6 replies to this topic

[KevinKorell]

A guide to transit costs on Toronto area rail transit is now available here.  It has links to more substantial information from the various carriers and from the administrator of the local smart card called Presto.

 

Sorry for this being so late and close to the impending trip. Obviously ordering a Presto card online, if you haven't done so, would not be practical within a week of travel. It appears that it's easy to get in Toronto Union Station at either the subway or GO TRANSIT fare payment areas.

[jis]

Looks like even coding the Card for Senior can be taken care of at Union Station as it is picked up upon arrival there. One more card to add to my considerable collection of fare cards.

[steve4031]

I have a transit card wallet for all of my cards. I have cards for Washington, San Francisco, Seattle, nyc fare card, and a suica card from Japan.

[KevinKorell]

On the surface, the TTC Day Pass appears to be the better instrument, as it is in most cases cheaper than paying per ride segment.  It's cheaper than the Presto fare both days.  But, factoring in the Presto savings for the UP Express (which we ride 3 round trips if staying out by the airport) and GO Transit, that makes the C$6 investment (currently about  $4.76 US) worth it.  

 

I too have a small stack of smart cards at home. Not sure if I would call them a serious collection (they're here because I came home with them), but except in the case of places such as Washington or Chicago where I definitely will travel again, I hopefully exhausted all or almost all of their accrued value.   The transit operators get visitors like us to do exactly what they want -- spend money towards a fare card that we will likely never use again unless definitely coming back someday.

[KevinKorell]

I made one little addition to this costs page, adding the LINK Train at Toronto Pearson Airport (which we are scheduled to ride Thursday morning before taking UP Express into town).   Don't worry, LINK Train is totally free.

[jis]

I have scads of fare cards. Some of the recent acquisitions are - Dubai, Panama City, Athens (Athena Card) and Amsterdam/Netherlands (OV Chipkarte). As it turns out, in some cities for short visits it is better to just buy day passes instead of a fare card so I have passed on those farecards..

[KevinKorell]

We arrived in Toronto total novices at the Presto Card, had some apprehension that evening how much to load on it, had one technical glitch with it on the first full day, but left there as experts.  Jishnu discovered that I missed an important fact about the Presto Card, namely that when used on TTC (streetcars and subways -- and buses if we wanted to ride them), one gets 2 hours of riding per swipe.  So it would not have been C$3.10 per segment.  This also rendered the C$13 Day Pass as too expensive since we could get more bang for our buck out of the C$3.10 .  Also, on Thursday the entire run from lunchtime when we entered the Line 3 rapid transit at Scarborough, until final arrival by the 510 streetcar into Union Station was on one fare; we had remained in the paid areas of the system all afternoon.  And on Wednesday, we also did our entire riding under one 2-hour period because we ended up not taking the last planned subway segment to Union Station but instead walking from the streetcar to dinner.

 

I updated our Transit Costs page for TTC Wednesday & TTC Thursday, based on our actual travels, and the above facts.  Note that particularly on Thursday, the per-ride costs come way down thanks to remaining in the paid system for so long.

 

Having loaded C$108 dollars initially on my card, I ended up with C$2.49 left on it after its last use (and without having to add any more) before leaving Toronto for good.  Roughly US $1.90 for a souvenir.