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link — Comments Off on A great deal of effort to accomplish little
01
Feb 11

A great deal of effort to accomplish little

Steve Munro, whose great blog turned five years old yesterday, on yesterday’s story that the bus route cuts were being scaled back:

There’s some budget hocus-pocus going on with the TTC’s original claim of a $7m saving from the cuts.  That was a 9-month figure assuming the change went into effect on March 27.  About $1m in savings were given up by deferring the change until May 8, and a few million more have already been dedicated to service improvements in January 2011.  This doesn’t leave a lot for additional service in fall 2011, let alone for those changes to roll out for a full year in 2012.

While “efficiency” is worth looking for, we seem to have spent a great deal of effort to accomplish very little.

via Not Quite So Many Service Cuts | Steve Munro.

“A great deal of effort to accomplish very little” is a good way to describe much of the budget process this year.

link — Comments Off on TTC to announce that some bus routes will be spared cuts
31
Jan 11

TTC to announce that some bus routes will be spared cuts

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/kellygrant1/status/32139846659088384″]

From Globe reporter Kelly Grant on Twitter comes word that a number of the proposed bus routes, who were just a few weeks ago deemed so underused as to be entirely disposable, have been ‘saved’ thanks to a ‘compromise.’ Good news, sure, but it will be interesting to see if the compromise amounts to anything more than unspecified savings to the operating budget.

Either way, it seems being a hard-line budget slasher who never wants to disappoint anyone ever sure leads to a lot of flip-flops.

link — Comments Off on Local councillor knows little of existing transit plans for his ward
31
Jan 11

Local councillor knows little of existing transit plans for his ward

Over at Torontoist, Desmond Cole hits a home run with a piece on Finch West’s transit troubles. Notably, he gets Councillor James Pasternak on the record as having no idea about the specifics of the proposed Finch West LRT line. A project that was, until the Transit City plan was famously threatened, slated to run through his ward:

Councillor James Pasternak (Ward 10, York Centre) […] spoke at length about his opposition to an LRT on Finch, saying repeatedly that the plan would “remove [traffic] lanes from system roadways.” Pasternak seemed genuinely surprised when we insisted that the environmental assesment for the Finch LRT contains no lane reductions, as the roadway would be widened to accommodate the rail line while preserving the existing number of traffic lanes.

via The Transit Crunch on Finch West – Torontoist

Nice one. Pasternak goes on to argue instead for a Sheppard West subway extension for some reason.

link — Comments Off on TTC Chair Stintz not involved with new transit plan negotiations
28
Jan 11

TTC Chair Stintz not involved with new transit plan negotiations

John Lorinc, writing for the Globe, gets an interview with new TTC Chair Karen Stintz and midway through she drops this bomb:

In any case, her fingerprints won’t be on the final deal. The mayor’s office has left her out of the high-stakes negotiations with Metrolinx and the province over Mr. Ford’s subway plan. Ms. Stintz gamely insists the talks “are taking place at the right level” and denies that she’s trapped between the competing political agendas of the mayor and Premier Dalton McGuinty.

via Karen Stintz, new TTC chair – The Globe and Mail.

She also restates her support for the Eglinton line, but seems resigned to having no real influence as to whether it happens or not.

It’s mind-bending to me that the mayor’s office has left the TTC chair out of all major transit decisions. If Stintz isn’t involved, and Ford self-admittedly doesn’t know much about the TTC, who the hell is leading the charge in the Metrolinx negotiations?

As a postscript, as the news unfurls over the next few weeks and Stintz spins whatever new plan we end up getting as the right thing for this city, keep this quote in mind. It’s from just this past April in an article by (yet again) John Lorinc:

Stintz says she supports the Metrolinx “Big Move” plan, which includes the LRT network. “We came together,” she told me on Friday, “because it’s not a partisan issue, it’s a city building issue.”

I understand adapting to the winds of political change, but some consistency sure would be nice.

link — Comments Off on TTC to 250,000 riders: sorry about your bus route
26
Jan 11

TTC to 250,000 riders: sorry about your bus route

Gary Webster visited Matt Galloway on CBC Radio this morning, and dropped a bomb of a number relating to the TTC’s proposed route cuts:

Speaking to CBC’s Metro Morning on Wednesday, TTC general manager Gary Webster said he estimates “there are about 250,000 people that will be affected” by the changes.

via CBC News – Toronto – Bus cuts will affect a quarter million: TTC manager.

It hasn’t been a good week for the TTC. In addition to Webster plainly stating that a quarter of a million people are (at best) going to be inconvenienced by the proposed route cuts, the TTC’s public consultations regarding the route cuts have been very poorly received.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/LesterBrown/status/29698468146577408″]

To be fair, I guess, who could have known that throwing a bunch of signs up in a room and calling it a ‘consultation’ wouldn’t go over well?

Laurence Lui has a great post today outlining a potential compromise solution, establishing a new service standard that still might save some money. But as Joe Fiorito at The Star points out, trying to have conversations about ridership, service levels and transit-as-a-public-good is fruitless in the face of cuts that are 100% political.

link — Comments Off on Ford’s revised “subways” plan delayed
25
Jan 11

Ford’s revised “subways” plan delayed

Buried within the TTC uploading stories today comes word that the revised transit plan, being worked on by Metrolinx and the TTC at the request of the mayor, will not be presented within the next week or two as expected.

