GTTA - Our last chance

[circuitboy84]

Don't know if this has been posted:

Mar 23, 2007 04:30 AM

The task is enormous and failure is not an option.

What's at stake for the new Greater Toronto Transportation Authority is nothing less than the quality of life for the majority of citizens in Canada's busiest commuter corridor.

Blow it and family life, air quality and trade will deteriorate, warns Paul Bedford, Toronto's only citizen appointee to the GTTA.

The city's former chief planner is one of 11 board members charged with creating a transportation plan so seamless and sensible that driving a car will become the least attractive option between Oshawa and Hamilton.

"It will be a true regional transportation plan to service (the Golden Horseshoe) for the next 30 years," says Bedford.

Former Burlington mayor Rob MacIsaac will chair the GTTA.

Other appointments have yet to be confirmed but are expected to include GO Transit chair Peter Smith, Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion, the chairs of York, Durham and Halton regions and Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger.

The Toronto contingent will include Mayor David Miller, TTC chair Adam Giambrone and Councillor Brian Ashton.

"That board has to think and act like a region. It has to.

"That's my pitch," says Bedford.

"This is our last real chance to get it right as a region."

On the surface, he is the ultimate urban animal. Professionally, he worked under eight mayors. Personally, he has for years eschewed automobile ownership in favour of the TTC and car sharing.

But make no mistake: Nominated by the City of Toronto, he nevertheless joins the inaugural meeting of the GTTA today, as a man of, and for, the region.

Any historical divisions between the interests of the 905 communities and Toronto cannot come to that table, Bedford said during a recent interview in Mississauga.

He has come from his downtown Toronto home on public transit, transferring from the TTC to GO Transit to arrive steps away from the Mississauga Living Arts Centre in about an hour.

It's the kind of cross-border commute that should be available to everyone travelling in the region throughout the day, says the son of an Oakville councillor, who still has family in that town and in Hamilton.

Bedford, who says he knew from the time he was in Grade 9 he wanted to be a city planner, retired from City Hall in 2004 and carried on his career in a role that he's dubbed "urban mentor."

He serves on the National Capital Commission's advisory committee on planning, design and realty.

He's also involved in the Toronto waterfront design review panel and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health campus redevelopment.

He notes what has become abundantly clear in recent months – the political, as it relates to transportation, air quality and urban sprawl – is more than ever personal.

Bedford quotes research showing that the average Canadian commuter spends about five years of their life in a car and he refers to MacIsaac's frequent admission that, when it comes to transit, the region needs more of every kind, everywhere.

"This is very personal to people. It's time they can't devote to their families, their gardens," says Bedford.

"Gridlock is personal and in your face everyday," he says.

"People want this (change). They're ready for it."

The bones are there already. GO has "a pretty good skeletal system," says Bedford.

With the TTC, "you've got something to build on. It's not like a lot of bigger cities that are built really only for cars."

He envisions a transit system where the next bus or streetcar is always in sight

"If you see one's coming you're going to wait for it."

-The Star

EDIT: Corrected GTAA to GTTA

 

[spmarshall]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

Bedford was a great choice for a citizen appointment. He clearly understands the issues.

Other appointments have yet to be confirmed but are expected to include GO Transit chair Peter Smith, Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion, the chairs of York, Durham and Halton regions and Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger.

Oh great. Just what we need, the same gang as on the GO Board. McCallion again? Shouldn't Peel get a representative?

 

[ahrvojic]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

Globe Article

New board will try to untangle regional traffic knot
Agency gets idea of enormity of task at its first meeting

JEFF GRAY

The province's new regional transportation agency met for the first time yesterday to begin drafting a multibillion-dollar plan to fight traffic congestion, providing a glimpse of the tensions between Toronto and its suburbs.

The Greater Toronto Transportation Authority, an 11-member body made up mostly of municipal politicians from the region, including Toronto Mayor David Miller, is expected to come up with an action plan on public-transit expansion by early next year.

The new board, on which Toronto has four seats, got a sense of the enormity of their task by looking at a consultant's study yesterday.

The projections from the IBI Group suggest that with $17-billion in investments in light rail, buses and subways, the proportion of GTA commuters riding public transit would rise from the current 18 per cent to 23 per cent. Many felt these numbers were too low.

