Updated September 9, 2010 at 10:15pm: The Toronto Sun cites Rob Ford’s “transit policy guru” Mark Towhey in a followup article to the Ford transit platform. Oddly enough, Towhey’s own blog post, an inaccurate rant about the TTC from February 2010, is still online even though Ford’s people disowned the article.
Toronto deserves an explanation of just what Rob Ford’s real agenda is, and to what extent it is driven by someone who has an even more radical view of what would happen to transit in this city than candidate Ford’s own official position.
The original post from September 8 at 4:00 pm follows here.
The Rob Ford mayoral campaign has released a transportation plan, and it’s a rather threadbare effort.
Ford’s subway plan involves redirecting Transit City funding to completion of the original Sheppard Subway plan from Downsview to Scarborough Town Centre, and extension of the Danforth subway to STC via the SRT alignment. The Eglinton line has completely disappeared even though the money scooped to build Sheppard would have paid for the first stages of Eglinton’s construction.
As the Smitherman campaign has already pointed out, $790-million of the provincial $3.7-billion Ford counts on is earmarked for the Viva system in York Region. (See page 25 of the Metrolinx funding summary.) It is unclear why Queen’s Park would agree to such a massive shift in transit priorities, effectively turning the clock back to the 1990 transit network announcement rather than building the more extensive network already agreed to. [Note: As of 2 pm on September 9, Metrolinx has fouled up their website and the funding summary is not available. The link above is to the relevant pages copied to my own site.]
Notable by its absence from the Ford plan is any rapid transit service to northeastern Scarborough, the UTSC Campus or anywhere in Etobicoke, Ford’s home turf. Presumably everyone west of the Humber river won’t need transit. Nothing about downtown or the waterfront. Nothing about addressing priority neighbourhoods. Nothing about regional integration.
That SRT conversion has appeared in other candidates’ platforms, and it suffers from problems with assumptions about recycling the existing infrastructure and route. Kennedy Station faces east, and an alignment up the SRT corridor would require a new subway station. Although the Transit City LRT lines will result in construction at Kennedy, they wrap new LRT platforms around the existing structure while leaving the subway itself intact. Further north on the SRT there are narrow sections, a tight curve at Ellesmere, and stations that were not designed for full subway service.
Yes, this could all be rebuilt, but the line would never go further because the cost versus demand numbers simply wouldn’t work out. That’s the whole reason for using LRT, but Ford’s folks don’t seem to understand this.
Ford really doesn’t like streetcars in any form, and trots out the expected complaints about how construction fouls up businesses, how streetcars delay traffic and thereby create more pollution. Indeed, he would shut down our streetcar network and sell our new cars elsewhere to recoup whatever money could be had. The platform material says Ford would remove “some streetcars”, but according to a media source, Ford wants to get rid of all streetcars in 10 years.
Oddly enough, they would be replaced by even more buses that would sit in the same traffic jams behind delivery trucks, illegally parked cars, taxis, J-walking pedestrians, and a whole range of problems common to congested 4-lane roads that cannot simultaneously be speedy arterials and local streets. Buses pulling into stops on narrow streets with parking regularly block through traffic because they can’t properly reach the curb. Bus bays are not an option because there are usually buildings right at the sidewalk.
The larger omission from Ford’s plan is any discussion of fares, service quality or what transit should be as part of the city’s fabric. He condemns much of the city to buses running in mixed traffic, and says nothing about how he would address the $70-million in additional funding just needed to operate the TTC in 2011. Will he raise fares? Will he cut service? How much filthier will stations and vehicles get? Will escalators and elevators stop, never to run again? Will he simply starve the TTC and place the blame for whatever happens on their inability to make hard choices?
Ford’s financing plans simply don’t add up, nor do his construction schedules. He claims that the Sheppard and BD extensions could be completed by 2015. That’s a real stretch considering that we have not even been through a project assessment and approval, detailed design and tendering. The SRT is 6.4km long, the Sheppard West connection is about 4km, and the Sheppard East extension would be about 7.5km from Don Mills to McCowan. The total is 17.9km.
