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feature — Comments Off on Selections from the TTC Capital Budget Report 2011
12
Jan 11

Selections from the TTC Capital Budget Report 2011

A few interesting bits from this document, which — unlike its operating cousin — does not have notes made in blue ink, and thus has selectable text. Emphasis has been added. I was going to include page numbers but then I forgot. Apologies.

On Transit City:

The Official Plan was designed to ensure that no resident of the City of Toronto would be disadvantaged from a mobility perspective from not owning a car. That required higher order transit along those arterials. The TTC undertook an analysis of how best to serve that population growth and those arterials and the result was the Transit City Plan. This was a series of surface rail expansions within separated rights-of-way with sufficient capacity to handle the projected ridership demand for the next few decades.

On the Downtown Relief Line (yay!):

There really are limited options for dealing with the increasing ridership demands on the Yonge subway. Making maximum use of this critical asset, while expensive in absolute dollars, is a cost-effective step before considering the construction of a new multi-billion dollar Downtown Relief subway Line (DRL) to handle some of the ridership burden the Yonge line faces.

On the Downtown Relief Line (boo!):

Overall, it is expected that a 30%-40% plus (perhaps as high as 50%) increase in carrying capacity [due to Platform Edge Doors, Automatic Train Operation and the new Toronto Rocket Subway Cars] in the peak hours of operation will ultimately result from this work, pushing out the need for the DRL by many years.

Spending a ton in capital dollars to forestall the need to spend a ton in capital dollars is, I’d argue, kind of dumb.

On PRESTO Smart Card Payments:

($192 million not currently budgeted): This project reflects the costs (above and beyond the CSIF included funds of $140 million) estimateted [sic] a total of $332 million to implement the Provincially backed PRESTO fare collection system at the TTC. Staff is currently assessing the business case for an open payments system as directed by the Commission in May 2010 and pending this decision, funding from senior levels of government may be impacted.

Open Payments are still in the budget – it will be interesting to see if they continue on this track or revert to the PRESTO plan.

On Proof-of-Payment for the new Streetcars:

($87 million): The new LRV cars will require ticket vending equipment on board the vehicle and off-board at select TTC streetcar stops. In addition, infrastructure work is required for concrete pads and power to support the installation of off-board equipment at 150 street level stops.

A well-implemented Proof of Payment system should dramatically improve loading times (and thus reliability) on streetcar routes.

On involvement from other levels of government:

[W]hile the plans are practical and achievable, they are dependent upon funding from all three orders of government – funding that is predictable and long term.

In other words: You need to restore the goddamn subsidies, provincial and federal governments.

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 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?

feature — Comments Off on Respect for a certain kind of taxpayer
11
Jan 11

Respect for a certain kind of taxpayer

Chris Selley for the National Post, who I gather enjoys being a contrarian above all else, tries to put a positive spin on many of today’s budget-related announcements. Here he explains that the $60 per year cut to the personal vehicle tax is entirely unrelated to the $60 per year increase in transit costs for Metropass users:

Of course there are financial consequences to cutting the Personal Vehicle Tax, but the fare hike is no more a direct result of it than any other budgetary measure: cutting the tenant defence fund or the environment office in London, or closing the Toronto Public Libraries’ urban affairs branch at Metro Hall.

Selley is right, of course. That the vehicle registration tax numbers line up with the Metropass fare hike numbers is coincidental, a weird quirk in the budgetary process. The fare hike — which is still, I caution, unlikely to really happen — is instead a direct result of a 17 million dollar cut to the TTC’s annual operating subsidy. Which is a direct result of the need to constrain costs even further than would be necessary if not for the mayor’s pledge to freeze property taxes and, yes, cut the vehicle registration tax.

Everything is connected. What the fare hike and the VRT cut represent, taken together, is a statement of priorities. This is more important than that. Vehicles over transit. Respect for a certain kind of taxpayer.

Service cuts and fare increases are often necessary, especially in times of fiscal shortfall. What’s so frustrating about today’s budget is that Ford was presented with a fantastic starting point. Surpluses and provincial transfers, plus a modest property tax increase — something the mayor campaigned on — and, sure, some efficiencies, could have easily held the line. That would have given city departments, managers and council a year to discuss the mayor’s goal of budget reductions for 2012.

But that’s not what we got today. Too bad.

