Ontario Budget Cut and Transit Expansion

[Rainforest]

It bugs me that the provincial and federal governments found $140M for roads in Ontario, as if that would really improve the commute in the GTA. Not.

All those improvements are for roads outside Toronto.

No road upgrades can improve commute within Toronto, but for almost any other place in Ontario, roads remain essential. The provincial and federal governments have to govern for all constituents, not just 416 residents.

 

[Rainforest]

Greyhound would fall under my catagory of "a few regulated service providers". In Toronto, there are 10 licenced private taxi companies.

A private mini-bus company with either: (1) be profitable or (2) be unprofitable. A private company cannot sustain unprofitability. Inclusion of a public subsidy might offset this, but in that case why not just operate the mini-bus company as a public agency.

If it is profitable, that profit comes by taking the best slice of the transit pie and leaving the unprofitable parts to the public agencies. This means a farebox revenue decreases per capita or a larger public subsidy to the TTC.

A private mini-bus company can be profitable without public subsidy, simply by charging higher fares (say $5 or $6 per trip). Basically, it would be a service for people who can and want to afford more expensive transit, but still save compared to using private cars or hiring cabs.

Part of mini-bus riders would be former TTC riders and thus TTC would lose some farebox revenues. But on the other hand, TTC's required operational and capital expenditures would go down slightly. The net effect might be neutral or even favorable to TTC.

The rest of mini-bus riders would come from former car drivers. This would have no effect on TTC, but a clear overall benefit for the society.

 

[cacruden]

1st step is to replace the entry/exit system to match what most major cities in other parts of the world have, once that is done then they could put up Eglinton line for bid where the winning bidder has the ability to build, run, and set prices for the next 30 years.

 

[ssiguy2]

PPP really aren't feasible for subway extensions but can be very effective for new rapid transit lines. Vancouver's Canada Line and soon to be started Evergreen Line are PPP. I would basically prefer that all new lines are built by the gov't {whether city/regional/prov/feds} but we know that it will not happen so alternatives must be. Between 2001 and 2014 Vancouver will have built 30km of SkyTrain and Toronto not one foot. The purpose of the TTC is too provide a public transit system to get people from A to B in a fast and affordable price. It once excelled at that but no longer.
Vancouver's fares haven't gone up due to PPP and yet Vancouverites are getting around faster and more comfortable than ever before. If that means the TTC should start building with PPP then do it. Torontonians need mass & rapid transit and they need it yesterday. TC was neither so no great loss to see it go. It also better to get it done sooner rather than later as it provides the service sooner for the long suffering Torontonians who once took pride in their system but now have nothing but contempt for. It is much cheaper to build now than later and Toronto also has a stellar record of later never comes.
As Toronto bitches and moans Vancouver will have an additional 45 km of SkyTrain in just 10 years due to the none PPP extensions of the Expo & Millenium lines and all Toronto will have is an extension to YorkU. Pretty pathetic when you consider that so called " Calgary will have a rapid transit system nearly as large as Toronto's in just 10 short years WITHOUT PPP.

 

[znoosle]

This city is plagued by naysayers who accept the status quo. According to them, nothing can be done, everything is impossible. Apparently to them all the transit successes in other global cities around the world are just a mirage. As long as the 'pessimistic experts' are in charge (I see plenty of them on this board - they intelligent but uninspired, a sad combination) nothing will be done.

Obviously there are a lot of moving parts to the TTC problem. At root much of it traces to the comfortable privilege we allow our public sector managers and unions to squeeze out of us, while the media’s ‘big bad tax-man’ hysteria simultaneously empowers said managers to skimp on everything else EXCEPT their salaries (ie 'we can't afford actual trains, technology and service b/c costs are too high') –> Well guess what – when you pay public servants comfortably high wages for secure, minimal-pressure work, and then eagerly castrate their ability to do anything beside the bare minimum (with the silent approving wink of the unions – who prefer having no responsibility for decision making, b/c it absolves them when things go wrong), you attract a lot of 'experts' who prefer things just the way they are and can’t be bothered to fix anything!

Some ideas to lower TTC operating losses and raise $$

1) Bring back zone-based fares to maximize revenue and rider value
a) if suburbanites then abandon zone-based transit in favour of the highway, so what, you can reduce service on some of the more expensive routes and – they can take GO instead and
2) We can institute road tolls to capture their usage and pour that money into tranist
3) Smart Cards and automated vehicles should free up quite a few employees to do other more productive work
4) Dedicated subway/LRT-construction/operation taxes, yes, via a referendum! If you make the request using the right language, people will say yes!

 

[EnviroTO]

Much of Vancouver's transit system was accelerated due to Expo and the Olympics. If Toronto was hosting Expo and the Olympics I have no doubt money would be there for transportation.

