New Transit Funding Sources

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Personally, I think the funding should be divided up 50% based on population and 50% based on ridership. This avoids the "rich get richer" issue BurlOak raised, while at the same time acknowledging that systems with larger ridership do have larger maintenance needs.

I'm not going to let the great be the enemy of the good though. This is certainly good news.

Actually I would be against that - simply because the realities of funding/running big city transit (and we don't have all that many big cities) is a completely different beast from smaller ones. Hard to compare the capital requirements of say new buses to a new subway build, for example.

That kind of equity issue can be compensated through having different pots of money - those communities may have maintenance needs that are more general infrastructure/maintenance than transit related - fund it through that.

AoD

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Based on ridership is really a way of saying that the rich get richer. Whoever had a strong existing system gets more. Those that are trying to build up a system get less.

It is like if they decide to fund a social program and distribute the funds based on income.

The benefit of this is that we know these tax dollars will be more efficiently spent, helping perhaps even an order of magnitude more people, than if it were distributed by population.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The benefit of this is that we know these tax dollars will be more efficiently spent, helping perhaps even an order of magnitude more people, than if it were distributed by population.

Yes and no - the funding formula isn't fine-grained enough to prevent say a subway to nowhere Toronto-style. It provides transit funding where the established need is the greatest - whether it will be allocated that way is another story.

AoD

 

[crs1026]

I don't know why we all thought that the Federal budget would make all our transit dreams come true. Our appetite is pretty substantial when you add up everything we are looking to build in the GTA alone.

When you look at the timeframe of the spending, the lack of shovelreadiness of some projects, and the dearth of major new revenue streams, $29 B spread across Canada isn't all that much money - especially considering some of the things that have higher priority.

All we an hope for is that the current budget has the desired effect, and stimulates growth, that makes room for these projects in a couple years. Hopefully the current funding advances EA's and detailed design.

I guess this is a good opportunity to launch my own personal campaign for a new revenue stream: a $1 toll on every drive through purchase in the GTA. It puts the cost squarely on an unhealthy practice (idling autos), and if you oppose it, it's totally avoidable.... just park and go inside. Good economics, good optics, drives the right behaviours.

- Paul

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I guess this is a good opportunity to launch my own personal campaign for a new revenue stream: a $1 toll on every drive through purchase in the GTA. It puts the cost squarely on an unhealthy practice (idling autos), and if you oppose it, it's totally avoidable.... just park and go inside. Good economics, good optics, drives the right behaviours.

- Paul

But the impact is probably be minimal, and it would be hell to create a system that would collect the funds. Time for the elected politicos to do the right thing and stop thinking about their reelections (I know, fat chance) - bite the bullet and create a dedicated funding source. No ifs, no buts - it should hit everyone.

AoD

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I don't know why we all thought that the Federal budget would make all our transit dreams come true. Our appetite is pretty substantial when you add up everything we are looking to build in the GTA alone.

When you look at the timeframe of the spending, the lack of shovelreadiness of some projects, and the dearth of major new revenue streams, $29 B spread across Canada isn't all that much money - especially considering some of the things that have higher priority.

All we an hope for is that the current budget has the desired effect, and stimulates growth, that makes room for these projects in a couple years. Hopefully the current funding advances EA's and detailed design.

I guess this is a good opportunity to launch my own personal campaign for a new revenue stream: a $1 toll on every drive through purchase in the GTA. It puts the cost squarely on an unhealthy practice (idling autos), and if you oppose it, it's totally avoidable.... just park and go inside. Good economics, good optics, drives the right behaviours.

- Paul

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.

 

[rbt]

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

$1B per year for 3 years (fed's only cover 50%) will take good sized chunk out of the SOGR backlog.

Not nearly enough for expansion but it is enough to maintain what we already have which is a step ahead of where we were.

 

[kEiThZ]

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.

I've been saying this for a while. Non-strategic infrastructure can't be a federal responsibility. People will make the comparison to other countries. Except that a lot of those other places don't have provincial governments as empowered as ours or municipal/county governments as weak. This is why I say that Metrolinx needs to be turned into a real regional transit agency, with revenue generating authority.

 

[kEiThZ]

$1B per year for 3 years (fed's only cover 50%) would take good sized chunk out of the SOGR backlog.