Future controversies will no doubt centre on one of the GTTA's powers, as outlined in a briefing by ministry staff yesterday: The agency will be able to charge fees for "revenue generation."

GTTA chairman Rob MacIsaac, a former mayor of Burlington, favours considering road tolls, or even a London-style "congestion charge." Mr. Miller has said he would consider budging from his reluctance to impose tolls only if they were part of a region-wide scheme that did not single out downtown Toronto.

The tolling issue did not come up in yesterday's mostly jovial first meeting. But the underlying urban-suburban culture clash was evident in the discussion of the province's regional "smart card" initiative, in which the Toronto Transit Commission -- much larger than all of the rest of the GTA's transit agencies put together -- has only reluctantly taken part, even as the rest of the region begins to adopt it.

Mr. Miller and TTC chairman Adam Giambrone contested an assertion from a Ministry of Transportation official that the card would save money.

The TTC insists the card would add $20-million a year in operating costs alone for Toronto. The TTC is so far participating at only a handful of its subway stations.

Mr. Miller and Mr. Giambrone also shifted in their seats as Roger Anderson, chairman of Durham Region, suggested the fare card be paid for by selling its naming rights.

"There's an opportunity here for somebody to pay for this, other than us," Mr. Anderson said, suggesting the card could be labelled with "Computers R Us, or whatever." Mr. Giambrone said afterward that some sort of "TTC branding" of the card is "extremely significant." Other major cities with "smart cards" have given them catchy names, such as London's "Oyster" card, rather than sell naming rights.

Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion, whose transit agency is participating, said she also had questions about the card's $250-million setup cost.

"I don't feel as mayor of Mississauga that I know enough about it," she said.

Mr. Anderson, who oversees Durham Transit's fleet of 147 buses -- the TTC has more than 1,500 -- also complained that his transit system doesn't get as much money as the TTC does, earning a quick correction from Mr. Miller.

"We don't get anywhere near the provincial subsidy you guys get, for some reason," Mr. Anderson said.

Mr. Miller interjected: "You get much more than us per rider."

Measured per rider, the TTC may be the least subsidized transit system in North America, covering more than 75 per cent of its costs with fares.

-----------------------​

Let the infighting begin.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

Putting Anderson on the board is SUCH a mistake. Here is the article from the Star:

Taking a bold transit line
With capital costs likely to exceed $12B, super-agency eyes transportation links beyond GTA
Mar 24, 2007 04:30 AM
Tess Kalinowski
Transportation Reporter

Touting innovation and co-operation, the new Greater Toronto Transit Authority has pledged to take public transit boldly where it has never gone before.

"There's no excuse for not being as bold as hell," said former Toronto chief planner Paul Bedford, the city's only non-political appointment to the board, at yesterday's inaugural meeting.

But before it starts mapping new ideas, the 11-member board, composed mostly of regional municipal leaders, will blow the dust off two decades' worth of reports and recommendations on clearing gridlock and improving public transit from Oshawa to Hamilton.

With only a year to decide how best to improve transportation links between the various regional municipalities, there was a general consensus that the GTTA doesn't have time to start from scratch or wait for consultants to provide the expertise Toronto Mayor David Miller said is already available on staff at the various transit authorities and municipalities.

And at the end of a week in which both the federal and provincial budgets failed to offer any new sustainable transportation funding, coming up with a plan might be the least daunting challenge at hand, according to some board members.

"You can come up with the greatest plan you've ever seen, but if it's not viable, it's just going to sit on paper," said Durham Region chair Roger Anderson.

But former Burlington Mayor Rob MacIsaac, chair of the new authority, downplayed skepticism about political will and funding.

"We are to come up with a transportation plan with a five-year capital plan that sets priorities. If I didn't think (the province) was serious about this, I wouldn't be sitting here," he said.

Regardless of how much money governments invest in moving the region to more transit access, "there will be sacrifices," Toronto Councillor Brian Ashton told reporters, referring to tax increases and the discomfort of giving up the automobile.

Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion recommended transportation levies and tying together land use and transportation planning.

"Otherwise we can do a lot of things and as we're doing it there's an increase in cars," she told the board.

