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link — Comments Off on No mandate for Ford’s transit plan
20
Jan 11

No mandate for Ford’s transit plan

A good start to today with this press release from Leger Marketing:

While Mayor Rob Ford, the Toronto Transit Commission and the Ontario government are reviewing Toronto’s transit expansion plan, the city’s residents favour keeping the current “Transit City” light-rail transit expansion program, but are open to moving more of the new lines underground. These are among the key findings of an independent survey conducted by Leger Marketing between January 12-16, 2011.

via LEGER MARKETING | Torontonians want light-rail alongside subways: Poll.

Ford has continuously made reference to his mandate to cancel Transit City. “The people have spoken” and all that. This certainly does a lot to destroy that argument.

I still have a huge issue with people phrasing it as a binary “Subways or Light Rail” question, because it way oversimplifies the real issues at play. It’s like asking someone if they’d prefer broccoli or ice cream.

The full report is available online from Leger. Some other highlights:

  • “Almost two thirds (65%) saw the TTC’s “Transit City” plan as an effective step forward, versus 18% who disagree.”
  • “Most people (62%) would oppose cancelling or changing the current plan if it means higher costs or a longer wait to get new transit.” This is a huge, important statistic.
  • “Further questioning reveals that most people agree that transit plans should not change every time that a new government is elected (89%) to ensure long term needs are met.”
  • A full 67% of respondents disagreed with the claim that we should build subways “because it’s what Rob Ford promised in the election.”
  • 76% of those polled indicated that we should keep the light rail lines, either as planned or moving more of them underground. (Having a “move more of them underground” option kind of rankles me a bit, as even diehard supporters of Transit City would love to see more underground transit, but rational people recognize that the cost is daunting and perhaps not achievable.) Only 15% of people support cancelling the Transit City light rail lines and building subways instead.

The question of the day: What kind of lousy populist panders to only 15% of the population?

link — Comments Off on Going Downtown
19
Jan 11

Going Downtown

The Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale, reporting on remarks by the mayor at tonight’s budget meetings in North and East York:

“Obviously people want a zero-percent tax increase. I’ve heard it from all over,” [Ford] said, though only one of the dozen speakers he heard had said so. Challenged, Ford said the majority of people who have called or emailed his office have supported the tax freeze.

Asked whether the meetings were therefore a waste of time, he said: “I am listening. I’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty, more than any previous government has, to go out and listen to people, and not make them come downtown for two days.”

via Citizens give Ford an earful at consultation meetings – thestar.com.

Holding consultations across the city is a good thing, but the mayor’s phrasing here is interesting. “Not make them come downtown,” he says, as if that’s a major inconvenience for everyone.

The insinuation there is similar to the argument some G20 apologies made (after that bit of fun) when they asked why anyone would go downtown that weekend, knowing what was going on. Some people seem to have trouble believing that ‘downtown’ isn’t just a place where people go to work or do touristy stuff. It’s a place where people live.

What I’m saying, I guess, is that while I think holding meetings in different parts of the city is only a good thing, keeping at least one consultation session at city hall would have been kind of nice for all the respect-deserving taxpayers who live downtown.

link — Comments Off on GO goes electric
19
Jan 11

GO goes electric

Today’s other big news, via an article in the Globe by Kelly Grant:

The long-awaited express rail line between Toronto’s Union station and Pearson airport should be electrified, but not in time for its opening before the 2015 Pan Am Games, according to Metrolinx.

The province’s regional transportation agency is recommending Queen’s Park spend $1.6-$1.8-billion to upgrade GO Transit’s Lakeshore and Georgetown corridors from diesel to electric trains, with the air-rail link being switched over first.

via Electrify Pearson rail link after Pan Am Games: Metrolinx – The Globe and Mail.

I’ve been a bit concerned that the Clean Train Coalition, who have really played up the whole diesel-trains-will-kill-our-children thing, is too much of a NIMBY group to take seriously, but there’s no doubt that electrifying the GO lines will be a good thing for everyone. Faster trains, better service, and better for the environment.

The slow implementation timeline is concerning, though. Metrolinx and the province are far too reluctant to push for necessary investments in transit infrastructure.

link — Comments Off on Brother’s Keeper
19
Jan 11

Brother’s Keeper

Slow news day today, so enjoy this picture Councillor Shelley Carroll tweeted of Margaret Watson from the Association for Pensioners’ Concerns giving her deputation at tonight’s North York Budget Consultation meeting.

“We can’t get what we won’t pay for,” she said, “and sometimes we ARE our brother’s keeper.”

link — Comments Off on Taxes make ‘for a healthier, better and more equitable city’
18
Jan 11

Taxes make ‘for a healthier, better and more equitable city’

Andrew Ardizzi over at InsideToronto.com brings us a report of a budgt consultation meeting held in Ward 18 (repped by Ana Bailão, whose tilde seems to come and go) with this delightful bit of oratory from local resident Franz Hartmann:

Hartmann said Toronto has one of the lowest property tax rates in Ontario, and he enjoys paying them because it makes for a healthier, better, and more equitable city. The current budget proposal does not include a property tax increase for 2011.

“I personally have no problem paying more property tax if I know that woman over there will have a chance of having subsidized day care,” he said.

via InsideToronto Article: Subsidized day care, bus route changes highlighted at Ward 18 budget meeting.

He’s bang on, of course. But InsideToronto probably should have mentioned that Hartmann is also the Executive Director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance. (He’s either that or a turn-of-the-century German physicist.)

