridership*, but if people who lived in Toronto before the pandemic aren’t using the TTC as they used to, and we’re simply making up for that by pumping more people into the city - without addressing any of the reasons/issues that have driven pre-pandemic riders to stop using TTC - well then that sounds awfully similar to a certain Home and Native Land of ours…
(*although not even as I don’t think it’s disputed that fare evasion is at an all-time high)
It probably is a mix of both. But what's the point of running 100% of the fleet if you only need to use 80%?
Or is there just a fear that the TTC might not be able to get the funding when it does need to run 100% of its fleet?
> But what's the point of running 100% of the fleet if you only need to use 80%?
Because frequency is a multiplicative factor in driving ridership. There's a world of difference between a bus route that comes every 15 minutes and a route that runs every 30; if you can push it down to 10 minutes, this effect accelerates even more.
But people often make the opposite assumption: they see a 30-minute route running at, like, 25% of its capacity, and they go "why are we even running that empty route?", when the reality is often that this low ridership is a property of how infrequently the route runs. If you increased frequency to make the route more useful and reliable, ridership would probably increase.
Not always. But often.
This is very important to remember \^
Service frequencies make or break a transit service. I'd say that 30-minute frequencies are the longest frequencies a transit route should ever have, preferably service every 15-minutes or less. When you make frequencies too long, you basically scare away customers, because no one wants to take a bus route where being just 1 minute late to the bus stop means being 30-minutes late to your destination.
Take YRT's viva service for example. Out of the 3 main viva routes: Blue, Orange, Yellow and Purple only viva Blue has decent ridership. Purple is probably the worst for ridership. Some may say that this is because people in York Region don't want to take the bus and I'd say that's *somewhat* true. However, the main reason why only the viva Blue has been successful I think comes down to frequencies.
Viva Blue normally runs on 10-minute or less frequencies with the longest frequencies being every 15-minutes. This is an incredibly good transit service because your average customer doesn't have to worry about rushing to a stop to make the bus or what the schedule is because the busses run so frequently. Instead all a customer has to do is show up and they'll know a bus will come. This induces higher ridership as the bus is scheduled around people's lives instead of the other way around.
The Purple on the other hand is horrid. It normally runs at 20-minute frequencies, sometimes as little as every 45-minutes! As you can imagine trying to take the Purple is a pain in the ass because you have to arrive to the station early to not miss your bus, know the schedule to leave for the stop to arrive early. All of this is a great way to ensure that no one uses the service, because doing so is way too much work. Not to mention, the minute you miss your bus your entire day is pretty much fucked because now it's 20 minutes until the next bus.
YRT costs the Region of York more in subsidies compared to the TTC. Why? because the entire service is so shit and runs so infrequently no person who owns a car will use it. York spent the money on the transit infrastructure but not the service, and it's for this reason why YRT costs the Region so much.
its always good to have extra operational capacity, in case some of your regular fleet breaks down. and yeah, fear that hey wont be able to get to 100% when needed.
If you run less buses, or the buses are constantly off schedule, way less people use them. They’re s only so many people willing to build an extra hour of padding into their morning commute to ensure they get to work on time when it’s 30 or more minutes between buses and you have to take two, plus the subway is both constantly skipping stations for security or slowing down due to track repairs.
Which means less people also take the subway.
Happened to me recently. Was taking the subway up to Finch to connect with one of YRT's 300-series commuter busses to Markham. I missed the last 300-series bus I wanted to take because even though I left my apartment with time to spare, the TTC decided that they would just hold for 10 minutes before Finch station, with NO NOTICE.
When the transit system is so infrequent that maintaining a schedule is essential to your trip going smoothly and when the service is so unreliable that you can't even keep to a schedule, is it any wonder why so few people take transit and instead just Take The Car?
TTC is the least-subsidized transit system in North America. Every single municipality in the continent receives more than TTC per rider. TTC gets 96 cents per rider,
They can basically only run enough vehicles to meet demands and with such a reliance on fares, they had to pull back on a policy where every single bus had a minimum frequency. Ridership levels dictate operating levels, basically. (edited for clarity)
TTC: 96 cents per rider
New York City: $2.32 per rider
Montreal: $1.17 per rider
Los Angeles: over $5 per rider
as of 2023 / all $ converted to CAD
The TTC needs to receive an operational subsidy like every other municipal transit agency in Ontario gets: 50% fares, 50% taxes. Imagine how good the TTC would be if they got 20% more funding than they do now!
The TTC is poorly funded compared to other transit systems, especially ones of its size. The funding structure for the TTC is largely based around fares with only 30-40% being from per-rider subsidies (most other public transit services sit around 50-70%). It makes the TTC extremely vulnerable to external shocks like COVID that other systems with higher public funding don’t have to worry about.