Natalie Alcoba:

The city, Metrolinx and TTC staff are still hammering out a revised transit plan, as per Mayor Ford’s orders that the city ditch a plan to build surface light rail lines in favour of tunnelling underground. But it appears that it won’t be ready by the end of this month, as previously hoped.

“I don’t have a specific timing for the completion of that work,” said Mr. McCuaig. Ms. Stinz said she does not expect a report by the Feb. 2 TTC meeting. “We’re working towards a solution but we’re not there yet,” she said.

via Metrolinx confirms Ford floated idea of handing TTC to province | Posted Toronto | National Post.

Steve Munro confirms the delay in a comment on his blog: “[The new plan] was to come in early February, now late February, and I’ve even heard March as a possibility.”

I have several questions about these delays, not the least of which is what the hundreds of people hired to work on the Transit City projects are doing during this period of uncertainty.

link — Comments Off on Ontario Transit Commission
25
Jan 11

Ontario Transit Commission

The Globe’s Adam Radwanski:

But multiples sources familiar with the talks said that, while no detailed proposal has yet been put forward, the mayor’s officials have repeatedly floated the idea of transferring either subway lines or the entire TTC to Metrolinx, the regional transit agency established by Mr. McGuinty’s government.

via For both Ford and McGuinty, an Ontario-run TTC has its perks – The Globe and Mail.

I’m honestly not sure why the province would want to take control of the whole thing when they could just restore their operating and capital subsidies that existed until Mike Harris. It would be cheaper for them.

Update: And it’s denied. That didn’t take long.

feature — Comments Off on TTC Chair Stintz hints reworked transit plan includes Sheppard Subway
23
Jan 11

TTC Chair Stintz hints reworked transit plan includes Sheppard Subway

Karen Stintz has taken to Twitter this Sunday, throwing around hashtags like candy and broadly hinting at what to expect when the Mayor reveals his reworked ‘Transportation City’ plan before the end of the month:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/TTCchair/status/29222655328522240″]

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/TTCchair/status/29224611837116417″]

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/TTCchair/status/29233060373336065″]

She also makes reference to Eglinton:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/TTCchair/status/29233998634950656″]

For the record, and ignoring all the platitudes that we’ll hear about connecting our city and completing what we started and blah blah blah, any extension of the Sheppard subway is a bad idea at this point. We will spend billions, wait a decade (or more) for it to open and ultimately end up with a line that carries fewer people that most of the downtown streetcar routes.

The new subway and its stations will add tens of millions to the TTC operating budget, necessitating either rapid and steep fare increases or — more likely — continued cuts to ‘low-performing’ surface routes. It doesn’t make sense, and the poor outcomes and negative press that will inevitably result from such a white whale of a project will have negative impacts on future transit expansion in our city.

UPDATE: Because this is going to be a popular topic in the coming week, here’s a link to the TTC’s own cost estimates on subway versus LRT projects. (Via, of course, Steve Munro.) The short of it is that to build the currently planned Eglinton LRT, extend the Sheppard Subway to Scarborough Town Centre and replace the Scarborough RT with a Bloor-Danforth subway extension we’ll need to spend 13.27 billion dollars. Current provincial funding commitments amount to 10.94 billion dollars. (I’m not taking into account any penalties or fees the city will have to pay after breaking/renegotiating contracts, but they’re likely to happen.)

link — Comments Off on TTC essential service designation benefits no one
22
Jan 11

TTC essential service designation benefits no one

Karen Howlett with the Globe:

Ontario Labour Minister Charles Sousa said in a letter to Mr. Ford on Friday that his staff will begin consultations with Toronto Transit Commission management and union leaders as well as city staff on whether the provincial government should introduce legislation banning strikes.

via Province to begin consultations over proposed TTC essential service legislation – The Globe and Mail.

Ultimately, the mayor’s push to make the TTC an essential service was motivated by two things. The first has to do with semantics: the word ‘essential’ makes this a popular move because people see it as a government acknowledging the importance of transit. The second reason is that essential service designation lets the government off the hook. Whereas past governments had to face the public and wear the outcome of labour negotiations, going forward the mayor and council will be able to shrug their shoulders and blame the province when the union gets a pay increase.

The big concern — and this won’t get anywhere near the coverage it should — is the specifics of the legislation the province will introduce. Will it declare all service offered by the TTC essential, or will only core weekday service be protected?

link — Comments Off on Just making sure they don’t have fatal health problems
20
Jan 11

Just making sure they don’t have fatal health problems

Don Peat with the Sun:

TTC employees got a warning this week Mayor Rob Ford may be dropping by to make sure no one is sleeping on the job.

TTC management recorded a phone message for collectors Monday saying the mayor and some city councillors will be visiting TTC stations and some work sites.

[…]

Sleeping on the job sparked a public relations nightmare for the TTC last year when, just weeks into a 25-cent fare hike, a frustrated rider snapped a picture of a collector sleeping inside his booth.

via Mayor Ford is coming, stop sleeping: TTC | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun.

Far be it from me to question a customer service initiative — and, yes, anything to get the mayor out of his car and into a subway station — but shouldn’t this article mention that the ultimate outcome of the “frustrated rider [snapping] a picture of a collector sleeping inside his booth” was that the man, George Robitaille, died due to chronic health issues?

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