Your day of financial reckoning is nigh, Toronto

[kettal]

Come on Matt, If you had seen my post elsewhere you should have come across some of my ideas/solution. From Spacing.....

Cost savings (some would require Provincial approval):

- Move all traffic related enforcement from police to bylaw enforcement.

- End the fair wage program.

- Require that TTC construction be contracted out.

- Contract out TTC station management.

- Modify Transit city to have a shared track, with passing sections.

- Ensure that all infrastructure programs are co-ordinated so that redundancies are eliminated. (eg. replacing water mains on a newly paved street)

- Have specified garbage pick up areas between houses. So if one house places its garbage for pick up at the right side, the neighbouring house on the left would place theirs on the left, Being side by side would eliminate the number of stops needed for collection.

Taxation and revenue:

I would completely revamp the current system. To be replaced with the following:

A single class of property, no more beggar they neighbour polices.

A minimum tax of $1,500 for the first $250,000 of assessment value.

A yearly parking tax of $500 per spot.

The balance of property tax revenue would be generated from a single tax rate, applied equally to the assessed values over $250,000.

Have a single LTT rate for all properties.

End tax cancellations for seniors and change to a deferral.

Move to have TTC fares paid by distance.

Niceties

Potted palm trees on the beach, with a contained water area that could be cleaned and heated.

Seasonal bike lanes and pedestrian areas via lane closures on certain streets (Queen St. comes to mind).

Graffiti cleanup.

plus many more……

Glen, I am impressed with some of your ideas. Good stuff

But I think you are overstating the effect of cutting wages. Sure you can cut somebody's wage in half, but then his family will have to use more welfare services. In the end, he becomes an even bigger burden on the taxpayer.

Single track LRT have almost no construction cost benefit over double track, and they cost a lot more in scheduling, speed, and operational expenses. It's only in exceptionally tight streets where single track is ever used for high frequency streetcars, anywhere in the world.

 

[Archivist]

Glen's bloodymindedness on UrbanToronto and Spacing and god-knows-how-many-other places on the web wins him no friends. I can only assume that he doesn't ever add to his blog (vacant for 16 months) because no one went there to actually read his stuff. So his strategy for the past while has been to spew into whatever forum will not ban him.

Many of his "ideas" sound fine in their unrefined states, but for the most part they are naive and thoughtless. Let's take one idea that at first seems to have some merit: Ensure that all infrastructure programs are co-ordinated so that redundancies are eliminated. (eg. replacing water mains on a newly paved street) Who could argue? But think for a moment of what this would take to work - an integrated scheduling system to be deployed between the TTC, Hydro, Toronto Water, and Toronto Hydro (and others). What these players would do would be to assess any project for its potential impacts on infrastructure and pool the data into a single coordinating system so that a street only gets ripped up once.

Of course, for this to work it would also require that these agencies coordinate their priorities - no sense in having Toronto Hydro fast-track a project to bury wires on Roehampton if fixing the watermains there didn't make it into Hydro's budget for the year. Coordinating potential projects would add an entirely new criteria into the operational planning exercise - and to actually coordinate these across the city would require meetings. Lots and lots of meetings.

And then - wait for it - a nicely coordinated project that will see the pavement on Roehampton ripped up once only to conduct work for three utitilities is scheduled for next month, except the project gets delayed by a week or two because of a supply or manpower issue that affects Hydro alone - the ripple effect on other agencies is huge and either the coordination falls apart and the projects happen separately, or everything gets delayed and recheduled. Can you say, "more meetings".

What I see with this proposal is

a) a nonstarter. It sounds good until you begin to examine any of the details, then quickly falls apart.

b) if someone were foolish enough to actually champion such a system, the direct costs (some kind of scheduling technology used by multiple players operating in different IT environments and no doubt exchanging data with several legacy systems) and indirect costs (the incredible amount of time redirected to meetings) would be huge. I'd love to be a consultant on such a project, because the opportunity to leach money from the city's coffers for years on end would be enormous.

Bottom line is that there are no savings here.

Glen's sound-bite fixes to the city's serious problems strike me as the obsessive product of a person who - if I may venture into the adma-esque for just a second - needs either to get invited to better parties or to get laid. At any rate, I really wish he would disappear from this and other forums, because, at the very least, we've heard it all before.