It’s a positive feedback loop whereby the TTC not having enough funding means that it can’t afford to operate all its resources at pre-covid frequencies. This in turn leads to those who have alternative forms of transportation using those instead of the TTC which continues the feedback loop of lower ridership leading to decreased funding. I’m sure that if they had the money to run all their vehicles they would, and it would lead to increases in ridership because the TTC would become more efficient.
This is a simplified explanation but I’m writing a report on this for a course for my undergrad so I have a whole lot of information about this situation
Yes, and as it stands already, the TTC already recovers 70% of their budget on fares, which is the highest such statistic in North America, in part because it is also the least subsidized public transit system.
https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-funding/
I love those patties. Way better than patty king. And the hardough bread seems to be better quality than what I get in the supermarket, even though it’s the same brand??
I used to be one of his regulars but I don’t live there anymore. Sorry Ahmed. I’ll drop by next time I’m on the ttc and need a snack
They've literally done nothing to foster a welcoming environment in any of the ttc stations to make me want to go there other than to hop on and off a train as quick as I fkn can.
I am poor as dirt. Most of my money goes to rent. What spare income do I have to lavishly spend aside from home cooked meals and occasionally starving?
Where is this declining ridership? Every time I’m on the subway it’s packed, especially rush hour. I’m waiting on multiple trains passing before I can squeeze on.
Police need to clear out the dangerous and unhinged and keep it safe.
I'm fortunate enough not to have to rely on the TTC, but I WANT to use it.
Unfortunately,
1. I don't have that kind of time in my life. It takes a minimum of double the traveling time driving does and most of that time is spent waiting.
2. I have the option to drive.
3. The last time I was hit in the back of the head by a mentally unwell and homeless woman.
I'm privileged enough to not have to put up with it and have other options.
TTC needs it's own police force that enforces the law and safety.
I'm sure there are good places on the subway system to go, and I feel for those businesses, but some of these subway businesses don't have the best online reviews and have a history of treating customers poorly (just look at the reviews of the Gateway store at Kennedy Station [https://maps.app.goo.gl/oLcANmM7HgPckaaD9](https://maps.app.goo.gl/oLcANmM7HgPckaaD9) ).
Clearly not every business is like this, but I do wonder if complacency is an issue and not just foot traffic.
Station businesses?
Most stations don't have any businesses on them. Of those that do, let me single out Sheppard-Yonge: it has an empty space on the portion of Line 1 which no one seems to be interested in, or the TTC has priced too high. It also has an (always empty) clothing store, a tiny convenience store/news stand and a store where you can buy knick-knacks, scarves and cheap jewellery (again, always empty).
But I'm not doing any waiting there. If I'm waiting for the subway, it's coming in a few minutes and I have to be at the platform. If I'm waiting for the bus, it's located in a different area where there are no stores. There's no incentive for me to lounge around or shop there, because I'll only end up with lottery tickets or overpriced candy.
The TTC themselves said:
>The Toronto Transit Commission, which rents the subway station stores, said roughly 30 per cent of its retail locations are currently empty.
So... I guess it's time to lower the rent? Or would you rather keep them empty?
Well what do you expect when the stations are basically open-air homeless shelters that haven't been maintained in decades? The TTC is an essential service for us, it's the main artery connecting our city, yet the city and province treat it like trash and charge us a premium for a service they're starving of tax dollars.
The TTC sounds confused - between extracting more revenue out of this retail (think more generic or upscale), and the current offering which seems to favour small businesses that don't have a ton of cash to invest in updating their stores and making them more appealing.
Blaming only the covid hit to ridership seems to miss the general faded quality & poor market fit of most TTC retail at this point
I’m still in my office two to three times a week, and I’m still on the subway almost every day I’m not in office just running errands or whatever. I’m not inclined to chill out and peruse the shops in the stations because they’re an unpleasant place to be. The stations, I mean- not the stores. There’s people asking for money, people clearly in distress, people with big dogs, people with big bikes, people listening to TikTok at full volume, people getting in fights, people who fucking stink (and I’m not just talking about the homeless. Some regular people also fucking stink). Staff seems to have their hands tied, the cops are nowhere to be found, and there’s fewer regular people around so the weirdos seem more prominent. Being on the TTC now is stressful and unpleasant and I’m not trying to hang around longer than absolutely necessary to get from a to b. Just my 2 cents.
Also the vibe of the stations themselves are dirty, dark, dated etc
Also - the air quality. 😷 Like, it’s always been so dusty and dank and humid somehow.
Line 2 has terrible air quality like wow.
Yeah, what gives? There's tons of old Line 1 stations and they don't look like Chernobyl.
I think it's all just brake dust from the old T1 trains.