TTC chair Adam Giambrone said a consultants' report that put a $12 billion price tag on growing regional transit needs in the next 15 years was too conservative.

"We have to come up with a pretty scary number."

Speaking to reporters about one of the GTTA's first priorities – creating a standardized fare card – Giambrone also hinted at the local interests that will challenge the board.

While there would be advantages for the TTC in the fare card, it would cost about $20 million to implement, he said. Older fare-card systems in cities like New York also have much higher fraud rates than the TTC's, which is only about 0.7 per cent, he said.

The existing fare system "may not be sexy, but it works," he said.

While Anderson and McCallion said corporate sponsorships might underwrite some of the costs of the card, Giambrone was adamant that "the TTC brand is very strong and must be represented on the card.

"The TTC has to be a component and not an insignificant component," he said.

AoD

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

And another:

`Give us our money and we'll build it for you'
Mar 24, 2007 04:30 AM
Jim Coyle

"I go back so far on this, it's like there's an 11th Commandment: Thou shalt have integrated transit within the GTA.''

– City councillor Brian Ashton yesterday at the inaugural meeting of the Greater Toronto Transit Authority.

Oh, it goes back, alright.

In the beginning, (or at least by the time Europeans began showing up), the rivers ran clear through the trackless wilderness of Toronto, huge pines towered along their banks, swaying in the clean breezes off the lake, and the transit system was without form and void.

To be frank, trails worn by generations of first peoples were pretty much all there was of it. But the newcomers said, "Let there be roads!" And soon, (they being fiends for hacking down trees) there were wagons, carts and carriages trundling about – (though, in truth, Eglinton was still sufficiently out of the way that rabble-rousers could plot rebellions there.)

Technology's relentless begatting continued and along came the motor car – and the truck, the bus and electric streetcar – and soon traffic lights, stop signs, muffler shops and service centres multiplied across the land.

And, by God, we hardly need tell you what the last few decades have done to Greater Toronto. John Graves Simcoe would hardly know the place.

Suburbs and edge cities scattered into adjoining area codes. Massive highways jammed from dawn 'til dusk. Pollution spewing like the bowels of hell. Words, like gridlock and rush hour, that previous generations never heard or imagined. Commuters sardined into subway cars. Not least of all, savage jurisdictional disputes among municipalities rivalling any hostilities the old Indian tribes waged.

In short, there are times in which the 21st-century men and women of Toronto would be hard pressed, in their bumper-to-bumper, some-stranger's-armpit-in-my-face woe, to outdo the pessimism of General Sir James Carmichael Smith, who said (presumably after a particularly tough commute):

"We cannot avoid expressing upon the subject of York our regret that it should ever have been selected for the capital of Upper Canada.''

Which was why, to move rapidly to modern times, Brian Ashton and colleagues were gathered yesterday for the inaugural meeting of the Greater Toronto Transit Authority, the last best hope, it's been said, for a regional transit plan, a system to move people across the Golden Horseshoe and give comfort and relief to the environment, the economy, our mutual health and well-being.

The province said the GTTA was "a milestone'' in developing a sustainable transportation system. And, as such, the first order of business was chair Rob MacIsaac, former mayor of Burlington, herding its members together (to his credit, a little sheepishly) for a group photo.

"It's a good day,'' said Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield. "It will make a huge difference.''

And though the formal part of proceedings was mostly housekeeping and the business of getting a new corporation up and running, the byplay of board members – and their support for "pretty aggressive time lines'' in reporting back with a plan for seamless travel and integrated fare cards across the entire region – raised the hopeful possibility that this is a body unusual in its determination to get things done.

To be sure, the personnel were not the sort apt to have been sent along for an exercise in window-dressing.

Mississauga's Hazel McCallion isn't built that way. Toronto sent the mayor, the current TTC chair, a former transit chair and a citizen's rep, Paul Bedford, with a passion for urban affairs and public transit. The regional chairs of York and Durham and the mayor of Hamilton are also unlikely to be willingly wasting their time.

"To create action,'' said Toronto Mayor David Miller. "That's why I'm here.''

York Region's Bill Fisch said he was happy there "are only 11 of us here'' because it will make it easier "to get on with it.''

McCallion insisted that the studies and work of previous boards and municipal governments not be wasted and, excuse the expression, time be spent reinventing the wheel.

