Quote:
Originally Posted by electricron
The idea that buying a single seat ride on a TCC streetcar ticket with a small fare will be allowed for riding a higher fare VIA train seems ridiculous. Who would ever pay the higher fare when they can ride with the lower fare?
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In almost every European case, there is a central-city zone where flat fares apply for all means of transport (transfers not always free). Outside of that zone, fares begin to increase in relation to distance, just like American commuter rail.
Your post is a little jumbled, but there is a very good reason to differentiate service. Somebody in an outlying neighborhood of Toronto might choose to take a fast VIA train into downtown rather than take a slow, lumbering streetcar. This is good for the traveler, who gets to his destination faster, and good for the transit authority, which now has one more spot available on the streetcar for a different traveler who's only going a short distance. Since the net travel time between the outlying neighborhood and the core is reduced, transit becomes a more attractive option in that neighborhood, both for work trips to the core and local trips within or to nearby neighborhoods.
Your scenario, where somebody pays for a streetcar and transfers to a VIA train for free, wouldn't happen, or at least it wouldn't be the outrage you think it is. If this traveler makes the transfer within the City of Toronto and is heading to Union Station, the free transfer makes sense; it frees up capacity on the TTC subways and streetcars. If the traveler is heading out of the city, he would be subject to an additional fare because he is making a longer journey. The fact that VIA trains have comfy seats and bathrooms shouldn't matter; most S-Bahn systems or the RER are standing-room only by the time the train reaches the central zone anyway; the seats are filled with suburban residents who are paying a higher fare and boarded earlier. Our traveler's experience isn't markedly better than if he took the subway - except he gets there faster.