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link — Comments Off on Strategy in the mayor’s office: identify subversive elements and crush them
17
Feb 11

Strategy in the mayor’s office: identify subversive elements and crush them

Torontoist’s Hamutal Dotan writes a good piece on the aforementioned Globe & Mail article, highlighting the other ridiculous part of the interview with I-assure-you-he’s-not-the-Mayor Doug Ford:

More distressing than the lament about the perils of voting and council debate, however, was when Doug Ford went on to object to the recent OCAP protest at City Hall—not the fact that it disrupted a meeting, but that the protesters apparently were considered a legitimate part of public debate in the first place. “Some of those folks are actually getting grants from the city to lobby against the government…I just don’t understand.”

That’s what we do in a democracy, Doug: we fund our opponents. Ensuring opponents have a voice is, roughly speaking, the whole point.

via The Brothers Ford Are Concerned About Democracy – Torontoist.

There’s been a witch hunt vibe coming from the Mayor’s Office lately. See also this Sun-Ann Levy column where she goes to great lengths to identify all the councillors who attended a CUPE meeting last week, held in response to the mayor’s call to privatize garbage. Apparently it isn’t possible to attend such meetings simply to get an understanding of both sides of an issue – instead anyone there must be a union-loving traitor who hates taxpayers.

link — Comments Off on Tiny magic unicorns set to finance city’s subway extension
16
Feb 11

Tiny magic unicorns set to finance city’s subway extension

Following on the Globe story below, the Toronto Star’s Tess Kalinowski and Robert Benzie have a few more details:

Under the mayor’s plan, Sheppard would be paid for using a combination of development charges and tax increment financing, an innovative tool former finance minister and key Spadina subway extension proponent Greg Sorbara introduced in 2006.

It enables municipalities to borrow against the future property tax revenue of land that is improved by having a subway nearby.

The key is you have to designate the land as such before any infrastructure is built.

via City eyes private partnership to extend Sheppard subway – thestar.com.

If – big if – land around subway stations is such a cash cow, we can only assume that the city is literally foregoing hundreds of millions of dollars a year because of underdeveloped areas surrounding existing stations.

I’m not saying that this is a plan doomed to failure, but I’m very skeptical that Sheppard stations will have ridership that offer the kind of return-on-investment that justifies huge infrastructure costs.

For reference, approximate daily ridership on mid-line Sheppard stations is 7,780, 5,600 and 2,330, for Bayview, Leslie – despite the IKEA! -, and Bessarion, respectively. (2008-2009 figures)

link — Comments Off on For sale: Sheppard Subway extension, lightly used
16
Feb 11

For sale: Sheppard Subway extension, lightly used

The Globe & Mail’s Kelly Grant has the scoop on upcoming transit announcements:

[Interim Chief of Staff Mark Towhey] said the city intends to seek a private-sector partner who would build, design and finance an extension of the Sheppard subway east to the Scarborough Town Centre and west to Downsview station.

If the plan is approved by the province and city council, the city would continue to own the longer Sheppard line. The city would pay back the private consortiums initial investment using tax-increment financing and an increased transit-oriented development fee in a narrow band along the Sheppard line.

via Rob Ford pitches private financing plan for Toronto subway extension – The Globe and Mail.

So many questions: is the city even allowed to hide debt this way? How do you structure this kind of deal so that it would appeal to a private company? Does this mean the rest of the Transit City funding stays in place? How surreal and scary is it that Mark “Cut all bus routes and let people car pool!” Towhey is speaking about transit matters?

This isn’t necessarily a bad outcome. It seemingly would allow the province and Metrolinx to focus their money and energy on more important routes like Eglinton while the Mayor’s Office screws around with the private sector for the next few years getting a deal done. Could be a lot of worse.

link — Comments Off on “What’s wrong with running a city like a business?”
15
Feb 11

“What’s wrong with running a city like a business?”

Former City Councillor Brian Ashton writes an editorial for the Toronto Sun:

So what’s wrong with running a city like a business? Nothing if you don’t object to becoming a consumer and not a citizen. Nothing if the worth of your service is measured by your ability to pay and not your needs. Why not cut under-performing TTC routes while leaving those without cars to their own devices?

For many that voted to stop the gravy train, it meant eliminating waste, rejecting public sector entitlement, and limiting government expansion.

But for the Fords, it means much more.

via City Hall shakeup starts now: Ashton | Comment | Toronto Sun.

