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It's time to tap out of ‘legacy fares': Sunday is the last day to use TTC tokens, tickets and day passes

It's time to tap out of ‘legacy fares': Sunday is the last day to use TTC tokens, tickets and day passes

Toronto Star03-06-2025

Time to gather all your leftover TTC tokens, tickets and day passes — Sunday is the last day you can use them to ride local transit.
After decades of service, the 'legacy fares' will no longer be accepted on the TTC after June 1. TTC will then begin exclusively accepting commuters' fares with a physical or digital Presto card, Presto ticket, cash and debit or credit card — including those stored in an Apple or Google Wallet.
The transition away from tokens, tickets and day passes comes after the TTC delayed the contentious change, extending the deadline to use the fares by five months — from Dec. 31 to June 1.
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'Our customers bought this in good faith,' TTC chair Jamaal Myers said at a December board meeting. 'They paid money for it … I think it's only fair and reasonable just to give customers the opportunity to spend the tickets that they paid for.'
Gta
TTC tickets and tokens will soon be history. Here's what they can tell us about the city's past
After 70 years, the transit agency is retiring tickets and the dime-sized slugs as payment for fare.
Gta
TTC tickets and tokens will soon be history. Here's what they can tell us about the city's past
After 70 years, the transit agency is retiring tickets and the dime-sized slugs as payment for fare.
The TTC stopped selling the older fares at subway stations in 2019, as the number of customers using them declined. Less than one per cent of riders pay using tokens and tickets, the transit agency said.
'It's clear that most riders have embraced Presto tap-and-ride,' Myers said in an October news release.
Here's what you need to know about the change.
How can I pay my fare?
As a result of this change, the TTC is shifting to exclusively modern fare payments.
Riders can still use cash to pay for their fares in station boxes, or on buses and streetcars. Those paying with cash must get a paper transfer from the bus operator or machines on a streetcar and in a subway station for proof of payment.
Toronto transit riders can also tap their debit or credit card, including those in their mobile wallet, on a PRESTO reader on a TTC vehicle or a fare gate to pay for their rides.
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Less than one per cent of riders pay using tokens and tickets, the transit agency said.
Andrew Francis Wallace/ Toronto Star file photo
Presto cards and tickets are another way to pay a fare, with cards costing $4.00 at TTC stations or all Shoppers Drug Mart and Loblaws locations. Digital Presto cards can be loaded onto a mobile wallet for free.
Complimentary Presto cards are available at select Toronto Public Library branches while supplies last.
The cards are set to automatically deduct an adult fare. However, youths, post-secondary students and seniors can set their cards to deduct a specific fare by going to a Shoppers Drug Mart location or TTC's customer service centre and providing government-issued photo identification.
When was it decided that the TTC would stop accepting 'legacy fares'?
In September, the TTC board endorsed the Fare Compliance Action Plan, tabled in July, which included the recommendation to phase out the use of its 'legacy fares' at the end of 2024.
Gta
TTC tickets, tokens and day passes get reprieve: Controversial phaseout delayed until June
Many riders were surprised by the transit commission's announcement in October that it intended to discontinue the fares as of Jan. 1.
Gta
TTC tickets, tokens and day passes get reprieve: Controversial phaseout delayed until June
Many riders were surprised by the transit commission's announcement in October that it intended to discontinue the fares as of Jan. 1.
After customers brought forth compl aints about the abrupt change, the board voted to give customers a reprieve to use any remaining TTC tickets, tokens or day passes they may have, from Dec 31 to June 1.
Following the TTC stopping its sales of the older fares at subway stations in 2019, the transit agency said, third-party retailers also stopped selling TTC tickets in July 2022 and TTC tokens in March 2023.
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In 2015, the transit agency first announced it would start phasing out tickets and tokens to make way for the Presto card. At the time, the TTC said sales would cease in 2016 and said they would no accept tickets and tokens as fare past mid-2017.
Can I get a refund for my unused fares?
No refunds, exchange or credit from any unused TTC tickets, tokens or day passes will be available after they are discontinued.
Riders also won't be able to transfer the value of old fares to Presto cards, since the two are separate payment systems.
With files from Patty Winsa

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Eglinton Crosstown LRT train operations have been transferred to TTC, Metrolinx interim CEO says

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ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'The good news, though, is that this week, train operations were transferred into our Transit Control Centre from a temporary control centre as testing, training and construction continue,' Green said. Operator and driver training has been completed, Lindsay confirmed, adding that 'we are relentlessly stress-testing both (the) system and vehicles.' 'We're doing the things for this line that, frankly, were not done for projects like the Ottawa LRT,' he added. The $2.1-billion Ottawa LRT, much like the Eglinton line, was plagued with delays and flaws. Problems with the project included a massive sinkhole during construction, and after the line opened in 2019, repeated derailments and even service shutdowns caused by freezing rain. ACS Infrastructure Canada and EllisDon were part of both the Ottawa and Eglinton LRT construction consortiums. With 25 stops stretching from Mount Dennis in the west to Kennedy in the east, the 19-kilometre Eglinton Crosstown LRT was initially meant to be ready by 2020. A pandemic and several lawsuits, as well as software glitches, have hampered the line's opening, even after the Star received an exclusive tour of the LRT in May 2023. The completion of the LRT had been promised, then pushed back, for three years, until the transit agency declined to give a projected opening in 2023, instead announcing it would give the public three-months' advance notice instead. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Gta With Eglinton Crosstown LRT, Metrolinx says it's trying to avoid a repeat of this transit project nightmare Andy Takagi Testing and more testing for the LRT As of now, the Crosstown is still undergoing tests to check how the trains are performing, and Lindsay added, 'that's going pretty well.' The purpose of all this rigorous testing, Lindsay said, is to demonstrate 'to ourselves, collectively, that it's going to perform the way that we want it to on the day that it opens.' Once the Crosstown system 'achieves a certain level of stability,' Lindsay explained, there will be two further steps for testing. The first will be a 14-day trial run of the line, followed by a 30-day revenue service demonstration, where the system will run 'as it will run when it is open to the public, (but) with no passengers on it.' After those two trials, following the 'substantial completion' of the project, the LRT will undergo a 'bedding-in period' of more testing — which Lindsay said was implemented as a direct recommendation in the aftermath of the Ottawa LRT's troublesome rollout. 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