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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 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 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 Province won’t ask for council vote on new transit plan?
06
Feb 11

Province won’t ask for council vote on new transit plan?

John Michael McGrath over at Toronto Life’s blog does some digging and gets some new information on the province’s attitude toward transit negotiations:

The alpha and omega for city planning is “what the province will let us do.” So LRT loyalists were happy when Queen’s Park, through Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne, said she wanted a full council vote on Ford’s proposal, contradicting the mayor. However, more recent conversations with Wynne’s office show a softening on what had been a hard line. Wynne’s press secretary Kelly Baker told The Informer that while the Province would still hope for a full council vote, “we will respect the local decision-making process” at the city.

via Rob Ford’s Transit City II: how will the mayor get it from campaign promise to reality? | In Transit | torontolife.com.

Councillors allied with Ford have already starting banging the “Council never voted on Transit City” drum (Here’s Peter Milczyn doing just that), something which is only true if you ignore all the times Council did vote on various aspects of it.

That the province is playing softball on this one is disappointing but understandable. They don’t have much to lose, and I’ve never got the impression that anyone in McGuinty’s cabinet has a particular passion for transit in Toronto. In an election year, staying at arm’s length and giving Toronto what they want seems like the right strategy.

Still, though, as much as I think McGrath does a great job with his article, tearing down the arguments Milczyn is making with gusto, I think (and hope) he might be oversimplifying the direction this new transit plan will take. It’s far from a done deal. The funding levels available just don’t lend themselves to an easy solution, unless you take Eglinton off the table completely. And that still feels suicidal to me.

link — Comments Off on TTC union’s no-strike vow recalls unfortunate history
06
Feb 11

TTC union’s no-strike vow recalls unfortunate history

TTC Union boss Bob Kinnear, who was awesome in As Good as it Gets, made a big show last week, making a public declaration that the TTC would not strike at any time during their upcoming contract negotiations. The current labour contract expires March 31.

Adrian Morrow:

In a bid to encourage the province to hold off on designating the TTC an essential service, the union representing transit workers vowed not to strike during upcoming contract negotiations.

At a news conference Thursday, Bob Kinnear, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, called for Queen’s Park to hold more extensive public consultations before making a decision.

via TTC union vows not to disrupt service during contract talks – The Globe and Mail.

The essential designation issue is a tough one for Kinnear to play. From a strictly ideological perspective — the rights of the workers –, it’s something that he has to oppose with every fibre of his being. But he knows also that it really wouldn’t necessarily be that bad for TTC workers. (Kinnear actually sent out a phone message to union members a week back trying to stir up more opposition to the move amongst his members.)

I respect the public promise he’s made here, as I do think it’s important the province gives this issue the due consideration it deserves. Absolutely the worst possible outcome – for riders, for the city, for anybody – is an ill-suited half-measure, that sees only rush hour service on main line routes declared ‘essential.’ And I fear this might be what we get from the province, driven by politicians whose main concern is that Queen’s Park station is open for business. This could allow a situation where future labour disputes lead to long-running disruptions of service on late-night and “low-ridership” bus routes, which is devastating for low-income people.

But Kinnear’s promise is tough to take, even for those more sympathetic to unions. After all, it was only a couple of years back that he made a similar promise. And look how that turned out.

The full text of Kinnear’s remarks is available via the Toronto Sun.

feature — Comments Off on Mayor’s office is in total disarray but believes itself incredibly effective
06
Feb 11

Mayor’s office is in total disarray but believes itself incredibly effective

In what has become something of a tradition, some crazy-ass news broke from the mayor’s office late Friday. This one is a bit complicated, so let’s try to step through it together.

The National Post’s Natalie Alcoba:

It was late afternoon when news broke of an incident at City Hall that led Mayor Rob Ford’s outgoing chief of staff, Nick Kouvalis, to ask security to escort the mayor’s long time staffer Andrew Pask out of the building.

Before the workday was up, Mr. Kouvalis and Councillor Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother, marched down to the Press Gallery to “clarify” what happened on Jan. 21, insisting there is no discord in the Mayor’s office, while simultaneously declaring that a new plan for subways is almost finalized.

via Ford’s office holds meeting to ‘clarify’ incident with Nick Kouvalis | Posted Toronto | National Post.

Okay. So Nick Kouvalis, the mayor’s chief of staff and the guy who essentially got Rob Ford elected, is a total jerk, right? And I say that not in a disparaging way because I don’t think he aspires to be anything but a jerk. It’s a label that fits him. In any case, we learned a few weeks back (on a Friday afternoon) that Kouvalis would be stepping down from his role. According to others in the mayor’s office, this was both something that was and was not planned for some time.

So a footnote of Kouvalis’ leaving was that another guy, Andrew Pask, was also leaving. This didn’t really receive a lot of attention because Kouvalis was the bigger story.

But today news broke that Kouvalis actually called security and had them escort Pask out of the building after an altercation at a meeting. Keep in mind that Kouvalis is a man who was accused of uttering death threats against Essex MP Jeff Watson and once pushed a Ford supporter out of the way because the mayor wnated a Diet Coke. When news of this so-called “blow-up” was leaked, with the suggestion that it led to Kouvalis’ leaving, Doug Ford and Kouvalis himself called a press scrum to clarify things.

And clarify they did. Toronto Star blog The Goods has the audio of the conference, and it’s well-worth listening to. (Little moments, like the attempt to get everyone to go off-the-record in the middle of the scrum, and that the apparently semi-serious question as to where Sue-Ann Levy would be running for office, are great.)

