Let’s get this straight: Pro-car Mayor Rob Ford has told the TTC it can’t hike fares to solve its budget problems. Meantime the city’s leading transit advocate is calling a fare freeze “madness” given the system’s operating challenges.

Streetcar crusader and transit blogger Steve Munro believes predictable, moderate fare increases are preferable to service cuts, given that the TTC is facing an $85 million operating shortfall next year.

“If they have a fare freeze this year on top of other cuts they’re contemplating, it will be disastrous … just at the time the system is doing so well,” he said, referring to the 15 million more riders the TTC is anticipating next year.

Politicians of all stripes are spooked by fare hikes, says Munro. By holding down transit prices, Ford is just repeating the actions of his predecessor, David Miller, who also pledged a fare freeze in 2009.

But next year’s TTC budget is being crafted against Ford’s desperate financial pressures. After promising no service cuts and no layoffs, it’s nearly certain the mayor will have to resort to both if he’s going to close Toronto’s 2012 operating shortfall, projected to be between $443 million and $774 million.

Earlier this year Ford cancelled a 10-cent fare hike that would have given the TTC about $8 million in badly needed revenue. An adult cash fare increase of 25 cents in 2010 was designed to raise $45.5 million.

Fare increases do typically drive down ridership. If combined with cuts to service, fare hikes can spell disaster, such as the huge ridership loss the TTC experienced in the 1990s.

But there’s reason to believe that a moderate hike wouldn’t drive away riders, says Munro. He points out that the ridership losses expected after last year’s 25-cent fare increase didn’t materialize.

Although public transit has a longstanding social service role, there’s a sense that TTC riders could pay more, he said.

“We know politics is part of the fare-box recovery ratio, and we try to manage that,” said York Region Transit general manager Rick Leary.

But it’s a balancing act, he said. There was no increase in 2010 or 2011, after three consecutive years in which fares went up. Now there’s a sense the economy is recovering, and higher prices are being reviewed.

York Region’s growing ridership pays $3.25 per ride — a quarter more than the TTC charges.

Mississauga is recommending an increase to its $3 adult cash fare in its fall budget. The city isn’t saying yet how much, or how it will be structured.

“Why do we expect to pay more for everything else but we take it as our God-given right that the TTC fare should never hit $5?” wonders Murtaza Haider, a professor at the Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University.

“You have to pay a decent amount to get good service,” he said.

Air conditioning, bike racks, accessibility features — these have all improved public transit. But operating costs have risen much faster than revenue on the TTC because of labour costs, not better service.

Serious conversation about transit costs needs to centre on automation and wages, said Haider, a regular rider who was nevertheless shocked recently when, having left his cash at home, he discovered he couldn’t buy his fare with a credit card.

Like Munro, Haider believes that rational, predictable fare increases would help enshrine them in policy, making them less subject to the whims of transit-ruling politicians

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The TTC doesn’t intend to cut any routes, like the evening and weekend service reductions decided earlier this year, said TTC chair Karen Stintz. But she wouldn’t rule out longer waits and more crowded vehicles on some routes.

The TTC’s operating budget will be discussed at a special transit commission meeting Sept. 9.