If you read the report, it makes it very clear the tax is GTA only.
That is not quite true.....they are province wide tax increases but the recommendation is that only those raised in the GTHA would be invested in the GTHA.....the balance would be returned/invested to the local areas for their own infrastructure projects (transit, roads, bridges....whatever the need is).
The articles are doing a horrible job reporting on this, they are focusing on one of only 20 recommendations made by the report (the tax hike), and even then are forgetting to report on large portions of it.
While this is true, the 20 recommendations would fit nicely in a full page ad in a paper....perhaps if they want that full message out there that is the way to go.
Again, if you read the report they are also recommending spreading the projects out a bit, considering many of them such as the western end of the Dundas BRT, the northern portion of the Yonge Extension, and Lakeshore electrification are long term projects.
They are also proposing that Municipalities and The Federal government to start kicking in some cash. They correctly state that the province shouldn't have to pay for 100% of it.
I think we need to look back....Metrolinx produced a plan, not a perfect plan but a plan, called the Big Move....at the time they said the "Investment Strategy" (which would have been better named the "taxation strategy" as that is what it is/was) would come later...it came and gave the province a menu of potential fund raising possibilities to to raise $2B a year for 25 years to pay for the $34 billion of items in the next phase of the Big Move.....it did not make decisions for the province in terms of what revenues to increase/implement but it gave them a slate of choices which would fully fund the Big Move.
Rather than make the choice the province engaged this new panel to make the recommendations on how to raise the $34B +.
It would, to me, that the panel either failed in its mandate or re-wrote its mandate because it comes up short in funding the $34B+:
1. As I noted above, their own math shows that they are likely going to net less than $1B per year.
2. As you point out, they now recommend that the province should not be bearing the full cost and that
a) The federal government should pay 1/3
b) "That municipalities in the GTHA make greater use of their borrowing capacity to finance local
transit improvements."
3. They want to conduct a full review of the Big Move in 2014
It would seem to me that this, effectively, kills the Big Move.......whether you/we/I liked any/all of the individual projects within the Big Move, we all had to agree it was a full fledged regional plan which, through the Investment Strategy, identified regional/provincial ways to raise the funds necessary.
Now we have an early review of the projects/plans combined with a funding formula that relies on 1/3 federal funding and municipalities willingness to borrow funds to contribute to the local projects within the plan.....RIP Big Move.