Transolotics

So there's been a lot of transit politicking as of late.

Federally, the Conservatives maintain their minority government, while maintaining a holding pattern for an election. Hell, they even announced AIDS funding.
Provincially, an election is required (under the current government's legislation) to occur in October.
Municipally, we just re-elected a mayor on a platform (namely 1 cent of the GST) he announced during his victory speech.

Mix all of this together, and add a dash of Environmental Awareness and you get a transit concoction.

Let's break it down.

Funding

First off, Toronto's recently approved capital budget gives half to the TTC, and half to the rest of the city. Think about that.

Name a city anywhere in which half of its capital goes towards transit. The other half towards everything else - roads, water mains, community centres, police cars. It simply is not sustainable.

Make no mistake: We are running the most undersubsidised transit system in the world. It is up to Toronto - an no one else - to pay for transit. What do we get for the money? Bare minimum. the budget will buy a bus to replace the 24 year old one that took me home this evening. It won't however cover the cost of paint for the 16 year old bus terminal that hasn't seen maintenance since it opened. You may recall a time when the province picked up 75% of the capital budget tab, and the city the rest. In that era, one still had to kick and scream to get subway extensions and the like, but day-to-day capital flowed. If that formula was in place today, the city commitment to transit capital would be more like 15%

Of note, Toronto refused to pay the capital against security cameras in the system. You may recall my rant about the sliver of $40 million the Feds gave under terrorist security. (One facility, Union Station received about as much as all of the TTC). The good news is the city is pushing this back to the feds. The bad news is our transit system will be no more secure this year. And likely less secure than other major Canadian systems.

The Spadina Subway

There was been talk and assessments for some time with an eye to extend the Spadina subway to York University and beyond. Recently, the 'beyond' was defined as about 3 km into Vaughan. The funding is now in place for this $2 billion extension - the feds dropped by to give a third of the cost. McGuinty ponied up a third, and Toronto and York Region split the other third (notice the Municipal level was still left with 33%, not 25% of this capital expense)

So who benefits once this thing is built? In Toronto, folks who go to York, for school or work. And folks who feel the need to go to Downtown Vaughan - which I presume consists of a big Wal-Mart and a Chapters. In Vaughan on the other hand this benefits everyone who actually works in Toronto.

Peter (the asker of my opinion) lives in York Region and works in Toronto. He also takes transit. His lot in life will be better because presumably there will be a shift of passengers off the Yonge line, which today runs at crush-load capacity in the morning. Pete by the way is a missed demographic with the TTC, but that's a different rant for a different day.

Back on course: Is this truly a transit priority for Toronto? One would think, given it took a decade to get funding to build the Sheppard Subway. I remember a time when what was built as Sheppard was only phase I. It was to stretch to Scarborough. As it stands four years later it is effectively a shuttle between two malls, saves 10 minutes on the commute, and costs the TTC about $2 million more a year to operate that to simply close it and go back to buses. So why is all this money falling on Spadina, in the name of the environment? Why not extend Sheppard, for example?

It seems the last time the Feds paid any attention to Toronto, it was to provide show shoveling services courtesy of the Army. $670 million out of the blue, to get a bunch of punks to York? (The punks of course being the faculty) Is Keele St. in a war torn state? Look, the federal government simply doesn't fund city projects. Unless it's the Centennial. Or the Olympics. Maybe.

There must be a logical connection. How do you get Conservative Feds and Provincial Liberals to separately but mutually support this? Hmmm.

The Logical Connection

Vaughan is a city that thinks it's so slick (probably because Canada's Wonderland is there), it at one time had radio advertising campaigns touting how and why it was better than Toronto. You recall "The city above Toronto, the City of Vaughan" eh? Of course, there was never a mention about how there is no hospital within it's city limits. Vaughan is also in the 905. The 905 typically votes Conservative.

Toronto of course is located at the Centre of the Universe. It has zero representation on the government side of Parliament. We voted Liberal, with a spattering of NDP. (That's a good reason why Harper should have shown up last summer)

So McGuinty paid $650 million to the benefit of the 905ers. Who now may be persuaded to vote Liberal on October 10th.

Harper paid $650 million one would think to the benefit of the 416ers. In case they want to go to Wal-Mart I suppose. This of course will sway some votes. He definitely solidifies the votes in 905 (Further transit funding was announced there). Our dear Harper needs to gain seats in Toronto in order to get a majority.

Is that Logical?

Well, no.

Vote getting aside for a minute, none of this moves us towards sustainable funding. It's still piecemeal. It is political.

Recently Toronto, via Miller, launched the 1 cent campaign - its basis being, give Toronto 1% of GST revenue, or we won't vote for you. Again. This of course isn't targeted to transit funding but rather general municipal funding. This makes Miller's campaign related to transit funding, but really nothing to do with it. Kind of like invading Iraq and relating it to fighting terrorism.

What is logical

You'll need to wait for my next post, where I'll explore what really is the transit priority.

All you need to do in the meantime is remember the following:

• $2 billion
• Sustainable funding
• A subway that will go through the Provincial Finance Minister's riding

Categories: Transit, Politics, Toronto