The 2017 federal budget has delivered a financial blow to frequent transit riders by eliminating a 15-per-cent tax credit on transit passes.

The decision means that TTC passengers will no longer be eligible for a tax rebate on monthly Metropasses, weekly TTC passes, and weekly GTA passes. It will also affect passengers who use transit agencies across the GTA, including GO Presto pass holders.

TTC chair Josh Colle said Wednesday that the Liberal government’s decision to scrap the credit came as a surprise. The measure was introduced by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in 2006.

Read more about the 2017 federal budget

Colle said the agency doesn’t have statistics on how many people were making use of the rebate, so it’s not clear what effect it will have on transit usage. But because adult Metropass holders account for almost half of all trips on the TTC, it’s something Colle said he’ll be watching closely.

“It’s something we definitely need to understand. We don’t want to have people not buying Metropasses . . . that’s our main revenue source,” he said.

“If this was in fact supporting ridership growth and transit use, then we of course would want it to stay.”

This year, Metropasses cost $146.25, which works out to a discount of $21.94 for one pass, or $263.25 for a year’s worth.

In the past, making the passes more expensive has deterred people from buying them and driven down transit ridership. When the TTC raised the cost of the passes in 2015, their sales dropped by 3.6 per cent, which the agency said was a “significant contributor to the slowdown in the TTC’s ridership growth.”

The TTC is already struggling with lower-than-expected ridership. Last year the number of trips fell 15 million short of the target of 543 million, leaving a $46-million hole in the agency’s budget.

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