The Spadina extension to Vaughan is only 8.6km, has fewer stations, and will cost $2.6-billion including inflation. This brings the pricetag of Ford’s subways to somewhere over $5-billion, not the $4-billion he claims, and assumes we could build them in the same timeframe, with the same inflation factors, as Spadina. That’s simply not realistic.
Ford also hopes for $1-billion in private sector contributions through development fees. As we have seen in many locations — the Bloor-Danforth subway, the Spadina line — development does not follow immediately after subway construction and may be decades, if ever, in the future. Indeed, some neighbourhoods won’t take kindly to someone drawing subway lines through them if the tradeoff is the destruction of what’s there today. There are ways to earmark lands for future higher taxes once a rapid transit line is built, but no guarantee that we will see the money in the short term.
Seeing a platform like this, not to mention similar proposals from other candidates, makes me wonder if anyone has been paying attention to transit history in Toronto and other cities. We seemed doomed to turn the clock back 25 years, at least, to an era when making life better for cars trumped all other concerns, when a few subway proposals were a substitute for real transit planning.
Marcus Gee of the Globe & Mail appears to be reading this blog. In his article today he says “Streetcars carry more passengers than buses … so to carry the same number of passengers you would need a lot more buses” (about 3 per new streetcar, I believe).
Playing devil’s advocate, I think the Fordites would suggest articulated buses. I saw a very long one on YouTube with 2 articulations. Would there be a catch to such reasoning? Another solution would be to poach buses from lightly traveled routes. (Ford advisor Twohey would love this. But, (sigh) there goes my extra local service.)
Steve: Longer buses will get in the way of traffic just like streetcars, and there are still issues with capacity and acceleration under load. Also, buses cannot go into those portions of lines that are underground.
So here is what will happen with this plan. Ford gets elected, tries to bully the province into changing the allocation of its transit funding, McGuinty will tell him to pound sand. Ford then gets to point at the province as obstructing the will of the (30-35%) populace of Toronto. He then goes into full shilling mode for his good buddy Hudak. If current trendlines hold, and unless McGuinty pulls a major rabbit out of his hat, the Tories get elected next year.
In the meantime, Ford has cut the vehicle registration and land transfer taxes, blowing a hole in the budget. His promises to hire more officers and fix the roads are of far more concern to his supporters, so in addition to minor things like libraries, community centres and parks, the TTC is told to trim the fat. Remember that near scare a few years ago when they were going to cut a whole bunch of routes and mothball Sheppard and the Spadina line? Well, this time it’s going to be real.
Hudak gets in and like all good Tories, cuts taxes regardless of the economic situation because we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem and like Dick Cheney once said “deficits don’t matter” when it comes to cutting taxes. He declares war on the public service, lays off thousands of them, jacking Toronto’s unemployment rate through the roof. Oh, all that funding for transit? Poof. Gone. No money for subway. No money for “clean buses”. Nada. Zilch.
Ford shrugs his shoulders and says “Sorry folks”. Then begins the war on municipal and TTC workers. Epic strikes follow, Ford gets to pretend he’s Ronald Reagan with the air traffic controllers, and Stephen Cheung gets to move back to New Detroit, er, Toronto as the low-tax, no-transit, shell of a city that all Rob Ford supporters dream of. The rest of us weep for the city and start learning a Western European language so we can move someplace where livable cities and social services actually count for something.
W.K. Lis: Has he [Rob Ford] ever used the subway?
Yes, I’ve seen him westbound late at night, hunched over and holding his head. At least he’s not driving in that condition. At least not till he gets to Etobicoke.
Obviously the answer is to make sure Rob Ford does not get elected. We each have to make our own choice, but for me it is Joe. I made a second major contribution to his campaign today and sincerely hope he wins.
Each concerned reader of this site needs to seriously consider who they think would make the best Mayor – obviously not Ford – and do something to get that candidate elected. The disaster scenarios only happen if we allow the uneducated mass to dictate who is our Mayor. We do not need a buffoon for Mayor. We can do something about it.