MacIsaac said there are many "people out there who are really relying on us to succeed'' and "no one knows better than you how miserable it is to get around in our region.''

To be sure, there were the odd hints here and there of the usual regional sensitivities and inter-jurisdictional resentments.

Durham Region's Roger Anderson and Miller had a little tit for tat over who gets the largest provincial transit subsidy. McCallion noted that the province has had a history of keeping "too much too close to their chest rather than divulging it to local transit authorities.''

Too much optimism and bonhomie, after all, might have onlookers thinking the board had lost touch with reality.

"I can almost guarantee you we're not always going to agree,'' said Anderson.

But everyone should be able to emerge from the exercise with a plan about which they can say, "Here's our vision, Mr. Premier. Now, give us our money and we'll build it for you.''

Though Anderson did have one tiny quibble with "the GTTA ... the GTTA....Got to come up with a new name.''

Jim Coyle usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

AoD

 

[ahrvojic]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

Anderson's new name proposal notwithstanding, we should probably rename this thread from GTAA to GTTA...

 

[garden of evil]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

Slightly off topic, but my sources tell me that the name of Toronto's GTTA SmartCard will be called either Presto or Pronto.
Presto = there it is
Pronto = in a hurry
hmmm.... dont know which one would be better. At least Pronto rhymes with Toronto

 

[FutureMayor]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

Are you for real? I like both, but prefer Pronto. However, I wouldn't call it Toronto's card. For one, its actually being launched in Mississauga, and two the TTC has publicly ranted that it wants nothing to do with it.

Louroz

 

[unimaginative2]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

The TTC is opposed to pretty much everything that it does not invent. I don't understand why the province isn't forcing them to adopt it and giving them a little funding to help them with the implementation. I like the name Pronto quite a bit better. It just has a better sound, and the Toronto rhyme is a useful coincidence.

 

[jeicow]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

I'd prefer Pronto. More catchy and

Presto has too much of a cheese-magician image attached to it. Considering how transit seems to be operating now a days, I fear operators would take it as a sign to help make eople's time disappear- and they seem to be doing a good job of that already.

 

[Chuck100]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

Any historical divisions between the interests of the 905 communities and Toronto cannot come to the table

But they always do when you have elected officials sitting there. In my opinion, one should be should be disqualified from being on the board if they hold a municipal-level political position from anywhere in the GTA. As this is public money, let someone from the ministry of finance at the provincial level sit on the board. The remainder of the board must be those educated and employed in the transportation field.

If a panel of actual experts states that the annual funding will not be divided 50/50 between the 416 and 905 areas, so be it. If the top 5 most pressing transit issues are located in the 905 area, don't compromise. If 95% of transit funding needs to go to Toronto projects in one year, let it.

Politicking and compromising yield useless projects that neither the 416 nor the 905 areas need, such as two redundant subway stations in Vaughan. A DRL from Broadview to Union requires about the same trackage, and would have been easily approved by those in the transportation field.

 

[unimaginative2]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

If you've ever met Finance people, they're the last people you'd ever want sitting on the board of your transit authority. If a DRL is such a no-brainer for "experts," why has it not even been examined in any studies for the last 20 years.

What the GTTA board needs is an advocate. It should have provincial appointees, yes, and perhaps some municipal ones as well. It should nevertheless be composed primarily of independent citizens, ideally with as few agendas as possible. It should be led by a civic-minded individual with good relations with governments, what Robert Fung should have been for the waterfront. I completely agree that an organization dominated by municipal politicians is doomed to failure.

 

[Chuck100]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

I don't know how much of a role citizens should have. As citizens, we should be filling out surveys, telling our local government that an advanced green is too short, or that an extra bus stop is needed. Joe Blow from Aurora should not have much control over a multi billion dollar GTA wide transit authority.

 

[wyliepoon]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

At least Pronto rhymes with Toronto

"Pronto" was used with "Toronto" in the TTC Subway Song. Coincidence?

 

[unimaginative2]

Re: GTAA - Our last chance

Obviously not Joe Blow from Aurora. I'm talking about prominent citizens, the kind that are placed on other important government boards. An impartial but influential board would be best able to get the transit improvements that we need.