Can we give Ford credit for the purchase of the new streetcars, too?
I'll stop feeding you, now.
Me: Provided an (albeit 2-year-old) article stating that Ford and city hall have a plan for 70km of bike lanes, and asked if this isn't true, if anybody had any sources which suggested the contrary.
RC8: Claims that Ford is implementing under 10km of bike lanes, then ignores multiple requests to back up or provide evidence of this claim.
Seriously, you really want to act like
I'm the one trolling here? I'm not the one talking out of my ass on this issue, whether I'm ultimately right or wrong. I've been fully willing to accept that I could possibly be wrong on this issue - hey, that's an old article, maybe circumstances have changed or Ford lied or whatever. I simply asked for some confirmation of what you're claiming...and for some reason, you're finding any excuse not to provide anything to back your claim up. Scratch that - you're not even providing an excuse.
You want to talk about lies and baseless complains? Look at your own before you chastise Ford any further. Given that there's about a 3km stretch of separated bike lane being added on Harbord St. alone, I really doubt under 10km of bike lanes are being implemented under Ford's mayoralty.
Right now, its your word against the National Post's. Provide a source or, yeah, stop feeding me, please.
But that's not what has happened - the gross budget increased has slowed, but the net budget has increased at about the same pace it did under Miller.
True, but wouldn't that mean that there is less overall spending while city spending is increasing at the same rate? Or, in other words, other revenue streams have stagnated, but city spending hasn't increased at a higher rate.
That seems pretty significant to me, because a stagnating gross operating budget isn't being buffered with any significant increase in the net operating budget. Obviously the reasons and variables for this have to be examined, but I don't think this can be dismissed out-of-hand as irrelevant in regards to Ford's handling of city spending.
I thought you'd been provided with some links that explain it. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here, and refer you to:
http://metronews.ca/voices/ford-for-toronto/519262/debunking-ford-nations-favourite-budget-chart/
Ah, someone beat me to it.
It would be interesting to see a detailed breakdown of what's in the gross operating budget from 2009 to 2013. But as far as I understand it, part of the reason for the drop, is the end of some funding from the province and the feds. And the end of that spending related to it. Thus the city receives less money, and spends less money. But nothing to do with Toronto Council. Isn't the uploading of some funded services from Toronto to the Province that Miller and McGuinty orchestrated part of this - I'm not sure which years that starts to kick in. When it does, you will see a drop in the gross operating budget with a much smaler impact on the net operating budget. Another (smaller) example is the York Region funding to TTC to run transit north of Steeles. York has been slowly taking over these services, so each year pays TTC less and less - thus dropping the gross operating budget - but not effecting the net operating budget.
Yeah, someone provided me that link a day or two ago. I've already read it before though, and I didn't really see where my understanding of the gross operating budget supposedly conflicted with Elliot's explanation. bobbob911 has been helpful clarifying some stuff for me.
I don't think I have misunderstood the gross operating budget, but I have been wondering what the specific reasons for the drop in the gross operating budget would be. If the unloading of city services is a significant part of the reason for the stagnation, then it would go against the argument I've been making (in which I was assuming there was simply a drop in revenue or provincial/federal funding without any unloading of services). I wish there was a breakdown for this too.