Some choice quotes:

  • Doug Ford confirms the mayor’s approach to accountability by saying that it is “no one’s business what happens…in the Mayor’s office.”
  • Kouvalis makes the claim that this administration has done “done more than Miller did in seven years in a month-and-a-half.” Which seems to suggest that the last seven years amounted to less than the elimination of a sixty-dollar-per-year user fee, a bunch of bus route cuts and a single year tax freeze.
  • Doug Ford says, of Kouvalis, “Public record, he’s going to privatize garbage.” I really think he expects people to break into spontaneous applause every time he says this.
  • Kouvalis says that he would already be gone if not for the transit deal. In a curious turn-of-phrase, he says, “Transit City is alive and well and it’s going to be buried underground.” He may have just misspoken and meant to use the Ford-branded “Transportation City.”

In conclusion? Who the hell knows. But even diehard Ford supporters have to be feeling like maybe this isn’t the greatest example of efficient, well-run and customer service-oriented government.

link — Comments Off on Last word on bus route cuts
03
Feb 11

Last word on bus route cuts

The Globe and Mail’s Kelly Grant:

Contentious reductions to late-night and weekend hours on 41 little-used TTC bus lines are going ahead, despite more than six hours of pleading from riders who wanted to salvage the routes entirely.

The Toronto Transit Commission voted in favour of curbing the service and shifting $4-million in savings to overcrowded routes this fall.

via TTC going ahead with bus-service cuts – The Globe and Mail.

I was at a conference all day today so I’m late on a lot of this news. I’ve already written at length about this season’s bus route cuts, and Steve Munro has summed things up far better than I ever could, but I’ll make this one last comment in light of the decision being made final last night.

The precedent this sets for transit in this city is alarming. While it may be fair to claim there’s been an overreaction to relatively minor changes in service, that overlooks the long-term impacts of this kind of decision. These cuts happened because ridership growth has created a need for greater service on busier routes. If ridership continues to go up, will this commission cannibalize more ‘under-performing’ routes? Where does it stop?

And to those who charge that opposition to these cuts was tied up in left-versus-right ideology, I’d argue that to an extent that’s true, but only because the right-wing municipal government the left feared was anti-transit immediately went about making cuts to transit.

link — Comments Off on Bus route cuts are a customer service issue
02
Feb 11

Bus route cuts are a customer service issue

There’s a marathon TTC meeting going on today with a zillion deputations. Concurrent with this, Councillor Josh Matlow has published an open letter to the TTC Chair and Commissioners, questioning their ridership numbers and asking for a more in-depth study before routes are cut in his ward.

I liked this part a lot:

I recognize the importance of being thoughtful about how we dedicate tax dollars and am acutely aware of the very real budget constraints we have as a City today. However, I am also cognizant that the TTC is a public service. These local bus routes are the only transportation option for many seniors, students and workers.

via Councillor Matlow’s letter to the TTC re: Proposed reductions to bus service – Josh Matlow, Toronto City Councillor for Ward 22, St. Paul’s.

As I write this, Councillor Peter Milczyn has taken to his Twitter account to lament the delays to this “server reallocation” because it means fewer routes will see improved service in the spring. He’s also accusing the left of being ideological in their opposition to this move.

I have two points in response to this.

First, to pretend this isn’t a service cut is crazy. The TTC does have capacity issues on other routes that necessitate service improvements, yes, but the responsible thing to do would be to find a way to fund those necessary service improvements without removing service in other places. If the 10-cent fare increase had been presented as necessary to do this — and not presented instead as some kind of weird political game of peekaboo designed to make the mayor look like a hero — I would support the move.

Second, if all you’re doing is reallocating service, take some time to do a proper study of both routes losing service and routes gaining service. Present that data to the people. Let them see where the trade-offs are. This government continually hammers on about the importance of “customer service,” so let’s speak that language: it is crappy customer service to take away someone’s bus route and not even tell them what they’re getting in return.

link — Comments Off on Caught in the headlights of new LRV storage yard
02
Feb 11

Caught in the headlights of new LRV storage yard

New councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon, replacing the Nixon-esque Sandra Bussin in Ward 32, has made the media rounds this week with her fight to get the proposed new streetcar yard, set for the corner of Leslie & Lake Shore, moved elsewhere.

Local Ward 32 Councillor Mary Margaret McMahon, meanwhile, had to backtrack after coming out of a meeting with TTC Chair Karen Stintz, Ward 30 Councillor Paula Fletcher and St. Paul’s Councillor Joe Mihevc.

In a letter issued by her office, McMahon had said that “all were in agreement” that there ought to be a 90-day moratorium on work [on the new LRV storage facility].

According to Mihevc and Stintz, that was far from the case – and McMahon issued a retraction, noting that “everyone” didn’t support her idea.

Mihevc called the retraction “tepid.”

“The reality was that no one supported it,” said Mihevc.

via InsideToronto Article: Future of LRV facility turns into war of words.

Whoops.

I don’t know enough about this issue to really weigh in on it — my preference would be to do whatever necessary to ensure no delays to the new streetcar order — but I think Joe Clark’s take is worth reading. It’s a local perspective on the site, presenting a side that probably won’t be covered by the media as they write about this issue over the next few months. (He describes it as a “massive exurban toybox more suited to T. Rex than a mom pushing a stroller.”)

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