 

[Glen]

Many of his "ideas" sound fine in their unrefined states, but for the most part they are naive and thoughtless. Let's take one idea that at first seems to have some merit: Ensure that all infrastructure programs are co-ordinated so that redundancies are eliminated. (eg. replacing water mains on a newly paved street) Who could argue? But think for a moment of what this would take to work - an integrated scheduling system to be deployed between the TTC, Hydro, Toronto Water, and Toronto Hydro (and others). What these players would do would be to assess any project for its potential impacts on infrastructure and pool the data into a single coordinating system so that a street only gets ripped up once.

Of course, for this to work it would also require that these agencies coordinate their priorities - no sense in having Toronto Hydro fast-track a project to bury wires on Roehampton if fixing the watermains there didn't make it into Hydro's budget for the year. Coordinating potential projects would add an entirely new criteria into the operational planning exercise - and to actually coordinate these across the city would require meetings. Lots and lots of meetings.

And then - wait for it - a nicely coordinated project that will see the pavement on Roehampton ripped up once only to conduct work for three utitilities is scheduled for next month, except the project gets delayed by a week or two because of a supply or manpower issue that affects Hydro alone - the ripple effect on other agencies is huge and either the coordination falls apart and the projects happen separately, or everything gets delayed and recheduled. Can you say, "more meetings".

What I see with this proposal is

a) a nonstarter. It sounds good until you begin to examine any of the details, then quickly falls apart.

b) if someone were foolish enough to actually champion such a system, the direct costs (some kind of scheduling technology used by multiple players operating in different IT environments and no doubt exchanging data with several legacy systems) and indirect costs (the incredible amount of time redirected to meetings) would be huge. I'd love to be a consultant on such a project, because the opportunity to leach money from the city's coffers for years on end would be enormous.

Bottom line is that there are no savings here.

Nice can't do attitude!

Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that the city hall, and the likes of yourself would be incapable of doing this. I talked to a friend about this recently, an expert in databases, whom has done multiple projects for various government ministries. His assessment was that he could do it in less than a week (programming). A lot of the information is already available, in long range capital plans.

You could even forgo any complicated systems by hiring one person, to whom which all parties whom work on city property must submit scheduled work. In your example above this one person could contact Toronto Hydro and tell them to postpone burying the wires until the next year when the water-main work was to be done.

I recall one such example on Steeles avenue. One year a large section of it was repaved. The following year, the street was torn up, light standards moved and the street widened to three lanes. If my cat was in charge of city hall this could have been avoided.

Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are probably right.

 

[Archivist]

Let me paraphrase your response, which I find deliciously inadequate. "A geek friend told me he could whip something up in a week and the data exists".

Let me see, this would overlook:
- Installation
- A shared platform
- Training
- Linkages to existing scheduling and tracking systems
- Identifying who is responsible within each agency for continuing to feed the database, how often, and with what data
- Identifying the data variables and formats that are acceptable (you can spend a month choosing a date format - that may sound crazy, but if you are telling Hydro that they will have to spend, say $5000 to make a conversion program so that the date formats in their scheduling system can be translated into that required by another program)

And the pure naivete of your response also doesn't take into account conflict resolution. Hydro wants to rip up Roehampton in June 2011, and the TTC does not. Who decides? Who has the power to override? Without this, it all falls apart.

Your response to this shows that the advice you are being given by your "handlers" is a joke, that you have no idea of how a bureaucracy (for better or worse) functions, that your notions about costs-savings and knowledge of IT is completely laughable.

And do you realize that Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are probably right lacks any meaning? What were you even trying to say?

 

[Eug]

Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are probably right.

I would have to agree with this.

Government run bureaucracies are often the poster children of inefficiency.

Could you imagine this type of inefficiency for a private contractor? Contractor hires an electrician to update wiring. Holes are punched in walls to put in wiring. Wiring done. Then drywall is patched back up and painted. Then two weeks later contractor hires plumber. Walls are ripped down to update plumbing. Plumbing done. Then drywall is patched back up and painted.

Etc.

The problem though is it is very, very tough to deal with these types of inefficiencies at times because it takes leadership, will and up front money, often at the expense of other programs. So far nobody in city council or the mayor has been able to show any kind of leadership in this.

Unfortunately, many with the bureaucrat mentality simply can see past any of this. They think that if a bureaucracy is entrenched, it can never be adjusted. Well, that's often precisely when change is most needed IMO.

 

[spider]

Glen and Archivist,
The city has kept and distributed a schedule of projects in the planning stage by all the usual players i.e. Hydro, TTC, Bell, works dept etc for years.

This schedule is famously ignored by all parties with no penalty because they don't care about the other guy's problems.

