New Transit Funding Sources

[steveintoronto]

Alvin writes:
[the funding formula isn't fine-grained enough to prevent say a subway to nowhere Toronto-style. ]

Yeah...that's a very sobering point. I wanted to make other points, but the reality of that leaves me deflated.

 

[steveintoronto]

The federal budget for infrastructure spending is a joke. The entire budget isn't enough for Toronto alone, let alone all of Canada.

Yet another reason why municipalities need to power to self fund their capital infrastructure. No longer should our cities depend on the provincial or federal governments for handouts.

The City of Toronto Act already makes that possible, as is the case for a few other Ontario cities now with their own provincial acts.

 

[TOareaFan]

The City of Toronto Act already makes that possible, as is the case for a few other Ontario cities now with their own provincial acts.

which other cities have their own acts like Toronto does?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The City of Toronto Act already makes that possible, as is the case for a few other Ontario cities now with their own provincial acts.

As has been mentioned many times, none of the tools in the CoTA allow the city to raise a meaningful amount of revenue. It raises peanuts relative to the what we need for SoGR and expansion. In a few cases, the cost of collecting those taxes actually outweighs whatever revenue is collected. The province has reserved the truly powerful revenue tools, the tools that can actually put a dent in our infrastructure backlog, for themselves.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Alvin writes:
[the funding formula isn't fine-grained enough to prevent say a subway to nowhere Toronto-style. ]

Yeah...that's a very sobering point. I wanted to make other points, but the reality of that leaves me deflated.

But the Feds really shouldn't be there is check against stupidity - that's the job of the local gov. Besides, the flip side of fine-grainedness is retail politics.

AoD

 

[steveintoronto]

which other cities have their own acts like Toronto does?

There's about five from memory, bit rushed to Google now, feel free to do so, but here's Hamilton's:
https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/99c14c

 

[steveintoronto]

none of the tools in the CoTA allow the city to raise a meaningful amount of revenue.

I beg to differer, it was one of the major reasons for incorporating the act.

[...][The City of Toronto Act, 2006 (COTA) was proclaimed as law on January 1, 2007 and sets out a broad, permissive legislative framework for the City that gives it more tools commensurate with its size, responsibilities and significance. COTA provides the City with a new set of taxing powers, subject to prescribed limits. To date, these powers have not been extended to other Ontario municipalities. Eight taxation options were studied with the help of an outside consultant (Hemson) in 2007. Todate three taxes have been implemented  Municipal Land Transfer Tax, Personal Vehicle Tax (later repealed) and Third Party Sign Tax. The remaining five taxes initially studied were Alcohol Tax, Tobacco Tax, Amusement Tax, Parking Tax and Road Pricing (i.e. Road Tolls, Congestion Tax). General Authorities and Exclusions: The City's taxation authority is limited to those taxes for which it is provided express authority under Provincial legislation. The power to impose new taxes is embodied in Part X of the COTA. The City has been provided the authority to impose direct taxes within the City of Toronto. ][...]
https://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toronto/Strategic Communications/City Budget/2016/Briefing Notes/BN46 OP Corporate CM COTA Revenue Tools.pdf

A more pertinent question is *why hasn't Toronto used these powers more extensively*? There may be provisos to discuss, indeed, the pdf linked discusses some, but similar powers of taxation have been extended to a few other Ontario cities, IIRC. The short answer to my question of "why" is due to municipal politics, not provincial.

Edit to Add:
Haven't studied this yet, but it is much more up-to-date than the link posted above:
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/Ontario Office/2015/01/Torontos_Taxing_Question.pdf

Here's the conclusion:
[Conclusion This brief overview itemizes a menu of tax options the city has within its grasp to resolve pressures on the 2015 budget. It shows that Toronto has not fully utilized the tax room it has at its disposal within the City of Toronto Act, enacted in 2007. The total tax room from a range of tax measures is more than $400 million annually. It also shows the cost of the Ford administration experiment with tax reductions amounts to a cumulative loss of almost $500 million in untapped property taxes over a four-year period. City council has the power to leverage greater revenue in order to improve and enhance public service needs in Toronto. Its problem isn’t spending—Toronto has a revenue problem. But the solutions are within reach.]

Amen!

 

[steveintoronto]

But the Feds really shouldn't be there is check against stupidity - that's the job of the local gov. Besides, the flip side of fine-grainedness is retail politics.

AoD

Yeah...agreed completely, let the Feds get lambasted for their own shortcomings, and Caesar for his. The reminder on the Scarberian Subway Fiasco is a reminder of how wrong things can and have gone in Toronto. I was reasonably optimistic about harnessing the Feds hand-out for pushing forward the City SmartTrack *brand* by Council stating to Queen's Park, something to the effect of "OK, they gave us money, not you, so match our 25% with yours, and let's push ahead with RER Weston leg, but we get our name on it as well as yours." Egos satisfied as well as pragmatism. And something gets built, soon, before the theorectification of the corridor, even if on an interim basis. That's how GO rail had its start, and look how far its come. That corridor must be used now. The first step was the demise of the UPX deity. Now the challenge is to mould it into something much more usable. The Feds will like that....

 

[WislaHD]

FINANCE MINISTER SAYS THE BUDGET IS GOOD FOR TORONTO
http://startouch.thestar.com/screens/fe586b84-6a70-42c2-9e27-dc79f63c94bc|_0.html

"The Liberals will roll out their infrastructure program in two phases. The budget promises $11.9 billion over the next two years for the initial stage, including $3.4 billion for transit nationwide, $5 billion for water and waste-water facilities and $3.4 billion for affordable housing.

