Originally Posted by
mcours2006
I don't know about the transit system in London, but the TTC is as good as you can get given the size of the city and the current infrastructure. At the times your wife is commuting it's off peak, and buses might run every 20-30 minutes. Of course it'll take that long to get to work if she's just missed it. But catch one or two on time and she's still downtown in twenty minutes.
As far as cost is concerned, it's way cheaper than riding the bus up in York Region where I am, especially for children and students. TTC is free for kids under 12, and for students it's only $2 cash. Compare that with YRT, it's $4 cash for everyone.
My wife takes a bus (up to the Bloor line), then subway, then another subway on transit. The bus comes right by our door, so the 1 hour estimate is based on catching the bus right as it comes. If she misses it, even during peak times, it's a minimum 15 minutes extra. Fortunately, the bus is fairly consistent so this doesn't happen often. On the way home however, her travel time is often extended when she just misses the bus, so it's often well over an hour for her.
There are many cities of comparable size that have better transit - but infrastructure is a problem. Toronto has neglected it for far too long in favour of keeping our absurdly low property taxes (and for the love of god, why aren't we charging a congestion fee for people in the GTA who drive in on our roads). Furthermore, when they build subways and LRTs they often build out (the Scarborough subway is a particularly asinine example of this) rather than improving coverage in the core of the city. The area from Roncessvalles to Main and south of Eglington needs far better subway and/or LRT (with right of way/dedicated tracks removed from traffic) coverage. Toronto has focused far to much on moving people in and out of the city that they have sorely neglected moving people around within the city.
As I said above, I'd bet about 85% of people in Toronto cannot walk to a subway stop. When you have to walk to a bus/streetcar stop, then wait in the cold, then sit on a crowded vehicle that still gets stuck in traffic like any car there really isn't much incentive to take transit over driving.
The fare is quite reasonable. On that I agree. In fact, it probably should be raised.