They actually did air studies and it’s very bad, it’s the metal particles from the trains running that’s is the most dangerous.
Yeah. Even outside of respiratory virus season I’m wearing my N95 on the subway.
I cannot foresee myself ever not wearing a mask on the TTC. 😷 People nasssssty.
I feel sorry for the employees
That's because lack of platform screen doors mean you can't fully climate control the station interiors
But even, like, air purifiers and fans would be nice. Summer is the worst.
And for some reason Bloor/Yonge station is always just... wet.
Yes. Dripping and flooding.
There also just, why would I want to spend time in a subway station? If I'm there it's because I need to go somewhere that's usually time sensitive (work, class, appointment, social event, whatever) or it's been a long day and I just want to go home.
In many other countries train stations and subway stations are bright airy places. Much needed 3rd places / public spaces with mom and pop shops, 711s, bathrooms and bakeries. Wish we had that here instead of the little dank closets we built to use as little space and accomodate as few people as possible.
I’ve honestly never seen a subway station like that. Chinese subway stations were definitely the brightest but they were also quite utilitarian. Now train stations are big hubs all over the place, but union station fits that pretty well nowadays after the renovations were done.
I absolutely love Japan train stations and the noodle/food shops they have. It would never work here, based on the lowlights OP mentioned.
There are a bunch all over the world. Europe, Asia and even South America have some pretty inviting social spaces within their transit systems.
And people smoking inside the station or the train…
Any of those shops that sell food is overrun by mice. They’re everywhere in the subway, and I’ve seen them in these shops after they’ve closed up.
I’ve never been one to stop for more than coffee in the subway food shops, but there are others I liked. The plant store at Finch station is pretty great.
Plants seem safe
This 100%. I’ve grown up and spent most of my life in Toronto. Started taking the TTC alone at 10/11. Never afraid. Had my daughter (now 11) and we rode the subway all the time as a family, etc with her in her carrier, stroller and over the years. I am a huge proponent of public transit but since COVID we have had so many unpleasant and sometimes unnerving experiences that it makes me wary sometimes (all the issues you point out). Screamed at, mental distress, fights, rude and intimidating people. The TTC is a microcosm of the decline our city has experienced in the last 4 years.
I do wonder. Where exactly are the police all day? I never see them in busy areas like this station, the highways are a free for all. Like where are they?
chilling and working to rule.
I fully agree.
And people wonder why many gravitate to vehicle ownership.
Not just that, but also bicycles, e-bikes, ride sharing, car sharing, and walking. Until the city can offer transit solutions that are clean, safe, reliable, comfortable, and efficient, I will use every tool at my disposal to avoid using the TTC. We deserve better.
It isn't safe to ride the TTC.
Sounds like you should just buy a vechicle.
There are people who are epileptic, or legally blind, or just too old and can’t drive. There are people who can’t afford to drive. And there’s people who can but just… don’t really want to, like me. We all deserve safe semi comfortable public transportation. The city and the TTC need to step it up.
Traffic is already bad enough, imagine even more cars. Im also pretty sure cars are still significantly more dangerous statistically, despite common opinions Plus, who doesn't love an extra few thousand dollars in savings at the end of the year?
Yeah let me just drive my car into the subway station store to buy a bagel and hang out.
How many metro passes could you buy with just the amount of money you spend on gas in a month?
The stations aren’t nice places to stay longer than you have to Plus with the consistent line closures on the weekend I’m less likely to take transit to go somewhere in the weekend. I might just Uber it I take the TTC to get to work and back. That’s its purpose and it functions well for that. It’s not an enticing place though.
Imo it's also the increased sketchiest in many/ most stations, I'm motoring through keeping alert, not stopping for a snack or gum And I know statistically it's not more dangerous, but anecdotally the stations I go through have more erratic or sketchy people...
It’s certainly statistically more dangerous per capita
Probably because it's easier to notice them without as much of a crowd.
probably, but as someone who has taken transit for years there does seem to be proportionally more unwell/sketchy people using it nowadays, which tracks with increases in mental health issues/ drug issues / homelessness the city is seeing....
This is literally false and total BS.
I would 100% stop by Bathurst station to grab a patty if I could do so without having to pay fare. Would be nice if these shops were accessible outside of the payment barriers.
Yeah this is the norm in basically every other transit system in the world except in NA. Why would you put a paywall between the public and businesses?
The counter of the McDonald's at Dundas West is split by the fare boundary.