The only solution I can see is in the City Permit issuing procedure since the only common thread shared by all the agencies is the need for construction permits issued by the City.

 

[Archivist]

Glen and Eug, there is a large and vibrant literature on IT projects in large organizations. Go and read.

 

[Eug]

Glen and Eug, there is a large and vibrant literature on IT projects in large organizations. Go and read.

I don't know if you've ever been a big boss in any organization. I haven't either for a large organization, but have led subdepartments in bureaucracies.

It's rather remarkable how often when asked why something is done a certain way, the employee will say, "because that is always how it's been done", without any understanding as to why.

There is an awful lot of inertia in large organizations, and often that inertia is very difficult to overcome, but that doesn't mean it CAN'T be overcome.

Glen and Archivist,
The city has kept and distributed a schedule of projects in the planning stage by all the usual players i.e. Hydro, TTC, Bell, works dept etc for years.

This schedule is famously ignored by all parties with no penalty because they don't care about the other guy's problems.

The only solution I can see is in the City Permit issuing procedure since the only common thread shared by all the agencies is the need for construction permits issued by the City.

Heh. This brings to mind my colleague's recent experience. He applied for a permit for work on his home, got the permit, and then hired the contractor. Shortly after work started, he got a citation for failing to obtain a permit, and was fined thousands of dollars. The really ironic part of it was the person who issued the citation was the same person that issued the permit. Obviously, there is some issue there too.

My colleague of course complained to everyone's bosses and promptly got a meek apology.

 

[Archivist]

Eug, you are quite right that there is a large amount of inertia, and this needs to be overcome. But, for instance, in the issue that Glen thinks his geekfriend can work up something in a week, you'd have to have strong and powerful buy-in from the leads within each organization. There are about a million ways to subvert any proposed system, and if the stakeholders and end-users don't see benefit to themselves, it can easily happen. People don't populate or update data, they assign the task to someone in the organization who doesn't matter, they don't deal with the situations that the system is designed to fix (ie., scheduling conflicts). If there's not strong buy-in from the users, it just won't happen.

And you'd also have to be able to convince all the players to spend money (and lots of it) on the system, or perhaps to make it more palatable, to find the money somewhere to give to them.

These are the realities of large organizations. They are not going to change. I've worked on several large scale IT projects in government (and seen a few through to completion which you will know if you've ever searched for images at the Archives of Ontario's database) and the actual IT part (which Glen grotesquesly simplifies from an obvious and complete lack of experiences) is, maybe, 5% of the cost and work involved in getting a project off the ground. The rest lies in getting and holding buy-in, institutionalizing the system and its goals, resolving and mediating conflicts, etc.

If you were to start, today, this very hour, on such a system, perhaps by the end of 2010 you'd have permission to proceed. Not the funding, but the permission to explore the scope of the project.

You or Glen may not like that, may find it inefficient, may want it to be otherwise, but nothing is going to change that. The large point I'm trying to make is that easy and quick solutions to logical problems (I don't dispute the idea sounds good on first blush) get complicated once you get into the mix. This is why I remain unimpressed with Glen's laundry list of quick fixes for the city.

 

[Eug]

Well, I agree that Glen's solution-in-a-week approach may be extremely naive, but I look at some of his laundry list as a nice starting point for simple checkpoint goals.

It makes perfect sense to try to coordinate work on major roads does it not? Basically your argument sounded a lot like "It's too complicated so it can't be done", which dooms it to failure.

 

[Glen]

Archivist,

The type of scheduling that we are talking about does not require 'real time' input. My low tech solution (1 person in an office) would work just fine.

In any event, I am sorry that you believe that we are destined to have a civil service incapable of making aware its plans. I, for one, think that the majority of civil servants would welcome the opportunity to be part of a solution that overcomes the bureaucracy.

 

[Glen]

Glen and Archivist,
The city has kept and distributed a schedule of projects in the planning stage by all the usual players i.e. Hydro, TTC, Bell, works dept etc for years.

Is it available online? Perhaps then Archivist will have to reconsider the collection of such to be such a Herculean task.

 

[Archivist]

Glen, you fail to recognize your own lack of knowledge even as you admit the problems with your system at the outset (no 'real time' input. ie. Hydro: "What do mean replacing the poles on Sorauren? That was knocked off our plan months ago when priorities came up for Scarborough Golf Club Road?"). You also persist in thinking it's an issue of gathering data, when it is quite clearly not.