Also, unguided street vehicles have a size limit before manoeuvering on narrow streets become a safety issue. We can see large trucks making tight turns always at risk of mounting the sidewalk or hitting parked cars. Going off on a tangent, our trucks could be replaced with cargo streetcars instead.
Since Mr. Ford officialy published his “plan” on Youtube I believe his team is reading the comments to the video from time to time. In this regard I’d suggest writing pro-transit comments on Youtube, especially, if you are one of those voters who basically supports him but doesn’t agree with his proposals regarding transportation.
By now 67% of voters voted against the plan.
While I would prefer to see all of Transit City be heavy rail subway, I know that it would be too, too expensive to do so. Having light rail and light rail subway will get rapid rapid out to more of Toronto and at a less expensive cost.
My preferences are:
1 — heavy rail subway
2 — light rail subway
3 — light rail right-of-ways
4 — streetcars
5 — bicycles
6 — buses
7 — walking
8 — cars
I do have a car, but which I am forced to use because of the sprawl conditions the outer areas of Toronto is under. I do use the bus, when I am not using the car, but would prefer to see the bus I use replaced by a streetcar or more preferably light rail (and yes, there is a difference to those who don’t seem to know).
Towhey’s blog post, which is not showing up for some reason, can still be viewed in Google Cache.
Steve: Use the “text only” version to avoid delays attempting to pull info from the host site. I am not surprised that they finally took this drivel offline.
Hmm. Rocco wants a new tunnel to extension to finish the Spadina Expressway. Will there be a “Railroad Crossing” for cars in the subway tunnels somewhere to allow it to carry the way to the lakeshore area? It doesn’t look like much room for parallel tunnels from Eglinton Stn. downward.? (:>)
Steve: The right wing on the ticket is getting more and more crowded with people trying to out-do Rob Ford and his car orientation. At this point, any shred of respect I had left for Rossi just evaporated. I really want to see where he hopes to put the on and off ramps, and where all of the additional traffic is supposed to go downtown. Between him and Ford, we are turning transportation thinking (using that word loosely) back generations.
I’ve been blocked by RobFordToronto for writing pro-transit comments on Youtube. I guess it’s just only the beginning.
Steve: It’s the jackboot Tory way of handling dissent.
Steve said: “I really want to see where he hopes to put the on and off ramps,”
I’m more interested in where he hopes the interchange with the Gardiner will go. The only two places left without demolishing a lot of homes and businesses are Fort York or around High park and both of those spots are political suicide if he suggests them.
Meanwhile, the 250 million dollar budget shortfall for next year asks where all of the money needed to build this project is suddenly coming from.
Now I think I’ve heard everything! While I can’t honestly disagree that the car is actually here to stay and that all that congestion southbound at Eglinton isn’t exactly one my top ten enjoyable sightseeing experiences, there is just no way I can take this hare-brained scheme seriously in the eensiest and weensiest. I’ve never understood why, after this Spadina Expressway was cancelled, why they even went ahead with the portion that exists today.
Steve: The part that was built was north of the old City of Toronto.
I am broken hearted that, my favourite tram system is under such threat from such idiots. I have seen this before and for those of you who thinks it won’t be allowed to happen, think again. In Brisbane (Australia) , the Mayor (Clem Jones) hated trams and his henchman (the appropriately named Slaughter) the City Manager, hated them even more so. When they came to power he immediately set about to undermine the system that was very modern in this country and superbly maintained, once he started, this system, almost the exact size of Toronto’s, was gone in 6 months! The last tram ran on the 13th of April 1969.
I lived in Canada (Orillia, On) in 2008 and did a bit of work with the TTC trying to get them to go for a 75% low floor car that would be more suitable for Toronto’s track geometry. During the time I was there, you had your federal elections, most of my friends did not want to see Harper get in yet, when I asked them, to a man, they said, they did not vote, it was a waste of time!! (by the way, in Oz, everyone votes) So, I know this is not going to win me any friends when I say this but the wonderful Toronto system is bigger than us: Stop whining about this fool and vote against him, find the guy who is best suited for the Streetcars and actively campaign for him, even if you can’t stand him. But don’t NOT vote and then whine when the cars are gone! You CAN make a difference, I wished I was still living there, even at 60, I would still be out pounding the pavement to fight for the system.