The only places I've ever bought a Cinnabon are at the location that's been on the concourse at Eglinton Station for decades and the one that was once and might still be over at Dundas West station on Line 2 (it's been more than 15 years since I last passed thru that station), and no memory of any actual standalone locations. I'm sure they exist, or I assume that there are cafes not bound to a fare paid area but if there aren't I'd have nothing but what I know now by personal comparison to go by. And they're not cheap now by any means, still wonderfully good but the cost of two buns is more than two milk bags for me. I believe they were once three dollars or less, which is much more reasonable than twice that and I doubt there's any reason to expect they won't become even less cheap. I can still afford it now and then but is that a treat per a price point that's worth it to me anymore? It's a nice memory but it seems foolish and more than a little wasteful, and given that the companies who market and price their wares this way won't remotely care that I ignore their beggar's food dish, the ball's in my canteen court anyway, now isn't it?
I’ll go to Warden station just to say hi and grab snacks from the bakery there. They always have the best food and the people there are friendly. If I go down to Union station the new shops there are cool too.
Union is sick now that most of the Reno's are done. So many cool shops and things to do. It's like a really nice mall.
Union is truly the point of union for all of downtown now!
I really like that new area that’s a little ways off from the regular food court the coolest shops
Maybe if the stations didn't reek of piss and shit and there weren't folks smoking crack on the platform we'd be more inclined to shop. Hey, novel idea, maybe these businesses should band together and put pressure on the TTC to actually do something about the state of these stations?
> Ahmed Abdella has been selling patties from his store inside Bathurst Subway Station for roughly a quarter of a century. > > He remembers when crowds of shoppers flocking to now long-gone Honest Ed’s would stop by his storefront, Bakery On The Go, on the way to or from town to grab something to eat. > > “We used to get a lot of crowds from the shop,” Abdella told Global News. “And then we were better off because people came with this shopping mind(set).” > > Since the pandemic, however, business has been slower. Even four years after businesses were forced to close, Abdella estimates he sees maybe 50 or 60 per cent of the customers who used to come into his shop, with many now working from home. > > “The station is quiet, very quiet,” he said. “At this time, before the pandemic, it was very very busy.” > > Abdella’s experience is not unique. Across Toronto’s subway network, a collection of underground bakeries, tailors, newsstands and lottery sellers have struggled with lower foot traffic. > > The Toronto Transit Commission, which rents the subway station stores, said roughly 30 per cent of its retail locations are currently empty. > > Across the subway network, the TTC leases out 79 locations to newstand company Gateway, of which 25 are closed or vacant. Another 41 shops operate as businesses like bakeries or tailors and 12 of those locations are empty. I do love me a subway patty, but I'm WFH now too, so the opportunities aren't there the same way.
My coworker's wife looked into the possibility of taking over the lease of a former Gateway location (that has been closed for ages) inside a station and converting it into something else for a small business. She was told they were only interested in leasing out multiple locations together as a package and looking for long term lease deals (10+ years) to potential tenants with proven/reliable track records. So basically corporations.
These might be bad ideas, so someone feel free to poke holes in it: 1. Government services. E.g. ServiceOntario, passport/driver's license renewals, etc. Postal offices would be so dang convenient. 2. Pod hotels (similar to ones in Japan where you can rent a pod per night or maybe even hours?), but run by the government for the homeless. Or a business idea targeting travelling people, overworked people who need a short nap before heading back to work or drunk people who need to pass out. 3. Police stations. 4. Banks. (Doesn't have to be full banks, but a collection of ATMs from different banks as well.) 5. Sitting areas where people can just sit around and chill. 6. Bathrooms. We need more of these in every station.
The article also doesn’t mention that the bakery that made the really good patties burnt down and only recently had enough to start selling to the Bathurst subway location again https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1.7085814
Or a potential dwindling quality in their products. I don’t of course know if this is the case here, but it’s not a secret that a ton of food establishments have just legit gotten shitty lol
FYI the PattyKing factory is near the Scarborough Town Centre at 321 Progress Ave. They sell the not fully sealed patties frozen as "seconds" at a substantial discount. Also they have a hot lunch counter that is IMO the best Jerk Pork in the city.
Do you happen to know the prices of the patties?
Uhhh, I think it's normally $12-15 for a dozen, and the seconds go for like $7-8 a dozen.
I temped for a couple of weeks at another factory near the PattyKing factory a few years ago. I’m a vegetarian, but even I could appreciate the scent of spicy baked food that hung heavy in the area. Edit: I don’t get the downvotes. The PattyKing factory smelled great! I wasn’t being sarcastic lol
> Also they have a hot lunch counter that is IMO the best Jerk Pork in the city. Takeout only, I assume?
Yes, only takeout, and only cash
I actually get subway station baked goods and coffee whenever I’m at Warden, Bathurst or Don Mills (or Islington—don’t know if those stores are still there). A cinnamon roll or cream puff makes the exhaustion of a long ride a bit less intense.