Very good points.

I continue to be baffled by those who claim Ford has any kind of a mandate to make deep cuts to city services. He doesn’t. He has a mandate to save 1.7 billion dollars from the city’s operating budget through cuts to waste and inefficiency. We’re waiting.

link — Comments Off on Eglinton LRT is top priority, says Metrolinx board member
15
Feb 11

Eglinton LRT is top priority, says Metrolinx board member

Paul Bedford, former chief city planner in Toronto and current member of the Metrolinx board, writes an editorial for the Toronto Star:

In my view, it is essential to tie any fixed rail transit construction to an aggressive land use intensification strategy and the expansion of the city and regional transit network.

This is especially true for subways and underground LRT lines, where strategic investment is clearly for the long term. The proposed Eglinton LRT certainly meets this test and will function as a subway for much of its length, serving communities across the city. It was first proposed in 1974 and is the absolute No. 1 priority.

via Ford’s critical 100-year decisions – thestar.com.

My read of the situation with the delayed transit plan, still being hammered out by the mayor’s office and Metrolinx, is that Eglinton is the sticking point. Metrolinx won’t budge on it.

Bedford also talks about the role underground transit has in fostering new development, which is an argument I quibble with because the Bloor-Danforth line has done little for neighbourhood development in many places.

Any future subway extensions must be linked directly to extensive mixed-use development that would generate 15,000-30,000 people living and or working within one square kilometre of targeted major stations. This would include the Sheppard corridor as far east as Victoria Park, in addition to existing and future stations located along the proposed Spadina subway extension.

The reference to Vic Park is interesting. A revised Transit City plan that includes a half-hearted Sheppard subway extension to Victoria Park, an extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway to Scarborough Town Centre (replacing the SRT) and the as-planned Eglinton LRT would seemingly fit within established funding constraints.

link — Comments Off on A leader’s responsibility to talk to the media
14
Feb 11

A leader’s responsibility to talk to the media

At Spacing, John Lorinc writes a brutal open letter to Ford’s press secretary regarding the mayor’s total evasiveness with the media since he took office:

We are told by official sources that Toronto’s mayor is, indeed, Rob Ford. But he is nowhere to be seen, and he says nothing. He will not publicly defend, much less champion, the policy positions that swept him into office, and this despite years of service as an extraordinarily outspoken city councilor who rarely shied away from a microphone or camera. We are forced to run to brother Doug to get a taste of the mayor’s positions. But he’s an unsatisfying and, frankly, unqualified surrogate.

via LORINC: One Question for Adrienne Batra, Mayor Rob Ford’s press secretary « Spacing Toronto.

I touched on this before. I agree fully with Lorinc that Ford’s attitude towards the media is insulting and totally incongruous with his “I’m here for you” public service image. That the Mayor of Toronto has refused to speak with the most widely read newspaper in Toronto since last summer is something that should bother a lot of people.

Still, though, as much as I love Lorinc for writing this, I tend to side more with Rob Granatstein’s view. At this point in Canadian political culture, there does not seem to be a big downside to ducking or avoiding the media. In fact, being elusive allows politicians to better control their message. Similarly, being really open with the media doesn’t seem to lead to great things either: only more scrutiny.

Don’t get me wrong: this is a very sad state of affairs. I wish there was a way to change things. But until there is, I can’t fault Adrienne Batra for playing it this way.

link — Comments Off on One Cent Now & Again: Canadian cities need sales tax revenue
14
Feb 11

One Cent Now & Again: Canadian cities need sales tax revenue

I thought the local media went a bit overboard with their coverage of Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi and his visit to Toronto last week. (It was almost Bieber-ish at times.) Still, though, I was glad to see the Nenshi speak about issues universal to Canadian municipalities.

Here’s a report from the Calgary Herlad by Jason Markusoff and Deborah Tetley, regarding Nenshi’s speech at the Canadian Club where he calls for Canadian municipalities to receive one per cent of the GST:

Revealing a potential plank of the “muscular urban agenda” he’s touted here — and floating an idea a group of Calgarians has been quietly organizing for almost a year — Nenshi said he expects the “penny tax” proposal will be controversial, but he wanted to open the discussion.

via Mayor Nenshi backs push for ‘penny tax’ to build new libraries, recreation centres.