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 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.

feature — Comments Off on Let’s get fiscal
10
Jan 11

Let’s get fiscal

A CBC News article without a byline serves as a nice introduction to a couple of thoughts I have as we head into the city budget process this week:

Ford promised no new taxes during his election campaign, as well as getting rid of the $60 vehicle registration tax — which he delivered on in December.

He is already on record promising no spending increases and a property tax freeze for 2011, while at the same time promising no major service cuts.

“We’re going to have a zero per cent tax increase and we’re going to put more money in the taxpayer’s pocket,” Ford told CBC News in an interview in December.

via CBC News – Toronto – Toronto’s 2011 budget battle set to start.

First and foremost, this budget will be easy. There was a general surplus last year, plus a surplus at the TTC, which means that the pressure David Miller and his budget chief Shelley Carroll had to deal with in previous years is lessened his year, even with Ford’s cuts to revenue. The budget will balance without much effort.

The Ford administration is looking for a grand narrative to unfold over the next few weeks. One that says that his administration was able to unite a fractured council to deliver a budget — in record time, no less — that includes no tax increases and no “major” service cuts. Both Fords and their staff will attempt to spin this as a huge David-versus-Goliath victory, the culmination of the Ford-as-mythic-hero narrative. “The Gravy Train is Dead, see how easy that was?”

But it’ll be a one-time thing. Anyone watching the numbers know that he was left a gift by the outgoing administration: a one-time surplus that surely won’t be around come 2012.

The Left on council has to be careful not to help him with this narrative. Opposition for opposition’s sake won’t do anyone any good. The best tactic, I think, is to point to why the budget is so easy to balance this year: it’s because of the very same fiscal management of the previous council that Ford has spent months attacking.

Second: The big sticking point will be the definition of ‘major’ when talking about Ford’s pledge that there will be ‘no major service cuts.’ Some will argue that opposition councillors should just accept the ‘adjustments’ to various programs, cuts though they may be, as inevitabilities under the new regime.

But what this is about is honesty, a characteristic that Ford values highly. I’d understand and respect (but not vote for) an argument that called for service cuts in a bid to decrease government spending, but Ford hasn’t called for that. Instead, he’s promised that the city can restrict spending purely through efficiencies and cutting waste.

He should be held to that promise this week. Any admission that service cuts are necessary is an admission that he was wrong about the city’s finances.

link — Comments Off on Battle of the Books (3)
08
Jan 11

Battle of the Books (3)

Lots being said about this Marcus Gee column in The Globe from Friday. This is a long quote, but it covers the gist of the argument others are making:

So the staff recommended closing the Urban Affairs Library at Metro Hall on King Street, for an average saving of $729,000 a year. Now, nobody likes closing a library, least of all the library’s own staff. But there is logic to the proposal. The library was created when Metro Hall was the seat of Toronto’s regional government. It isn’t any more. Toronto’s government is headquartered at City Hall.

The closing would not mean the end of the library’s important urban affairs collection. It would be moved to the Toronto Reference Library at Yonge and Bloor, which has longer hours than the Metro Hall branch and is right on the subway line. Locating it there could be a positive advantage for urban affairs researchers, who could delve into the reference library’s other resources at the same time as visiting the collection.

Ms. Davis and her supporters note than many people who live or work downtown visit the Metro Hall branch to pick up books they have ordered from other parts of the library system. True, but City Hall library is only a kilometre away and a new library is going in near Fort York to serve the growing downtown condominium community.

via Finer points of cost-cutting eluding anti-Fordists – The Globe and Mail.

I don’t think anyone is against reallocating library resources in a more efficient way, but to pretend that all this is about moving a library and not closing a library is to be willfully obtuse.

The Urban Affairs branch is located at Front Street West and Wellington. With the CityPlace and Waterfront developments in recent years, it’s the only branch in walking distance for thousands of city residents. Gee notes that there’s another branch (City Hall) only a kilometre away but that’s disingenuous when you’re talking about the densities of downtown. There’s only two kilometres separating Yonge Street and Bathrust Street, but no one downtown would argue that it’s a quick trip between the two.

Yes, there is a branch planned for Bathurst & Fort York, which is great news for all involved. It’s not set to open until 2014. At that time, surely no one would have much of a issue with moving the Urban Affairs collection. But between then and now you’d be depriving an entire neighbourhood of people a community resource they use and depend upon.

That’s the very definition of a cut.

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