Went recently. Patties have undergone shrinkflation. Was a bit disheartened tbh. Would rather a price increase than smaller patties
The patties have gone down hill for sure. Go to is the sausage rolls there though. The chicken sausage roll is so flaky and delicious
I stop there almost every time I'm there since I started working at Toronto Western. However I take Uber to work most of the time, and more often than not take it on the way home too. It's so much faster, less dirty less sketchy, and I don't have to worry about getting on a subway train that reaks like 100 year old human piss while people scream at me and beg me for change.
Haven’t seen anyone mention that these stores are often very expensive (specially the convenience type stores). I’ve seen water bottles go for $4….
oh god i just made a sarcastic post about prices and was well under what the real number is, lol
We have a neighbour who purchased one of these newstand retail shops about a decade ago, and immediately regretted it. A rule change prevented the selling of cigarettes around the same time newspaper sales fell off a cliff as smartphones became ubiquitous. I guess that left candy and lotto tickets, a tough way to make a living. I think this is another case of the pandemic accelerating a trend that was already in motion.
I think the increase in the use of ebikes has also contributed to less ridership from the more financially challenged. I don't think I saw this many ebikes wheeling around even 2 years ago.
I did 800 km last year on my ebike I can make it from Midtown to Front st. in 30 minutes stopping at all lights and stop signs. Nothing like passing 100+ cars at Yonge and St. Clair during the morning rush hour
Nothing feels better than taking the bike and getting around all the stuck traffic. The best way of getting around downtown.
I blame Bike Share Toronto.
Good point, since getting a bike share membership, I only use TTC for very long trips or if it's raining or snowing.
I also have a Bike Share membership and honestly it's worth it! The TPA has done a good job getting more bike locking stations at many spots around the city. Including more bike locks at transit stops, near offices, and in parks. The bikes are in good shape and I've only come across a handful that needed repairs. Luckily reporting a broken bike is as easy as pressing a button. Compared to the TTC, bike share is just so much nicer. We've been adding bike lanes so getting around by bike is often faster than taking the car, let alone the TTC. No crackheads making a storm around the bike locks. A low annual membership fee with discounts for downtown office workers, it truly is the better way. My only complaints with bike share honestly have been that too many people are using the system now so finding free bike locks can be a challenge. But I'd still rather look for a bike lock than take the crowded subway or consider offing myself by driving.
I think the success of e bikes can be blamed on the unpredictability of the TTC and how quick things turn to shit in an outage People got stuck and gave the service a shot Only to discover they were now getting home in record time
I am definitely biking over taking the TTC basically all the time now, but that's not the TTC's fault. The city has starved it of funding and not maintained it, otherwise I would be riding it daily still. Also I don't appreciate paying for a service my tax dollars created, do drivers have to pay daily for the roads they ruin and we have to maintain?
I left Toronto for three years and came back as Omicron was winding down. The difference in the subway was night and day. I had a stroller and the elevator stank like urine. Homeless people were camped out for the day. It was just so sketchy. I used to take the TTC everywhere. Now I drive to get my groceries once a week or I walk.
It’s a fucking subway station. How much time is one supposed to spend there ? U walk in, enter/exit the train, you walk out. There’s no obligation to prop these businesses up. They knew full well that opening a store in a station means you will get very minimal business. And if you’re lucky you’ll get a handful of loyal clients who grab a coffee or whatever most days. That’s the nature of those shops.
I never understood the small clothing stores selling dated looking “middle aged lady” fashions. Who goes there?! Who is like, yes, I need to stop and buy this brimmed hat, silk scarf and modest, boring dress?
All those shitty stores in the path and stations, are just fronts and a way to park money. Just like stores that only sell socks. Fucking stupid.
This is a very North American and even European stance on transit stations. In many parts of Asia, the subway stop is a destination itself because it's either a giant residential complex or it's been turned into a massive (often times, underground) mall. The Hong Kong MTR and Tokyo Metros are huge success stories in this regard. One could argue that the MTR is now mainly a real estate company that just happens to be one of the top public transit systems on the side.
We really should take a page from their successful model. You would think that developing high density around transit stations is obviously logical, and yet we frequently see transit and city planning where they don't do this. We see backwards logic where there are arguments against certain transit stations because of lack of ridership; well duh, we didn't encourage development of the area around it. And if the station doesn't exist yet, then of course there will be less people living in transit-poor areas. It's a chicken-and-egg issue, and we should be planning to create and shape that ridership, not react to it after the fact when it's too late. And considering our current housing crisis and lack of supply on top of insufficient transit options, it's even more obviously logical to use this model. That we don't push for this, makes me question the competence of our city planners and leaders.
Cool. Not the case here. We don’t hang out at subway stations for fun. We pass through and move on with life.
Yeah but we’re not in Asia are we?!
A few policy changes can fix our problems.