Morneau said the initial funding is meant for projects that are ready to go. Yet the $1.5 billion earmarked for Ontario transit won’t go far, making the timing of the second, bigger phase important for municipal leaders"

 

[TOareaFan]

There's about five from memory, bit rushed to Google now, feel free to do so, but here's Hamilton's:
https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/99c14c

I was under the impression (perhaps false) that the only city with an act that gave them revenue tools that other cities did not have was Toronto...so, yes, there are other municipalities with "acts" but do they have revenue tools?

 

[TOareaFan]

FINANCE MINISTER SAYS THE BUDGET IS GOOD FOR TORONTO
http://startouch.thestar.com/screens/fe586b84-6a70-42c2-9e27-dc79f63c94bc|_0.html

"The Liberals will roll out their infrastructure program in two phases. The budget promises $11.9 billion over the next two years for the initial stage, including $3.4 billion for transit nationwide, $5 billion for water and waste-water facilities and $3.4 billion for affordable housing.

Morneau said the initial funding is meant for projects that are ready to go. Yet the $1.5 billion earmarked for Ontario transit won’t go far, making the timing of the second, bigger phase important for municipal leaders"

You know what would be "news"...if the minister of finance, who happens to be from Toronto....made the statement "the budget is bad for Toronto"

 

[TheTigerMaster]

FINANCE MINISTER SAYS THE BUDGET IS GOOD FOR TORONTO
http://startouch.thestar.com/screens/fe586b84-6a70-42c2-9e27-dc79f63c94bc|_0.html

"The Liberals will roll out their infrastructure program in two phases. The budget promises $11.9 billion over the next two years for the initial stage, including $3.4 billion for transit nationwide, $5 billion for water and waste-water facilities and $3.4 billion for affordable housing.

Morneau said the initial funding is meant for projects that are ready to go. Yet the $1.5 billion earmarked for Ontario transit won’t go far, making the timing of the second, bigger phase important for municipal leaders"

GIVE US MORE MONEY

 

[rbt]

GIVE US MORE MONEY

And make Tory raise taxes to match their funding? Not while there was a Ford around!

Seriously, the TTC changing to capital from current (fare-box) to fund the last round of bus purchases ($80M?) shows beyond any doubt just how tight the bean counters think the cities debt is to being downgraded. They need revenues to go up to borrow more.

Next year (I hope) Metrolinx will be ready to tender a couple big chunks of RER and the feds can kick into it with the province paying the matching portion; Tory will decorate the edges, call it Smartrack, and take a win for himself too.


With 1 Ford out of the way and the other reportedly hating the job, Tory may feel more confident about his re-election prospects. Perhaps we'll see a 5% property tax increase but that division between capital and operations that Ford introduced. Otherwise, Wynne will decide how the federal transit money gets spent because she's actually willing (pro-actively even) to match it.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey owns and operates the PATH rail system between New Jersey and New York City. See link.

However, it also owns real estate, from which it gets revenue to help subsidize its rail system. One of the real estate holdings is the World Trade Center in New York City.

From link.

Beyond WTC

Outside of Lower Manhattan, the Port Authority has a vast portfolio of real estate assets. They include a 50-acre mixed-use site on the Hoboken waterfront with a pair of office buildings, 526 residential units and a 265-key hotel and a waste-to-energy plant in Essex County. It also owns portions of a 12-acre industrial park in Elizabeth, N.J. as well as a legal-and-communications center in Newark that’s controlled by a private operator under a 50-year lease.

The agency controls the 80-acre Teleport industrial complex on Staten Island through a ground lease that expires in 2024. Earlier this year the authority’s board voted to carve 9 acres off from the lease and sell them to a private developer for $3.6 million, splitting the revenues from the sale with the New York City Economic Development Agency. In the Bronx, the agency’s board voted last month to sell its leasehold interest on the 454,000 square foot Bathgate Industrial Park for $16.5 million.

On the northwestern tip of Staten Island, the agency operates the 311-acre Howland Hook Marine Terminal and under a long-term lease with the city expiring in 2058, but a sale is unlikely given that the 2014 special report identified it as important to the Port Authority’s core mission, even if it does operate at a loss of $30 million.

Red Hook Terminal in Brooklyn

In Brooklyn, the agency owns a pair of properties that not only lose money each year, but are all but obsolete to the Port Authority’s mission.

In 1956, the agency began acquiring land that grew to what is now 110 acres spread across the Red Hook Container Terminal and the Brooklyn-Port Authority Marine Terminal. The latter property sits at the southern edge of Brooklyn Bridge Park where a joint venture led by Robert Levine’s RAL Development Services plans to build a pair of residential buildings with 192 condos, 30 market-rate rentals and 117 affordable rental units.

Why does it seem that the TTC is forbidden to have real estate holdings from which it could get a revenue stream? Maybe the TTC should build an office tower, or towers, around the Scarborough Town Centre? Or is that a bad idea?

The TTC was to build a new headquarters building at York Mills Station, but that was nixed by the Ford administration, see link. So the site was sold for $25 million, see link.

 

[rbt]

Why does it seem that the TTC is forbidden to have real estate holdings from which it could get a revenue stream? Maybe the TTC should build an office tower, or towers, around the Scarborough Town Centre? Or is that a bad idea?

It's kinda a federal thing but I've never been able to confirm it. The expectation is that the government competing against private firms would be found unconstitutional especially if they use government only tools like expropriation to do it.

That said, TTC doesn't need to build and run the commercial property in order for the city to collect a chunk of the revenue. Something could be done with a very tight-range commercial tax but there would need to be very high interest in the area. It might work with the DRL; SCC dreams of being as successful for commercial development as Yonge and Sheppard.