Sadly, I also here the Giambrone is not running again, whilst I did not always agree with him, I could not deny his heart was all for TTC transit. With him gone and this new moron in place, it won’t be hard fro him to put a puppet in his place to do the dirty work.
I’m sorry if I have offended anyone, whilst I am an Aussie, I feel in love with Toronto and Canada and the TTC, it might have its faults but it is still one of, if not THE best transit systems in North America, please don’t let another Clem Jones do to you what he did to Brisbane (who, by the way, have tried twice to bring trams back and will keep trying until they do but, at what cost??).
I wish Toronto well.
Greg King
“and Stephen Cheung gets to move back to New Detroit, er, Toronto as the low-tax, no-transit, shell of a city that all Rob Ford supporters dream of.”
Very, very offensive.
Why does everyone believe Right Wing = Anti Transit? It seems that the mere mention of anything right-wing would mean the World is ending, the sky is falling, and Armageddon is here. Besides, there are a lot of right wingers around here who truly believe in transit, myself amongst them. We don’t believe the sky is falling at the mention of investing in Transit infrastructure.
Somehow, I always feel like a broken record on this. Besides, if I were truly Anti Transit, I would probably be spewing a lot of hate rhetoric, not to mention telling where Good Ol Steve Munro to stick his kite where the sun don’t shine and a lot of other nasty expletives.
If there was any other candidate around that had a good transit plan while espousing good fiscal responsibility with the credibility to back it up, then I would back that candidate without question. But as it is, none of the candidates other than Ford do this. And I readily admit that Ford’s transit plan needs a lot of work. The worst Ford will do is cancel underperforming routes, which is needed anyway since the resources dedicated to these routes are better suited to relieving crowded routes elsewhere. He will also make it easier to fire lazy TTC workers like those caught napping or taking extended breaks with a crowd full of people on his bus.
Ford isn’t going to mothball the streetcar fleet, the same way Rossi will make his tunnel. Both these proposals mean political suicide if even the thought of going through with these proposals go ahead. In Rossi’s case, it is more of a desperate ploy to retain whatever weakening fanbase he has. Rossi is no longer a player in this race. But Rossi’s proposal is nonetheless a symptom of a much bigger problem and that is that it is not easy to get around in Toronto these days. You’ve got gridlock on one hand, and a woefully inadequate transit system in another. You also have city policies which penalize the car driver while doing nothing to promote transit. As Sue Ann Levy said in an interview yesterday, we want to provide choices for people to get around the city. The onus on the city is to make it more attractive to take transit, not make it less attractive to drive. Rossi’s promise is clearly catered to the suburban population fed up with increasing gridlock and no new attractive transit options to pick up the slack.
Ford still is the one to watch in this race. He still leads Smitherman by a whole lot, and Smitherman, in my opinion cannot be trusted, especially after his handling of the whole E-Health affair. Like it or not, Ford will be the mayor in the upcoming election. But I don’t expect him to follow through with his transit plan as he will get a lot of resistance, and eventually he will have to modify his plan one way or another, or risk not lasting even one term in office. Again, if there is a candidate who can promote fiscal and political responsibility while promoting transit, I’m all ears. In the end however, Transit is not the only picture that I’m looking at.
M. Briganti wrote:
We’re far better off with 408 short vehicles that we can couple into MU trains on the routes that need them and run singles everywhere else. Frequency is more important than capacity. But, nobody makes “short” streetcars anymore … why?
