TTC Streetcar payment machines have a coin limit that makes it impossible to pay with small change! Found this the hard way enroute to the delicious Toronto Food Truck Festival.

There are always great events happening all over my home base of Toronto. In August I went to the Food truck festival where many restaurants and food truck vendors sell there tastier treats to raise money for the cities children's hospital Sickkids http://www.canadianfoodtruckfestivals.com/toronto/ . Iwas running late to meet a friend enroute to the event in the city's East end Beaches neighborhood. I won't use the TTC new Presto payment system (that another story) so I am limited to TTC Tokens or exact change to pay the $3.25 fare. I was late so I grabbed a Ziploc bag full of small change I use when emptying my pockets on laundry day. I ran down my block and caught the St Claire streetcar at the bottom of my street to start my adventure. out of breath and probably hypoglycemic with anticipation of greasy food I started to feed the touchscreen payment machine my bounty of quarters, dimes and nickels, as I neared the end of my bag-o-coins I began to worry I would not have enough for the $3.25 fair and the machine will not take bills or debit/credit cards.
I kept feeding coins then suddenly I thought I had won a Las Vegas jackpot as all my coins were emptied into the payment tray. Super annoyed I looked at the message on the screen "Coin limit exceeded". I counted my bag-o-coins and to my delight I had exactly $3.25.... But the wisdom of the TTC payment system made it impossible to use my money to pay for a single ride! I feed coins again hoping this the message was some type of glitch because the machine has a picture showing it accepts 5¢, 10¢, 25¢, $1 and $2 coins! this second time while feeding my bag-o-coins I had my camera pointed at the monitor to snap a pic of the "Coin limit exceeded" message. The TTC spends millions now hiring fare inspectors to ensure you pay to ride the streetcar due to the all door boarding policy. I've been stopped before but had my proof of payment ready, since the fine is something like $195.00 !

Am I alone in thinking if you accept 5¢, 10¢, 25¢, $1 and $2 coins you should be able to complete your payment with 65 coins? please tell me if you think I'm wrong about this one.

I laughed so hard this past Thursday when I saw the exact same thing happen to a very nice pair of German backpacking tourists. I felt bad when they had to take their heavy backpacks off to pick up a few of the coins dropped on the ground after their "jackpot" experience.

the food truck festival was a good time, there were lots of vendors and interesting items, there live music and being down by the lake made it an event worth retuning to next summer!

Ironically while waiting in line to purchase a deep fried potato spiral I found $4 in dollar coins! I used those for my return fare. Riding the Queen St streetcar back at midnight was also noteworthy, there are always character riding transit at that hour. I ended up paying-it-forward by giving my bag-o-coins to the very tall, very thin, very dirty man asking for change. I gave him the whole bag mostly because he seemed to loopy to hold all the coins... and I would have needed to wash if I touched his hand that looked scary dirty. Toronto is a great city, I always feel safe on the TTC and helping the less fortunate probably keeps them out of trouble too.