 

[W. K. Lis]

There are forecasts for the return of higher gasoline prices. See http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2010/04/gas_prices313.html for the article. So when the higher prices come, people will demand more rapid transit. However, if the transit projects are being delayed, they will have nothing available as an alternative to their car. Where is the logic in stopping projects that will help people in the future?

 

[lead82]

I'm hoping that gas prices skyrocket to about $2/L, as that would really put the pressure on governments to improve transit, as at that price many would not be able to afford to commute by car. However, I doubt very much this will happen any time soon. Lets face it, North America is a car-driven society, and Ontario is a car manufacturing hot-bed, so really the government wants to cater to auto industry as that creates more jobs than simply building transit lines which only contain 25% Canadian made content.

Happy driving...

 

[Calrissian]

Between 2001 and 2014 Vancouver will have built 30km of SkyTrain and Toronto not one foot.....

Toronto not building anything between 2001 and 2014?
- 6.5 km of sheppard subway.
- 8.6 km of Spadina line/York U subway.
- 14 km of Sheppard LRT..

Not to mention the St.Clair ROW (jury still out) and all the additional GO projects (Rail link/Georgetown - Lakeshore 3rd track, etc)

Plus whatever projects remain on the table after the fall out of the $4billion 'delay' to Metrolinx budget.

And the evergreen line is currently faced with the similar issues/challenges faced in TO and its not for certain it will begin this year or be ready by 2014.

Also, the skytrain, is somewhere between GO Transit and TTC, meaning it services more of the suburbs/outlying areas than the downtown areas (which still rely heavily on buses) but with matching frequency of subways. And Vancouver still has a ways to go before they're moving the same capacity as Toronto's transit systems do (TTC/GO).

 

[MisterF]

Much of Vancouver's transit system was accelerated due to Expo and the Olympics. If Toronto was hosting Expo and the Olympics I have no doubt money would be there for transportation.

That doesn't explain the expansion to Calgary's system. Besides, Expo isn't exactly a huge ticket item compared to the Pan Am Games, which Toronto is getting. Plus there are plenty of cities that are getting serious transit expansion without one-off events to justify them. It's hard not to be jealous of Madrid after spending time there. And it's hard to argue that there's not something very wrong with transit planning in Toronto. Or maybe it's an Ontario-wide problem - Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo have been planning light rail for what seems like forever, and Hamilton is still in the early stages.

 

[SlickFranky]

People need to stop equating Toronto to Calgary and Madrid (and NY, London, Paris, Tokyo, etc.).

Calgary is kind of a freak-city when it comes to transit. They started their network VERY early, and have incredible DT employment figures (and practically zero parking). Kudos to them on both.
Madrid is equally strange. The funding they used to build out that crazy network is not available here.

Transit planning in Ontario is fine. Transit funding is another matter. We've planned all sorts of great stuff (and some not-so-great), we're just not willing to pay for it.

Also, Expo was HUGE back then, and Pan-Am today is...Pan-Am. It's big I guess, but it's certainly not the Olympics.

 

[junctionist]

So how do we effectively address the neglect of public transit in this province? How do we change the culture?

It has plenty of negative effects which are difficult to perceive but nonetheless significant. These include lesser growth potential for urbanized areas without open fields for easy sprawl growth, lower productivity, and the psychological effect of the neglect. To clarify the last point, I think a lot of people either become jaded or indifferent to the thought of change and improvement, or frustrated to the point where they leave Ontario. That's bad news for Toronto because you get more of the people who just care about low taxes because they see that the province is no progressive leader or educated, affluent people who leave in frustration, then bash the city in a place like B.C.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Madrid is equally strange. The funding they used to build out that crazy network is not available here.

Now please, please, please, for the love of the Holy God of Urban Planning, describe to me what money Madrid and Spain have that Toronto and Canada does not.

 

[taal]

People need to stop equating Toronto to Calgary and Madrid (and NY, London, Paris, Tokyo, etc.).

Calgary is kind of a freak-city when it comes to transit. They started their network VERY early, and have incredible DT employment figures (and practically zero parking). Kudos to them on both.
Madrid is equally strange. The funding they used to build out that crazy network is not available here.

Transit planning in Ontario is fine. Transit funding is another matter. We've planned all sorts of great stuff (and some not-so-great), we're just not willing to pay for it.

Also, Expo was HUGE back then, and Pan-Am today is...Pan-Am. It's big I guess, but it's certainly not the Olympics.

Exactly how many people do you think work in downtown Calgary and how much parking do you think they have?

 

[leopetr]

Now please, please, please, for the love of the Holy God of Urban Planning, describe to me what money Madrid and Spain have that Toronto and Canada does not.

EU transfers to less prosperous member states.