EDITORIAL: How Presto made our money disappear

Article content

Ending one of the most bizarre and expensive odysseys in the history of public transportation in Ontario, the Presto card is finally stumbling towards the finish line as the go-to choice for paying transit fares in and around Toronto.

The TTC says it will stop selling tickets, tokens and passes at collector booths this Saturday, Nov. 30.

Recommended Videos

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

EDITORIAL: How Presto made our money disappear Back to video

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video

It will continue to honour these fares for an as yet undetermined period of time, while encouraging commuters who haven’t already done so, to switch to Presto cards.

This following a 17-year saga of creating the beleaguered Presto transit fare system, developed by Metrolinx, the arm’s length Ontario transit agency created by Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government in 2006.

This to preside over regional transportation issues in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

Along the way, the costs of developing Presto, described as “among the more expensive fare-card systems in the world” by then Ontario auditor general Jim McCarter in 2012, soared to over $1 billion.

Controversy over Presto continues today, with the TTC saying problems with faulty and inoperative Presto readers cost the transit agency an estimated $3.6 million in forfeited fares last year alone, a figure the city’s auditor-general doesn’t dispute.

Among the frustrations for commuters is the time lag that can occur between someone loading their Presto card with more money, and that money actually appearing in their account.

Metrolinx and the TTC continue to bicker over which of their organizations was (and is) responsible for which problems and cost overruns, while the public is relegated to the sidelines, as is usually the case when two public agencies are bickering about blame.

There are always unanticipated start-up costs when a new fare card technology is introduced into an existing transit system, but it’s not as if Presto cards were the first application of this technology.

Hong Kong and New York City commuters have been using their equivalent Octopus Card and MetroCards since 1997, London, England has had the Oyster Card since 2003 and Chicago’s Chicago Card, now replaced by the Ventra Card, has been operating since 2004.

Presto promises future enhancements such as enabling commuters to pay their fares using credit cards. But based on Presto’s history, scepticism is warranted. We’ll see.