Interesting to see the media report on this kind of community perspective. They also quote a resident saying that scrapping the vehicle registration fee was ‘outrageous.’ It’s bizarro world. In a good way.

link — Comments Off on Serious, structural problem with transit funding in Toronto
18
Jan 11

Serious, structural problem with transit funding in Toronto

Steve Munro’s review of the 2011 TTC capital budget is, as usual, hyper-detailed and may seem impenetrable to people who aren’t transit geeks, but the last section (“A Few Parting Words”) is an important read for anyone who cares about the future of transit in this city:

Couple this with a municipal regime whose raison-d’être is to constrain spending, the possibility of a new government at Queen’s Park, and an economic climate that makes the boomtown days of transit spending a very distant memory, and we have a recipe for very serious problems in transit financing.  Some may argue for private sector intervention.  This may address some issues, and I say “may” only because we have yet to experience a London-style meltdown of a PPP here, but it will not eliminate the problem.

via TTC 2011 Capital Budget | Steve Munro.

link — Comments Off on Can’t reduce costs by getting mad at them
18
Jan 11

Can’t reduce costs by getting mad at them

So there was a small brouhaha about the Pan Am Games yesterday. Kelly Grant:

Toronto won’t pay any more “surprise” costs for the Pan Am Games, Mayor Rob Ford warned after the city’s bill doubled because “we had a gun put to our head.”

Toronto’s contribution to the 2015 sporting extravaganza is now estimated at $96.5-million – up from $49.5-million in February, 2009 – and construction hasn’t even started.

via As Pan Am costs double, Ford says no more surprises – The Globe and Mail.

On the surface, sure, these kinds of cost increases suck. But looking deeper, these growing budget lines are the result of a few perfectly reasonable setbacks (soil contamination, necessary venue upgrades) and one questionable budgeting practice (not accounting for inflation). The latter is a case where management practices could improve. The former, on the other hand, is more a ‘shit happens’ kind of deal.

It’s not a desirable situation but it’s not an uncommon one either. The ‘gun-to-your-head’ scenario occurs frequently when you’re managing something as large and complex as a city. It’s about time for Ford and his supporters to realize — far too late, granted — that you can’t just reduce costs by getting mad at them.

Afterthought: A lot of people — on the left and the right — will say that hosting the Pan Am games is a mistake. That it’s a costly exercise that diverts money from what’s really important. And I can be sympathetic to that, but ultimately I believe these games to be a good thing because the investments we’re getting from the provincial and federal government would never happen otherwise. In addition, the smaller scale of the Pan Ams means that the money spent is more geared toward infrastructure, venues and housing as opposed to the security and glitzy glamour you get with an Olympics.

link — Comments Off on No reservations
17
Jan 11

No reservations

John Lorinc with Spacing:

An eagle-eyed Spacing reader wrote this week to point out that Mayor Rob Ford and his chief bean counter Mike Del Grande are relying on a $25 million draw against the city’s reserves to help balance the 2011 budget with no property tax increase.

Anyone who’s hung around the giant clam in recent years knows that when Ford and his merry band of waste-busters were in opposition, they railed loudly and often about the perils of reserve raids.

via LORINC: Even the right will raid the reserves « Spacing Toronto.

Miller did this too often as well, but then I don’t recall him both eliminating revenue sources and raiding reserves in the same year. To make an analogy: the 2011 budget is a bit like quitting your job then immediately spending a big chunk of your savings.

(For the record, I hate analogies like that. City finances are not the same as personal finances for about a billion reasons.)

link — Comments Off on Such a cliché
17
Jan 11

Such a cliché

The Posted Toronto Political Panel is quite interesting this week. Jonathan Goldsbie makes a similar point to the one I made below regarding people who blindly criticize city spending: “No more abstractions: name names, please.” Chris Selley works the middle, though still seems way too eager to accept TTC service cuts even after the TTC has admitted they may have goofed on the numbers. I did appreciate this: “demanding nothing be cut would be completely in keeping with Ford’s campaign promises.” Others seem to have missed that in no way did Toronto vote for a government that delivers fewer services.

New panelist Matt Gurney, on the other hand, has himself pegged:

I’d probably blow up Housing, which is due for a reckoning (what it gets reduced to, though, is anyone’s guess). I hate to be a right-wing bogeyman, but since I’m not tying my hopes for a majority to Quebec, I’d go after the culture spending and job creation programs, too — if we’re a world-class city, we can sustain a diverse culture and economy without the government being involved (the horror). And I’m all for privatizing and contracting out, obviously. Man, I’m such a cliché.

via Posted Toronto Political Panel: Solving Rob Ford’s budget dilemma | Posted Toronto | National Post.

Cliché indeed.

link — Comments Off on Sustainability, growth and Toronto
17
Jan 11

Sustainability, growth and Toronto

Not entirely related to the stuff I normally cover here, but the Toronto Star’s feature on sprawl in the GTA and the province’s “Places to Grow” initiative is really very good. If phrases like ‘vision’ and ‘city building’ hadn’t seemingly become dirty words in recent months, we’d do well to have some serious conversations regarding this kind of growth, both in the city and outside of it, and what it means, especially as some GTA suburbs seem to be resisting smart growth strategies:

Questions remain about how and when fast-growing edge cities like Milton, which continue to take on fast growth, will pay for infrastructure such as hospitals and transit.

The Star’s analysis also found that some cities, notably Brampton and Vaughan — which is already getting a subway — are barely meeting the minimum requirements for population density that the province set for “growth centres.” And they’re falling below the standards set by Metrolinx for “mobility hubs” — dense housing-employment areas with a confluence of public transportation.

via Paradise saved? GTA growth plans aim to rein in sprawl – thestar.com.

The implications when it comes to things we’ve been talking about lately (transit, commuting, housing) are substantial.

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