The city finalized its fees and charges for the new year on Oct. 1
By Mitchell Fox | Oct. 7, 2025
MISSISSAUGA—On Oct. 1, the City of Mississauga approved new MiWay transit fees for 2026, including increases to all cash, PRESTO and open fares.
The city’s budget committee passed its fees and charges for 2026, which covered all prices residents see when using public services such as building permits, libraries, recreation facilities and transit.
The MiWay fare changes—which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2026—include an increase in adult PRESTO fares from $3.40 to $3.50, youth PRESTO fares from $2.65 to $2.90, cash fares from $4.25 to $4.50 and adjustments to monthly passes and the Affordable Transit Program.
The cash fare for seniors will increase from $1 to $4.50, which the budget committee’s documents attribute to an effort to persuade seniors to use PRESTO cards instead of cash. PRESTO fares are free for seniors, as well as children.
Marwan Al Kharrat, a Mississauga resident who rides MiWay regularly to commute to Toronto Metropolitan University, said he’s not optimistic the hikes will be effective.
“I hope that I’ll see some improvement, but I’ve been taking the MiWay bus since sixth grade…and in those eight years, I have not seen an ounce of improvement,” he said. “I really don’t think that this 10 to 25 cent increase is going to do anything other than weigh heavily on commuters.”
Since 2022, the GO Fare Integration Program has granted PRESTO users free travel on MiWay when connecting to GO Transit. Al Kharrat said the updated fares will not likely impact his wallet because he mostly uses MiWay in tandem with GO, but he sees the potential impact on others, including his brother in high school.
The 25-cent increase to youth PRESTO fares equates to up to $2.50 extra a week, or around $100 a year for high school students who ride the bus every morning and afternoon.
“Those who are taking the bus to school are probably going to be the least privileged, because they can’t afford a car to drop them off or their parents both have to work jobs,” Al Kharrat said. “The people who are going to be affected most majorly by this are the people who we don’t want it affecting.”
The increases are the third of their kind in four years, after a 10-cent increase in 2023 and a 20-cent increase in 2024.
Mississauga city councillor and transit committee chair Joe Horneck said the city strives to recover 50 per cent of MiWay operating costs through fares and 50 per cent through subsidization. The city recovered 47 per cent through fares in 2024, the highest mark since 2019.
Horneck said most cities in the world receive funding toward operational costs from higher levels of government, but not in Ontario or Canada.
“We face a higher cost than anywhere else, which hurts our riders,” he said.
MiWay reported an increase of five million riders between 2023 and 2024 and $107.4 million in revenue in 2024. The company also increased service by eight per cent that year.
Horneck said Mississauga’s growth means the city has made MiWay a priority. The city committed 16 per cent of its net operating budget to transit in 2025, the second-highest department in the budget behind fire and emergency services.
“The city is changing. Nobody can argue it’s not densifying,” he said.
Michael Karant, a former Mississauga resident who moved to Toronto this year said he drives when he visits his family on weekends, yet he sticks to transit and biking in Toronto.
“Driving, it shouldn’t be the only option, but as far as it remains in Mississauga, it is,” he said.
“If there was a really solid public transit system in Mississauga, I would take it,” he added.
Karant said the fare increases were “inevitable” because of inflation but he hopes the money goes toward improving the city’s transit infrastructure to include more than just buses. For him, the combination of subways, streetcars and buses in Toronto makes transit “much more viable.”
“I think Mississauga definitely has the population to support having a system even close—even half—of what Toronto has at this point,” said Karant.
Al Kharrat said bus scheduling is a significant issue in Mississauga, as buses do not line up well with his trains or other buses, leading to 20- or 30-minute wait times. Both he and Karant said they would often walk to high school—up to 30 minutes—instead of taking the bus as it could take similar amounts of time. Both said they see similar issues a few years later.
“We have a transit system that’s the bare minimum, and it barely works,” said Al Kharrat.
MiWay currently makes service updates every 6-8 weeks based on this data and customer feedback, according to their website.