Not nearly enough for expansion but it is enough to maintain what we already have.

That's not even for SOGR. It's $3.4 billion over 3 years for the whole country. Even if you assume the 50% rule and you assume that Toronto gets $1.12 billion as its share (and those are still shaky assumptions at this point), the mayor says $2.7 billion is just SOGR. The city will have to spend $1.6 billion just to pay for SOGR. And that's before touching any expansion.

 

[rbt]

That's not even for SOGR. It's $3.4 billion over 3 years for the whole country. Even if you assume the 50% rule and you assume that Toronto gets $1.12 billion as its share (and those are still shaky assumptions at this point), the mayor says $2.7 billion is just SOGR. The city will have to spend $1.6 billion just to pay for SOGR. And that's before touching any expansion.

Yeah, it won't cover everything. Keep in mind the federal funds require a match and that usually has to be new money so it's really ~$2.24B being tossed at the TTC. That's not enough for everything but it will cover a large chunk of maintenance that was completely unfunded last week.

Normal SOGR spending covered mostly by the city at this time is $500M/year. TTC will struggle to spend an additional $500M/year (let alone $1B if new matching funds required) over 3 years without expanding that department; and growing purchasing/engineering/legal departments takes time.

It's more than the feds have ever committed to municipal transit without tying it to specific projects.

With luck, next years federal budget will have additional new money for transit and this time 80% of it will be able to go toward expansion.

 

[gweed123]

Actually I would be against that - simply because the realities of funding/running big city transit (and we don't have all that many big cities) is a completely different beast from smaller ones. Hard to compare the capital requirements of say new buses to a new subway build, for example.

That kind of equity issue can be compensated through having different pots of money - those communities may have maintenance needs that are more general infrastructure/maintenance than transit related - fund it through that.

AoD

But it also comes down to the chicken and egg scenario. It's hard to build ridership when you don't have the money required to build the infrastructure to generate that ridership.

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.

This is just the budget for this year. None of the big ticket expansion projects are ready to go this year, so what's the purpose of including them in the budget? The whole point of this year's budget was short-term projects that can provide a positive economic stimulus.

This isn't the 2014 Ontario budget where the Liberals said "here's the pots for infrastructure for the next 10 years". There will be more to come.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

But it also comes down to the chicken and egg scenario. It's hard to build ridership when you don't have the money required to build the infrastructure to generate that ridership.

Yes and no - we can probably list where large investments have the potential to increase overall ridership significantly, but the virtue of the spread in Canadian cities by size.

AoD

 

[WislaHD]

"Cabinet held off on major infrastructure spending in this budget for fear the money would be rushed out the door for projects that wouldn’t benefit the economy and could end up as boondoggles. On the advice of Mr. Sohi, a former Edmonton city councillor, cabinet decided to spend money in this budget on shovel-ready municipal projects, the official said."

How Trudeau and his Liberal cabinet built their first budget
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...net-built-their-first-budget/article29356902/

 

[crs1026]

I'm not seeing much in this budget that grows tax revenue. The social priorities were good ones, and getting SOGR on the table is good education for those who cut costs by ignoring it......reminds us that it's pay-me-now-or-pay-more-later.

The risk is that the appetite for this level of deficit spending may pass before revenues rise to fund new projects. Not rushing the infrastructure spending in 2016 before good plans are in place was prudent. I predict that we have only a couple of budget cycles to put forward projects. And the appetite for social programs will not be one-shot.....these in particular will embed themselves into base spending, as perhaps they should.

All in all, I see little hope of HSR or HFR clawing its way to the top of the list. A provincial push to put Toronto-KW-London into a higher quality of line is the only hope I would hold. That might eventually create some traction for other things.

- Paul

 

[rbt]

All in all, I see little hope of HSR or HFR clawing its way to the top of the list. A provincial push to put Toronto-KW-London into a higher quality of line is the only hope I would hold. That might eventually create some traction for other things.

Yep. VIAs HFR plans might be a re-election promise if the study comes back positive and they manage to get the general public excited, but that's about it.

Actually, getting the public excited is really important as airlines will be aggressively against and I doubt any other large business will lobby in favour of it.