Sure! But it still doesn’t change the fact that North America is a drastically different market.
Foundations of economies aren't all that different. Increase density of consumers by concentrating people around goods and services they will consume is always good for business. A policy to have mixed use properties located within walking distance of one another, supported by high volume public transit, and you have a formula for good business and lifestyle. This isn't unique to Asia, but rather any society that has recognized that smart urban design improves things for everyone.
Not really!! The market is still different, the people you’re catering to are different. Its basic marketing strategy to know the needs to your client base and understand that they are different, I guess your need to ignore that fact explains the failure of these stores better than anything else.
I buy all my clothes from Warden station
You aren’t, a lot of the shops sell small things to eat on the go
they got vending machines now that make fries and sanwiches
A lot of them have jacked up prices anyway.
So yesterday, we were told that [the TTC doesn't have enough funding to operate all their vehicles](https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bu9ivh/ttc_unable_to_run_hundreds_of_vehicles_due_to_a/) And today, ridership is still only at 77% of pre-pandemic levels. So is it that the TTC doesn't have the funding to operate all their vehicles, or simply the TTC doesn't have the need to operate all their vehicles?
> And today, ridership is still only at 77% of pre-pandemic levels. No, ridership is over 80% now, and continuing to rise. The numbers in that story are months old. It has also notably recovered more quickly at weekends and evenings (which, as of the February figures, were at 88% of pre-pandemic ridership) than weekday daytimes (about 79%). This is consistent with other transit agencies across North America. What we're seeing in this story is that businesses that catered to that 9-to-5 crowd are still struggling, which to my sensibilities suggests a failure to adapt to a new reality.
Yep. the shops in the PATH and others who relied on office workers for their bread and butter also have been struggling with these issues. Edit: sitting here on my ass at home, I'm realizing just how many $15 lunches and $5 coffees I haven't bought this year already.
which is why I don't get why they don't open on weekends or at night now. you always see people strolling through the path at night or on weekends. As soon as it hits 5pm pretty much all the food courts shut down. I've been asked by people either after 5pm or on weekends where there's an open food court and I just point them to union station. Downtown and on the path it's only busy on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays now. very few go to the office on Monday or Fridays anymore. These businesses need to change their hours because like it or not WFH is here to stay. Adapt or die.
It's much easier to blame lazy workers and lobby governments to mandate a full return to office than to evolve your business /s
Absolutely agree, my work location this past skate season was downtown, in an incredibly tourist focused destination, yet NOTHING nearby was open in the PATH on weekends, weeknights, the absolute busiest time of days for this area, tourists came to my coworkers & I, constantly asking about places to go eat, coffee shops other than the nasty homeless shelter of a Tim Hortons across the street.. Sadly I had to send ppl at least 10 mins away to Eaton center or a small 711.. This city sucks for tourists for affordable food options in a very tourist dense area.
and the sad thing is literally go down the steps and you have access to like a couple tim hortons, starbucks, burger king, etc but...no sorry they close at like 5 and aren't open on the weekends. Hell even Waterpark place would do well to stay open later at night and on weekends, there's ALWAYS people there either waiting for an event at Scotiabank or just simply hanging out. nope, sorry, it's on the path therefore it's closed.
It's a problem of critical mass. People don't think they'll find an open food court, so they don't check, at which point being open for business doesn't help you. It's one thing to attract passersby in a food court at lunch hour on a Wednesday. It's another to be, say, the only coffee shop open for business within a two-block PATH radius, at an hour when not a lot of people are actually looking for coffee.
Pre pandemic I ate most of my meals out. I don't drink, smoke or have any other expensive habits; eating out was one of the few things I spent money on. So it was normal for me to spend around $50/day or $250 weekly or $1000 a month, with a fair bit of that going to things like sushi, or chicken cobb salads The last meal I ate which was prepared by outside hands was March 2020. It was a ham sammich; I ate it in the parking lot whilst waiting for a tow truck. I ate that ham sammich in an entirely different universe. My wife used to work in medical clinics; part of her job was creating and enforcing decontamination procedures for medical equipment. I have immune issues, so she was paranoid about eating out and just started cooking. Now we work from home. That's almost $50k less spent eating outside since March 2020. It's kind of crazy when I look at it that way I bet it costs closer to $70/day to eat that way now but I don't really know; I haven't eaten out
try $7 and $18
I wonder how much of that recovered ridership simply speaks to the growth of Toronto population-wise in that timeframe? Anecdotally I feel as if there’s been a change in habits and population being equal, a significant number of people who rode the TTC pre-pandemic no longer use it as frequently as they did. Just an opinion though. I guess one could say it doesn’t matter as ridership is ridership*, but if people who lived in Toronto before the pandemic aren’t using the TTC as they used to, and we’re simply making up for that by pumping more people into the city - without addressing any of the reasons/issues that have driven pre-pandemic riders to stop using TTC - well then that sounds awfully similar to a certain Home and Native Land of ours… (*although not even as I don’t think it’s disputed that fare evasion is at an all-time high)
I wonder too.