Let's take another example of yours, one I find intriguing. A yearly parking tax of $500 per spot. Easy to say. Does this apply to all the spots in Yorkdale Mall? Employee parking at the Bay-Adelaide Centre or in a recycling plant in the Port? Residential condos? City owned Green P lots? Someone's laneway in East York? How would laneways be measured for "spots"? Would a long laneway be assessed at three "spots", and a shorter one be a single "spot"? What if someone didn't own a car, but happened to rent in a place with a laneway? Is there an exemption for non-car owners? What if their next door neighbour owns three cars and parks them in their laneway? What about on-street parking? Would you only pay the $500 if you have a permit?

In this case, I think a parking tax of some sort might be do-able, but the devil would certainly be in the details, and in my view any candidate or politician proposing such a measure is going to have to have nerves of steel in getting it through. And the administration of such a tax would certainly eat up a portion of the funds it generates.

Again, it's easy to come up with sound-bite fixes, and it's easy to repeat them over and over and over and over again. Harder to win people to your cause, isn't it Glen? If you can't convince any but a small number of people at the many forums you spew into, what kind of politician would you be?

To be fair, I think your key message is that commercial tax rates need to drop and Torontonians need to be willing to pay for the services they receive. I agree with both of these ideas, and I think in the years to come your concern in these areas is going to be forced on the city and everyone who lives in it. But your sound bite solutions, repeated again and again, fail to impress. And your delivery, well, nuff said.

 

[Glen]

Glen, you fail to recognize your own lack of knowledge even as you admit the problems with your system at the outset (no 'real time' input. ie. Hydro: "What do mean replacing the poles on Sorauren? That was knocked off our plan months ago when priorities came up for Scarborough Golf Club Road?"). You also persist in thinking it's an issue of gathering data, when it is quite clearly not.

I don't expect a system that is foolproof and will catch every possible scenario. What is in place now is nothing more than information that is ignored. Frequently a good enough solution better than none at all. Perhaps making local councillors sign off on a major project plan for their Ward. Give them the responsibility to ensure that, if possible, tax dollars and time, are best spent.

Let's take another example of yours, one I find intriguing. A yearly parking tax of $500 per spot. Easy to say. Does this apply to all the spots in Yorkdale Mall? Employee parking at the Bay-Adelaide Centre or in a recycling plant in the Port? Residential condos? City owned Green P lots? Someone's laneway in East York? How would laneways be measured for "spots"? Would a long laneway be assessed at three "spots", and a shorter one be a single "spot"? What if someone didn't own a car, but happened to rent in a place with a laneway? Is there an exemption for non-car owners? What if their next door neighbour owns three cars and parks them in their laneway? What about on-street parking? Would you only pay the $500 if you have a permit?

Yes, each and every spot in Yorkdale, Bay-Adelaide Centre, etc. If parking is permitted in the laneway, and it fits three cars, it would pay $1,500 per year. Measurements pose no conundrum. If a none car owner doesn't own a spot, it would not apply. If they own a spot but not a car they would pay, (they can always rent out the spot). On Street Parking with permits would also pay for both the permit and tax, though the permit fee should be adjusted downwards. Furthermore I would even consider increasing the fee to $700 per year and using the additional $200 to fund public transit.

Again, it's easy to come up with sound-bite fixes, and it's easy to repeat them over and over and over and over again. Harder to win people to your cause, isn't it Glen? If you can't convince any but a small number of people at the many forums you spew into, what kind of politician would you be?

I am not running for office. I am under no obligation to provide a detailed platform for anything. I am a bit dismayed at your early insults though. I freely admit that I spend a lot of time posting about the subject here. That being said, I don't think that the issue is over exposed here at UT. While you may deride the frequency of my raising the topic, the fact is that my contributions are nearly the only ones on this topic says as much about me as it does the other members. This topic is certainly more relevant to Toronto than the gauge of LRT tracks or eliminating the jog in Dufferin, yet gets less attention.

 

[MuchoGrande]

Again, it's easy to come up with sound-bite fixes, and it's easy to repeat them over and over and over and over again. Harder to win people to your cause, isn't it Glen? If you can't convince any but a small number of people at the many forums you spew into, what kind of politician would you be?

Glen, don't listen to cheesy and condescending insults. At least one person is reading your comments with interest.

The City needs a serious rethink of the way it does some things as there are big challenges ahead. I can't say I agree with many of your points but dismissing your ideas as being biased or repetitive as others seem compelled to do just ain't productive.

Keep at it!