The Toronto Transit Commission will hold a public meeting Monday night to hear from its riders about possible service cuts because of the city's budget crunch.
 

The TTC wants to hear commuters' ideas for bridging the funding gap.
(Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The meeting, at the Scarborough Civic Centre, will be chaired by the TTC's chief general manager, Gary Webster.

Webster said the public is encouraged to bring its concerns and suggestions to the forum.

"We'll certainly be talking about the fact that ridership is growing, it's been growing at a greater rate for a number of years than we've seen in the recent past.  We've been working for a year, in some cases on certain routes for a year and a half, to add more service. That's now been put on hold because of our financial crisis," he said.

Webster said the TTC wants to make it clear to commuters that as ridership increases, so do expenses. With more riders, there's a need for more money either from the city, the province or the fare box.

Earlier this summer, the TTC — which operates Toronto's subway, streetcars and city buses — was told by the city to trim $30 million from its spending this year, part of an overall plan to deal with a $575-million municipal budget shortfall for next year.

"Without help from the province or feds … we're just not able to provide the level of TTC service we think Torontonians want," TTC chair Adam Giambrone told CBC News earlier this year.

The city has promised to pressure the province to resume support for half the TTC's operating cost, which was downloaded to the city under a previous provincial government.