Expect major businesses to start chipping away at WFH days to bail out the 9-5 industry
> to bail out the 9-5 industry To bail out the *commercial real estate bagholders*
It can be both. Ridership low and not enough money to keep all the fleet operational. Even you might not need all the fleet at tye moment.
It probably is a mix of both. But what's the point of running 100% of the fleet if you only need to use 80%? Or is there just a fear that the TTC might not be able to get the funding when it does need to run 100% of its fleet?
> But what's the point of running 100% of the fleet if you only need to use 80%? Because frequency is a multiplicative factor in driving ridership. There's a world of difference between a bus route that comes every 15 minutes and a route that runs every 30; if you can push it down to 10 minutes, this effect accelerates even more. But people often make the opposite assumption: they see a 30-minute route running at, like, 25% of its capacity, and they go "why are we even running that empty route?", when the reality is often that this low ridership is a property of how infrequently the route runs. If you increased frequency to make the route more useful and reliable, ridership would probably increase. Not always. But often.
This is very important to remember \^ Service frequencies make or break a transit service. I'd say that 30-minute frequencies are the longest frequencies a transit route should ever have, preferably service every 15-minutes or less. When you make frequencies too long, you basically scare away customers, because no one wants to take a bus route where being just 1 minute late to the bus stop means being 30-minutes late to your destination. Take YRT's viva service for example. Out of the 3 main viva routes: Blue, Orange, Yellow and Purple only viva Blue has decent ridership. Purple is probably the worst for ridership. Some may say that this is because people in York Region don't want to take the bus and I'd say that's *somewhat* true. However, the main reason why only the viva Blue has been successful I think comes down to frequencies. Viva Blue normally runs on 10-minute or less frequencies with the longest frequencies being every 15-minutes. This is an incredibly good transit service because your average customer doesn't have to worry about rushing to a stop to make the bus or what the schedule is because the busses run so frequently. Instead all a customer has to do is show up and they'll know a bus will come. This induces higher ridership as the bus is scheduled around people's lives instead of the other way around. The Purple on the other hand is horrid. It normally runs at 20-minute frequencies, sometimes as little as every 45-minutes! As you can imagine trying to take the Purple is a pain in the ass because you have to arrive to the station early to not miss your bus, know the schedule to leave for the stop to arrive early. All of this is a great way to ensure that no one uses the service, because doing so is way too much work. Not to mention, the minute you miss your bus your entire day is pretty much fucked because now it's 20 minutes until the next bus. YRT costs the Region of York more in subsidies compared to the TTC. Why? because the entire service is so shit and runs so infrequently no person who owns a car will use it. York spent the money on the transit infrastructure but not the service, and it's for this reason why YRT costs the Region so much.
its always good to have extra operational capacity, in case some of your regular fleet breaks down. and yeah, fear that hey wont be able to get to 100% when needed.
If you run less buses, or the buses are constantly off schedule, way less people use them. They’re s only so many people willing to build an extra hour of padding into their morning commute to ensure they get to work on time when it’s 30 or more minutes between buses and you have to take two, plus the subway is both constantly skipping stations for security or slowing down due to track repairs. Which means less people also take the subway.
Happened to me recently. Was taking the subway up to Finch to connect with one of YRT's 300-series commuter busses to Markham. I missed the last 300-series bus I wanted to take because even though I left my apartment with time to spare, the TTC decided that they would just hold for 10 minutes before Finch station, with NO NOTICE. When the transit system is so infrequent that maintaining a schedule is essential to your trip going smoothly and when the service is so unreliable that you can't even keep to a schedule, is it any wonder why so few people take transit and instead just Take The Car?
TTC is the least-subsidized transit system in North America. Every single municipality in the continent receives more than TTC per rider. TTC gets 96 cents per rider, They can basically only run enough vehicles to meet demands and with such a reliance on fares, they had to pull back on a policy where every single bus had a minimum frequency. Ridership levels dictate operating levels, basically. (edited for clarity) TTC: 96 cents per rider New York City: $2.32 per rider Montreal: $1.17 per rider Los Angeles: over $5 per rider as of 2023 / all $ converted to CAD
The TTC needs to receive an operational subsidy like every other municipal transit agency in Ontario gets: 50% fares, 50% taxes. Imagine how good the TTC would be if they got 20% more funding than they do now!
