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Meanwhile, as the TTC continues to scold its riders, riders must resign themselves to the dreadful service that has become the standard for commuting by public transit in Toronto. Last month, the sudden derailment of a subway car rendered an entire stretch of the subway inoperable for nearly four hours,stranding tens of thousands of passengers in the middle of their morning commute. Last week, virtually the same situation seemed to unfold again, as a TTC work car derailed, once more leaving the city furious and in the lurch. These holdups and setbacks, the mechanical gremlins and technical difficulties that repeatedly plague the service, are painful enough. You endure them — and then you getrebuked.

Photo by Jack Boland/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

The TTC’s initiative to hassle its irritated ridership over the price of a token hasn’t been confined strictly to the realm of advertising. At the beginning of this year the commission increased the number of fare inspectors, promising that the number of tickets dealt to evaders would also sharply rise, as some inspectors would board streetcars and subways in indistinguishable civilian clothes. Then, about a week ago, a video circulated online that showed a pair of fare inspectorsdousing a passenger in pepper spray while attempting to wrestle him to the ground. Evidently, it isn’t enough to admonish riders in print for declining to pay.

As the campaign to shake riders down marches bitterly on, cities across the United States are experimenting with a radical alternative: making public transportation free. Ina new report on the phenomenon just this week in theNew York Times, a compelling case is made for eliminating transit fares entirely: in cities where it’s been tested, ridership increased by an astonishing 20 to 60 percent almost immediately. In this view, transit is not simply a service to be paid for by a customer, but a human right — and one that, made free, can be a tremendous boon for a city’s poorest. Where the concept of free transit has been adopted, it’s viewed “as a key factor in social and racial inequality.”