Iconoclastic?

 So the headline in one of the local free rags this week is about the exorbitant fare charged on the newly opened Union Pearson Express train service.  It cost $27.50 for a 30 minute, 25km trip.  A comparable trip on GO, the provincially run commuter train/bus network would cost around $6 (Union to Port Credit $6.35).  So they have a point!  The crazy thing though is that due to the Toronto Transit Commission's weird (to me) flat fare system one can get from Union to Pearson for $3.  Actually you can get from Long Branch to the zoo, a distance of over 50km for $3.  Or you can pay the same $3 to travel the 450m from Queen to King stations.  The only routes one pays more on are certain rush hour express routes into the downtown and, weirdly, the route that runs to the Honda HQ in Markham.  Why the TTC even has that route is a mystery.  Now the Spadina subway is being extended north to Vaughan Corporate Centre and there are plans afoot to extend the Yonge line north to Richmond Hill.  While this totally makes sense it makes no sense at all that Vaughan commuters get a half price ride downtown heavily subsidised by Toronto taxpayers.

Surely the time has come to be thinking seriously about a distance or zone based pricing scheme.  It just doesn't make sense to perpetuate a structure that was designed for a system that stopped at Eglinton to one that covers a major chunk of the GTA.  Is there any other city of comparable size that has a flat fare structure throughout (let alone one where competing municipal and provincial systems have different fare structures for the same routs)?