News Flash
TTC finally introduces post-secondary student Metropasses
The much-anticipated discounted Metropasses for post-secondary students in Toronto will be available for purchase starting next week.
Students will need to get a post-secondary TTC student photo ID in order to use the discounted Metropass. The passes are available for $99, which is $22 dollars less than the regular $121 Metropass.
Metropasses used to be available for students under the Volume Incentive Program for $107, so the savings is more like $8. But savings is savings, right?
The TTC will begin selling the post-secondary student Metropasses Tuesday.
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Now we are going to have 39 year old "professional students" with no career and 4 degrees trying to get a discounted rate. WTF!
how about just hop on your fixed-gear and go to school.
i was going to say i'm glad about this. my metropass discount plan expires in october, so it's nice that i won't have to go back to paying the standard rate.
funny comment about glencairn. that's the station where they dump everybody off when the trains go out of service mid-morning. what a pain in the ass!
Staff & students at UofT have always been getting a discounted pass.
They were paying $96 for VIP.
Now it's $107 for VIP and students are $99.
And Daniel, It's not surprising... Uoft is the #1 purchaser of metropasses. If they are buying an average of 5000 passes a month directly from the TTC, I'd want a discount as well. I'm not aware of to many companies out there who don't get a deal on buying in large quantities.
Many companies offer volume discounts, however, TTC is not a company. It is a service...and a poor one at that. They lack direction, management, and money. Last thing they should be doing is cutting their revenue stream.
1) To those who say it isn't enough: it is better than nothing so just shut up and be grateful.
2) To those who are anti discount: as a student currently financially independent, working four (soon to be five) jobs while going to school full time, and working full time in the summers without ever taking a vacation because I could never afford to. I feel like I deserve a bit of a break seeing as I'm paying thousands of dollars in constantly rising tuition.
3) Thanks TTC!
More people on transit mean lower costs for all tax payers; fewer cars on the road mean lower road maintenance costs, lower health care costs from fewer pollutants in the air, etc.
The descision to offer the student discount seems to benefit everyone, not just those who are elligible for the discount.
Now, if only we could get government to invest more in public transit, improving the service while bringing down the cost for all riders!
And do I pay the student price for the go train if i have the post secondary Go transit discount card? Or do we save more money?
Could I show up with my UofT student card from 1998 and still get a discounted pass?
For those complaining, all I can say is it's better than nothing. The TTC has never recovered from losing all provincial funding for operating costs, so they can't offer much.
$22 bucks off a month is a savings of $264 a year. As for the VIP metropasses, many schools did offer these but they would not buy enough and would frequently sell out of them far before the start of the month, meaning you were stuck paying full price.
GO offers 10 ride tickets and monthly passes to students at a reduced rate. You must get a GO Student ID card to use these fares, if you get caught without your student ID you can be fined. Info about how to get a GO Student ID is here:
http://www.gotransit.com/public/en/fares/studentid.aspx
All students who get the student metropass or GO montly passes are eligible to claim it on their yearly income taxes, depending on your income it can increase your refund by a couple hundred bucks, so save your passes for tax time!
I also highly doubt anyone is really going to stay in university specifically for $22 off their metropass. For that matter, anyone can get the $107 metropass. Just pay for a years worth up front. Problem solved.
Most of the feedback the TTC community has been receiving so far has been very negative and not for the reasons directly mentioned above, but because it is no longer practical and buying 40 tokens in bulk costs the same amount of money but can be used by all adult members of the family/household.
Also, students may also notice it costs $7.00 to purchase the card in school when taking the photograph for the ID card, but only costs $5.25 at the subway station TTC Photo ID centre. Why is this? Apparently, that is the price of the card, the plastic, the labour needed to take it which is $1.75 less than in school, because that extra little bit goes to the Datacard Group who is mass producing cards on-the-spot at the chosen post-sec.institution.
Hope this sheds a bit more light on the situation, and I am only writing what my brother, who is a Supervisor at the TTC has divulged to me.