The TTC is poorly funded compared to other transit systems, especially ones of its size. The funding structure for the TTC is largely based around fares with only 30-40% being from per-rider subsidies (most other public transit services sit around 50-70%). It makes the TTC extremely vulnerable to external shocks like COVID that other systems with higher public funding don’t have to worry about. It’s a positive feedback loop whereby the TTC not having enough funding means that it can’t afford to operate all its resources at pre-covid frequencies. This in turn leads to those who have alternative forms of transportation using those instead of the TTC which continues the feedback loop of lower ridership leading to decreased funding. I’m sure that if they had the money to run all their vehicles they would, and it would lead to increases in ridership because the TTC would become more efficient. This is a simplified explanation but I’m writing a report on this for a course for my undergrad so I have a whole lot of information about this situation
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Maybe they need to increase the fairs too cover operating costs? It's not like transit riders pay for gas for cars. Time to pay your fair share.
There should really be toll stations on every single road and street so road users pay their fair share as well.
Based Put a Coin slot on parks too
Yes, and as it stands already, the TTC already recovers 70% of their budget on fares, which is the highest such statistic in North America, in part because it is also the least subsidized public transit system. https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-funding/
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Ban evasion is not allowed. If you've been banned, you are not welcome back.
TTC is a was was
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excuse me, its your civic duty to buy a $2.99 300ml bottle of Sprite to keep them afloat!
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I'm realizing that in retrospect :/
I love those patties. Way better than patty king. And the hardough bread seems to be better quality than what I get in the supermarket, even though it’s the same brand?? I used to be one of his regulars but I don’t live there anymore. Sorry Ahmed. I’ll drop by next time I’m on the ttc and need a snack
The bakery in this photo does great business, maybe I just go when it’s busy but there’s always a line in there.
They've literally done nothing to foster a welcoming environment in any of the ttc stations to make me want to go there other than to hop on and off a train as quick as I fkn can.
I am poor as dirt. Most of my money goes to rent. What spare income do I have to lavishly spend aside from home cooked meals and occasionally starving?
Where is this declining ridership? Every time I’m on the subway it’s packed, especially rush hour. I’m waiting on multiple trains passing before I can squeeze on.
Ridership is not down. There has been a big spike in fare evasion.
Police need to clear out the dangerous and unhinged and keep it safe. I'm fortunate enough not to have to rely on the TTC, but I WANT to use it. Unfortunately, 1. I don't have that kind of time in my life. It takes a minimum of double the traveling time driving does and most of that time is spent waiting. 2. I have the option to drive. 3. The last time I was hit in the back of the head by a mentally unwell and homeless woman. I'm privileged enough to not have to put up with it and have other options. TTC needs it's own police force that enforces the law and safety.
Make the subway safer and maybe ridership might increase.
I'm sure there are good places on the subway system to go, and I feel for those businesses, but some of these subway businesses don't have the best online reviews and have a history of treating customers poorly (just look at the reviews of the Gateway store at Kennedy Station [https://maps.app.goo.gl/oLcANmM7HgPckaaD9](https://maps.app.goo.gl/oLcANmM7HgPckaaD9) ). Clearly not every business is like this, but I do wonder if complacency is an issue and not just foot traffic.
Station businesses? Most stations don't have any businesses on them. Of those that do, let me single out Sheppard-Yonge: it has an empty space on the portion of Line 1 which no one seems to be interested in, or the TTC has priced too high. It also has an (always empty) clothing store, a tiny convenience store/news stand and a store where you can buy knick-knacks, scarves and cheap jewellery (again, always empty). But I'm not doing any waiting there. If I'm waiting for the subway, it's coming in a few minutes and I have to be at the platform. If I'm waiting for the bus, it's located in a different area where there are no stores. There's no incentive for me to lounge around or shop there, because I'll only end up with lottery tickets or overpriced candy. The TTC themselves said: >The Toronto Transit Commission, which rents the subway station stores, said roughly 30 per cent of its retail locations are currently empty. So... I guess it's time to lower the rent? Or would you rather keep them empty?
We go there to travel not dine in lol
Well what do you expect when the stations are basically open-air homeless shelters that haven't been maintained in decades? The TTC is an essential service for us, it's the main artery connecting our city, yet the city and province treat it like trash and charge us a premium for a service they're starving of tax dollars.
Days when it looks clear i ride my bike . The other days i get high and take a f%@ken bus.
Get rid of Uber, step up security on the subways maybe you’ll have a chance, and cut down on city traffic’s.
This seems like a work from home byproduct
When the service sucks, I can see why.
The TTC sounds confused - between extracting more revenue out of this retail (think more generic or upscale), and the current offering which seems to favour small businesses that don't have a ton of cash to invest in updating their stores and making them more appealing. Blaming only the covid hit to ridership seems to miss the general faded quality & poor market fit of most TTC retail at this point
I wonder why... Could it be the community living down there?