TTC board won’t move forward with proposed parking lot price increases: Mayor’s office

A Toronto Transit Commission sign is shown at a downtown Toronto subway stop Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy (Graeme Roy/The Canadian Press)

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow’s office says the price of parking at a TTC lot won’t be increasing any time soon, after a report proposed hiking rates starting this summer to generate revenue.

The report is set to go before the transit board on Wednesday and recommends increasing prices at 10 of the 23 lots across the city in a move that staff say could generate $1 million in 2026.

The TTC’s commuter lots have been operating at a financial loss for the past “several years,” according to the report, which suggested bumping up the rate at eight “well-utilized lots” to $8 per day, including those at Finch Station’s west side and Keele Station, which currently charge $5 and see above 71 per cent daily peak occupancy.

The price to park at so-called “below target” lots, where daily peak occupancy falls between 50 and 70 per cent (such as Finch Station East and Islington Station), would increase by 25 per cent to a maximum of $8.

In addition to the proposed hikes, the report suggests reducing the size of the parking lots it leases from Hydro One at Finch West Station and Pioneer Village Station. That would save the TTC $1.5 million a year starting in 2026.

However, in a statement issued to CTV News Toronto a spokesperson for Chow’s office suggested the proposal is unlikely to pass.

“Mayor Chow is working to get Toronto moving. Transit riders expect the TTC to be easy, reliable and affordable which is why we have moved to freeze TTC fares, expand service and recently directed an extra $500 million towards repairing the TTC over the next decade. We will not be moving forward with the proposed increase,” the spokesperson said.

Asked how the mayor plans on blocking the proposal the spokesperson said there will be a motion introduced at the TTC board meeting to “defeat the increase.”

“We are confident it will not move forward,” Chow’s Press Secretary Zeus Eden told CTV News.

According to the report, a 2022 survey found that 38 per cent of all TTC trips were taken by customers who do not own a car. Of the 62 per cent of customers who do own a car, fewer than three per cent park at TTC stations.

The TTC leases nine of it 23 lots from Hydro One (in addition to two other lots leased from Oxford and Cadillac Fairview). The recommendations made in the report came after the board directed staff to review the TTC’s parking lot strategy in 2023 following a “significant increase in fees” to lease the Hydro One-owned land.

In 2024, the report noted, parking operating costs totalled $12.6 million, including maintenance, snow clearing and leases. That’s nearly double the annual revenue that year of $7.7 million.