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link — Comments Off on Ford the Candidate versus Ford the Mayor
12
Jan 11

Ford the Candidate versus Ford the Mayor

Ford the Candidate:

100 additional frontline police officers will be hired

via Rob Ford for Mayor 2010 | Stopping the Waste and Getting Spending Under Control

Ford the Mayor:

Ford promised during the campaign to boost the police force by 50 officers this year. But he later abandoned the pledge, and police board chair Alok Mukherjee said he believed Ford was on board with Blair’s money-saving but force-shrinking plan.

The new police budget request of $905.9 million, approved by the board Tuesday afternoon, is $9 million smaller than the one with which Ford had publicly expressed unhappiness on Monday. Of the savings, $7.6 million comes from deferring the replacement of all officers and civilian employees who leave the service this year.

via A new budget day: fare hike off, no 2011 police hires – thestar.com.

The new budget will actually reduce the number of police officers on the street by approximately 200. I’m not particularly opposed to the plan, but it’s certainly an about-face. Why is this ‘mandate’ so malleable where others are not?

link — Comments Off on Couldn’t find the original Word document?
12
Jan 11

Couldn’t find the original Word document?

The above is from the TTC 2011 operating budget, released just now. Apparently instead of just finding the original document, editing the numbers, and exporting to a new PDF, they decided to scratch in their edits with blue pen, scan the document and upload it all as a 4.1 MB PDF.

link — Comments Off on Shocker of the year: No TTC fare increase coming
11
Jan 11

Shocker of the year: No TTC fare increase coming

Via Natalie Alcoba’s twitter feed.

I am so surprised! What an out-of-nowhere shift! It looks like the combined hard work of Mayor Ford and TTC chair Karen Stintz has heroically prevented a fare increase.

Honestly, it’s like something from a fairy tale.

link — Comments Off on Capital Ideas For the TTC
11
Jan 11

Capital Ideas For the TTC

Rob Granatstein for The Sun:

The TTC is facing a huge problem as it seeks $7.6 billion over the next 10 years to maintain and improve the transit system.

City staff have told the TTC to look elsewhere for $2.3 billion of that money. That it can’t afford to keep borrowing for the TTC as the city hits its debt ceiling in 2014-2016.

What won’t happen, TTC Chief General Manager Gary Webster said Monday, is a return to the pre-subway-crash days, where maintenance was deferred and the system was not kept in a state of good repair.

What will happen is anyone’s guess.

via Why Rob Ford can’t save TTC: Granatstein | Rob Granatstein | Columnists | Comment | Toronto Sun.

This is scary stuff, and it goes beyond the reaches of the Ford administration. You would think Metrolinx and the provincial government would be the obvious source for funds necessary funds for a transit system used by the whole of the GTA. A transit system that is, by all accounts, a vital component of the provincial — and national — economy.

Unfortunately, the current provincial government hasn’t been overly forthcoming. The potential provincial government is not going to be any better, and will likely be much much worse.

The only upside is that necessary capital spending will evaporate if service deteriorates and ridership goes down. But to think any kind of government would actually seek to decrease ridership to offset costs is veering into conspiracy theory territory, isn’t it?

…Isn’t it?

link — Comments Off on Budget Visualized
11
Jan 11

Budget Visualized

Filed away for future reference, Natalie Alcoba at the Post presents a nicely visualized overview of the city’s revenues versus spending in 2011.

link — Comments Off on With my freeze ray
11
Jan 11

With my freeze ray

Dylan Reid at Spacing Wire:

So, effectively, the City is proposing to cut property taxes by the rate of inflation (probably about 1.8%). The strange thing is, Rob Ford is certainly aware that property taxes need to be raised every year just to keep real municipal revenue steady — when George Smitherman promised a one-year property tax freeze during the election, Ford replied that it was a bad idea and that the City should raise property taxes by the rate of inflation to maintain its revenue. Why he suddenly proposed a tax freeze after becoming Mayor when he hadn’t even promised one in the campaign remains a mystery. Possibly once he was Mayor he became informed of the full size of the surplus left by the previous administration’s budgeting and decided to use it to budget more aggressively.

via Property tax “freeze” = tax cut « Spacing Toronto.

Ford’s pledge to freeze property taxes this year reportedly surprised even his own budget chief Mike Del Grande. It’s a reckless decision. Worst of all, he had a mandate not to freeze property taxes. He campaigned on it.  So why?

link — Comments Off on Cut tha Police
11
Jan 11

Cut tha Police

The Toronto Star’s Rosie DiManno:

Outgoing: A cart piled high with cases of beer empties.

Incoming: Police Chief Bill Blair.

This was the intriguing traffic at Mayor Rob Ford’s second-floor City Hall office Monday afternoon.

Presumably, the two men did not slug back brewskies during their private 90-minute conclave, though they did emerge with hail-fellow-well-met bonhomie, all flushed with mutual goodwill.

via DiManno: Chief Blair has to make some cuts – thestar.com.

Quick tip to budding writers: if you ever look up from your keyboard and realize you’ve just typed something like “they did emerge with hail-fellow-well-met bonhomie, all flushed with mutual goodwill”, maybe you should consider another career. Or smashing your fingers with a hammer. Whatever comes naturally.

Otherwise: Holding the line on the police budget is one of the few things that’s impressed me about the Ford administration thus far. It’s a principled stand, and one that I did not think he’d make.

link — Comments Off on Hardly Fare
10
Jan 11

Hardly Fare

Tess Kalinowski, Transportation Reporter with The Star:

The increase would bring the TTC about $24 million in revenue at a time when record ridership continues to grow with 483 million rides forecast this year.

Although cash fares would remain unchanged, token prices would increase 10 cents to $2.60 and a regular Metropass would cost $126, $5 more per month.

via TTC fare hike: Riders lose what motorists gained – thestar.com.

That the Metropass increase equals exactly $60 a year is, I think, some kind of demented joke. There’s no way they can be serious about this.

link — Comments Off on Going round and round on bus service
10
Jan 11

Going round and round on bus service

Laurence Lui brings us a spiffy map and this comment:

What is more worrying, however, is that TTC is planning on cutting back service on many routes. While it is true that many of these routes carry ridership below TTC’s financial standards, these services have been provided to achieve a basic service standard: bus routes will run when the subway is running.

via 299 bloor call control — Today, Rob Ford announced that TTC staff have….

The proposed bus route cuts are being spun as adjustments and efficiencies, but dismantling the basic service standard that exists across all routes could have disastrous long-term impacts.

link — Comments Off on The only surprise this morning
10
Jan 11

The only surprise this morning

David Rider, with the Star:

Just before unveiling his full 2011 spending plan today, Mayor Rob Ford announced a 10-cent TTC fare hike — effective Feb. 1 if approved — though he promised to try and avoid it.

He also said he was meeting today with police Chief Bill Blair to seek cuts to the police budget – and would not say if Blair’s job is on the line.

Of the proposed fare hike, Ford said: “I did not want to agree to this. I am not happy about this.”

via Ford hints at TTC fare hike; budget cuts revealed – thestar.com.

A TTC fare hike was not something I anticipated, and it represents a failure on the part of the mayor to consider the consequences before making promises. A modest property tax increase to increase the TTC’s subsidy from the city would be far more preferable to yet another fare increase. (And, for the record, I say this as a property owner.)

That said, there’s some political gamesmanship going on here. The fare hike will be the lead story for the week, allowing other budgetary information to fly under the radar. If they’re able to make changes that reverse the need for a fare hike, Ford could very well end up looking like a hero.

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