Toronto taxpayers, who paid $500 million to subsidize TTC operations this year, won’t help pay for privately operated transit lines, Toronto Transit Commission chair Karen Stintz has warned the province.

A day after the TTC got word that Metrolinx has decided to privatize the operation and maintenance of Toronto’s provincially funded $8.4 billion LRTs, Stintz took a hard line on the TTC’s contribution to their operating costs.

“If we’re not operating those lines, we’re not paying those costs … I don’t know where they’re going to get the money,” she said.

Stintz was responding to a suggestion from Ontario Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Bob Chiarelli that Metrolinx and the TTC are still negotiating an operating subsidy for the new lines.

Chiarelli defended the government’s decision to use a public-private partnership to build, design, finance, maintain and operate the LRTs, saying its Infrastructure Ontario agency had an “almost flawless” record of bringing projects in on time and on budget.

“There have been TTC projects that have been long overdue and sometimes much over budget,” he said.

Like most public transit, the new LRTs won’t cover their costs through the fare box when they open in eight or nine years.

“Every transit system in North America has some government subsidies to cover off the operating. That’s not unusual,” Chiarelli said.

“But the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown will save the TTC the cost of buses. So they will have a significant savings by not having to run the buses,” he said.

Shifting the bus savings to the Eglinton-Crosstown was the plan until the TTC was cut out of the picture, Stintz said.

“In the original model we would operate the line. So anything we didn’t spend on buses we would contribute to the Crosstown. The same applied to Finch and Sheppard and (the conversion to light rail of) the Scarborough RT. But if we’re not operating those lines we’re not paying those costs,” she said.

Although Stintz said she was pleased by Metrolinx’s assurances that TTC riders wouldn’t pay an additional fare to ride the new transit, “It’s still unclear how the TTC sets fares for a private operator,” she said.

“The fare and the fare-sharing is a future discussion,” said Jack Collins, Metrolinx vice-president for Rapid Transit Implementation.

But the parties have agreed in principle that it will be a one-fare system, “that whatever the TTC’s prevailing fare is in 2020, that will be the fare the customer pays,” he said.

The details will be part of the master agreement between Metrolinx, the city and the TTC, which isn’t yet complete, said Collins.

He downplayed concerns about the impact of integrating the LRTs with the TTC, saying it would work as seamlessly as the privately operated Canada Line, which connects with the rest of the Vancouver transit system.

How the two systems will collect and divide fare revenues is still undecided, said Collins.

Also unclear, said a Metrolinx spokesman, is how the private operator would move riders in the event of a service disruption on the LRT.

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Although the TTC would have preferred to maintain and operate the LRTs itself, CEO Andy Byford said Toronto transit officials will be “100 per cent” co-operative.

“To do otherwise would disadvantage the customer, so there’s no way we’re going to do that. I don’t think it’s ideal having two operators … there’s potential for confusion, and that’s what we’ve got to avoid,” he said.

With nearly a decade before the lines open, “We ought to be able to get our act together in that time,” he said.

The LRTs will have to have their own control rooms and evacuation procedures so there’s no question of who is in charge in an emergency, he said.

Byford, who worked in a public-private rail system in England, said it’s safety-critical that the TTC and Metrolinx co-operate in the design of the stations where the subway and LRT will intersect, at Kennedy, Eglinton West and Yonge St.

While Metrolinx insists that a privatized operation is better for taxpayers, some transit watchers say it will be a mess for riders.

“It’s a disaster waiting to happen. They do not have the service planning tools or any of it to make this work.” said left-wing Councillor Gord Perks (Parkdale-High Park).

“What lesson should we take from the (Highway) 407, eHealth and ORNGE? Don’t set up an arm’s-length decision-making body and have them set up contracts with the private sector.”

Adding a private operator to the mix will inevitably muddy the customer experience, said Toronto transit advocate and blogger Steve Munro.

At the very least, riders transferring between the TTC and the Crosstown will probably have to tap on and tap off with their electronic Presto fare card at the transfer point.

“Metrolinx is going to want to know down to the last detail how many people, and where they are actually riding their part of the line,” Munro said. “They’re going to be doing lots of tub-thumping for tap-on and tap-off,” Munro said.

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