If the call for 1% of the sales tax sounds familiar, it’s because a similar thing was called for a few years back by David Miller and the ‘One Cent Now’ campaign. There were bus ads and everything. The City of Toronto actually still owns the onecentnow.ca domain, though it recently was redirected to the city’s main website. (Here’s an archived version.)

Via Twitter, Councillor Shelley Carroll tells me that a 1% municipal sales tax would net the city approximately $450 million per year.

Glad to see the idea pop up again, though I’m not expecting Toronto’s new mayor to support Nenshi’s call. Spending problem, not a revenue problem, remember.

link — Comments Off on New Toronto streetcars to add significant capacity to downtown routes
14
Feb 11

New Toronto streetcars to add significant capacity to downtown routes

One of the things city watchers were worried about upon Ford’s ascension was the existing contract with Bombardier to provide 204 new low floor light rail vehicles to replace the aging fleet of streetcars that operate on Dundas, Queen, King, Spadina and several other routes.  So far, the contract seems safe. It hasn’t really been mentioned since Ford took office, though while campaigning he expressed a desire to cancel the contract and remove streetcars, but said he wouldn’t do it if it cost an “arm and a leg.”

Hopefully this order stays under the radar and happens as scheduled. If you need convincing of the importance of these new vehicles, Steve Munro has published some information regarding the planned roll-out. While Munro has some well-founded concerns about the specifics of the TTC plan, the numbers are particularly striking. The new LRVs will increase capacity on Spadina by 49%. Dundas and Bathurst will see an increase of a crazy 91% and 62%. The beleaguered 501 Queen will increase by 34%. Couple these percentages with all-door boarding and a proof-of-payment system (no more paying the driver while boarding) and the impact on service will be even stronger.

These are significant improvements and will have real impact on the day-to-day lives of thousands of Toronto transit riders. It’s vitally important that they are delivered on schedule.

link — Comments Off on Privatizing garbage collection: still not about cost or efficiency
14
Feb 11

Privatizing garbage collection: still not about cost or efficiency

The Toronto Star’s Kenneth Kidd followed the lead of a bunch of other journalists this week and dug into the nuts and bolts of garbage privatization:

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford now wants to extend that idea to everywhere else west of Yonge St. He thinks the contracting out of garbage collection will save the city money, and he wouldn’t be alone in thinking that a private company could do the job a lot more cheaply than a bunch of city hall bureaucrats and unionized public employees.

There’s just one problem: Almost every assumption in that equation is doubtful at best.

via To save money, keep some trash collection public – thestar.com.

The piece is well-written — particularly the bit that points out the limited utility of privatizing big city operations –, but I still believe that all this talk about potential savings or service improvements misses the point that, at the core, this is a knee-jerk response to a 2008 labour dispute that left our parks filled with garbage.

The big worry here is that the process will be rushed through for short-term gain, allowing Ford to check a box on his big list of election promises. Will, as the article suggests, the area set for contracting out be divided into smaller areas to allow for competition, or will the entire western half of the city be awarded as one giant-sized contract, limiting the realistic pool of winners? Will city resources (trucks, facilities) be sold or leased to private vendors, and, if so, on what kind of terms? Will the city’s diversion targets for recycling and organics be kept? If so, who will audit that?

A lot of questions but not a lot of answers yet. Let’s hope the dialogue surrounding this amounts to more than doom-and-gloom strike talk.

link — Comments Off on Doug Ford might be provincial
10
Feb 11

Doug Ford might be provincial

Anna Mehler Paperny with the Globe & Mail:

Doug Ford won’t rule out a provincial run in 2011 – and he says the Etobicoke North residents he has represented as councillor for barely four months shouldn’t be worried he’s considering jumping ship to run for the Progressive Conservatives.

“The residents, I represent them if I run provincially or if I’m a city councillor. But I’m going to focus as a city councillor right now.”

via Mayor’s right hand Doug Ford hints at bid for Ontario Tories – The Globe and Mail.

I don’t think he’ll do it, but I suppose stranger things have happened. It’s hard to imagine Mayor Rob Ford without Nick Kouvalis and his brother. I’m not sure he’d know what to do with himself.

Some people are really pushing the idea that the 416 is totally ripe for the Conservative Party, both provincially and federally. I’m not sure I buy that. The problem with pure populism — the kind that promises better services at a lower cost, and also cheaper beer while we’re at it — is that it inevitably blows up. Promises can’t hold. I think Ford supporters are already starting to see the true face of Ford’s populism, and I think it will get even worse as we approach the 2012 budget.

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