The mayor’s policy of allowing children to ride the TTC for free has caused the number of children taking transit to skyrocket.

The program went into effect on Mar. 1, 2015. According to newly released TTC figures, in 2016, the first full year of its implementation, 22 million kids took transit. That was double the number children’s rides in 2014. This year the TTC is projecting that 28 million kids will take transit.

At a news conference Wednesday morning to mark the two-year anniversary of the policy Mayor John Tory hailed the program as a major success that he said benefits schools, community groups, and low-income families.

“It helps kids to get to school, to daycare, to appointments, to the library, to recreational programs, and frankly to have an opportunity to enjoy the city,” said Tory, as he stood outside Nelson Mandela Park Public School in Regent Park.

The higher kids ridership “is evidence of the fact that we are not only helping those families to go places they couldn’t go, helping those classes of school kids to go places they couldn’t go previously, but we’re also, I hope, fervently hope, developing a new generation of transit users who will think first of using transit to get around the city,” Tory said.

Although the policy was implemented months before council’s adoption of a 20-year poverty reduction strategy, Tory said it should be considered an integral anti-poverty initiative because it can save struggling families hundreds of dollars a year.

The program costs the city about $8 million annually. Before it passed, children paid a 75-cent fare.

Under a separate policy the TTC board approved in July, the transit agency intends to require kids 6 and older carry Presto fare cards. In addition, kids aged 10 to 12 will have to carry TTC-issued photo ID. The plan was passed after the agency expressed concern that kids older than 12 were abusing the system to ride for free. A single card costs $6 and the IDs are expected to cost between $5 and $7.

The TTC says kids need to carry Presto cards because otherwise they will be unable to pass through automatic fare gates at subway stations.

Some parents have expressed skepticism about the plan, saying it’s impractical and that children will lose the cards.

Tory said he intended to monitor the plan as it’s rolled out. It’s scheduled to be implemented later this year.

“We’ll take this one step at a time. The key first is to get the Presto system working properly,” he said.

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The increase in the number of kids taking transit comes at a time when overall TTC ridership growth has stalled. Last year 538 million people rode the TTC, an increase of just 0.7 per cent compared to the year before.

Excluding seniors, ridership among adults actually declined from 434.9 million in 2015 to 427 million in 2016.

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