I agree and share the nervousness about what will happen when the larger-capacity streetcars arrive. I understand that TTC is committing to maintaining headways at a certain level, but I can see that falling away with the advent of a less supportive Council, directing the TTC to use the same analysis as they do for buses. If a Ford administration trying to do away with streetcars hears the argument that “one of the new streetcars would need to be replaced by 3 buses and therefore 2 additional operators”, they may respond by saying, “Okay, you can keep your streetcars, but you need to take advantage of this capacity by fitting service to ridership just like you do on the bus lines.” This would have the effect of making service so unattractive that you reduce ridership to the point that streetcars are no longer required. Then you have conversion to buses anyway.
It’s not entirely true that no-one manufactures “short” streetcars anymore. Pragoimex manufactures the Vario LF streetcar, which is a PCC/CLRV-length vehicle with a high floor at either end and a low floor between the trucks. They also make articulated streetcars, and trailers that can be attached to the standard rigid streetcars, all of which are high floor above the trucks and low floor in between. However, they seem to be primarily in use in the Czech Republic (e.g., Brno), and not much else (e.g. Western Europe) — and of course they would fail the “100% low-floor” test. They didn’t bid on any of the TTC’s replacement vehicle proposals.
Perhaps we as a city (not necessarily on a transit blog) can discuss the impact the Allen has on Eglinton West and the area generally. While I support ideas such as Eb Zeidler’s decking it over as a public amenity to reconnect Lawrence Heights, why does there have to be southbound entry/northbound exits at Lawrence for instance? All that does is push local traffic towards an already congested terminus (in Street View, there is a tailback for the exit ramp as far back as Roselawn because of the lack of a freeflow exit eastbound at Eglinton).
Rossi may have actually created a process by which the Allen is the expressway Toronto reduces to a local road – not the Gardiner.
“If there was any other candidate around that had a good transit plan while espousing good fiscal responsibility with the credibility to back it up”
Rob Ford is showing every sign of being very fiscally irresponsible. The spending cuts he has suggested don’t come close to the tax cuts he has promised. He seems to be from the tax-cut and debt school of politics, like George W. Bush and Ernie Eves.
I would rather have 30m streetcars operating on aggressively managed downtown streets with consequently faster journey times and higher return cycles per hour than lots of 20m streetcars stuck in traffic. There is only so much TTC can do about congestion without the cooperation of Roads Department and TPS Traffic Services – not to mention the councillors through which these streets run. If the citizenry decide that they want to reduce the dependence on surface transit with the consequent inconveniences between Parliament and Roncesvalles, they will have to pay up for a DRL and accept new road layouts like that proposed for Queens Quay East and West.
It’s nice to see the photos of the Pragoimex trams once again. The images of the trains from Brno still make me think “they’re already painted in TTC livery (or close enough).
I cannot help but wonder if TTC/Toronto Council will relax the 100% low floor requirement (in future) as a response to reduced funding or as a way to get more streetcars, faster, in order to prove that streetcars will work if there are enough of them.
Who knows, maybe the next batch of streetcars after the Bombardiers might very well be used trams from Brno…..
Rossi’s recent announcement revisiting the Spadina Expressway has just turned the campaign upside down once again. I just try to remind myself that successful politicians “campaign in poetry and govern (lead) in prose” and that most politicians cannot (or do not) keep their campaign promises.
Cheers, Moaz
“Why does everyone believe Right Wing = Anti Transit?”
I don’t know, could it be because the last Right Wing provincial government stopped giving the TTC any kind of operating support and only provided enough capital to complete the Sheppard Stubway?
“The worst Ford will do is cancel underperforming routes, which is needed anyway since the resources dedicated to these routes are better suited to relieving crowded routes elsewhere.”
You start cutting routes, and the routes they feed into start dropping…and it becomes a feedback loop. If the city decided not enough people used a side street and they were going to tear it up and lay gravel instead (which is happening in counties in the U.S. right now) the outcry would be tremendous. And in any case, many of those routes are in the suburbs….the same people complaining they don’t get enough transit.
I apologize if what I said offends you Stephen, but people on the right can’t have it both ways. They can’t scream about fiscal accountability and then come up with megadollar projects with no idea of how to fund it except buzzwords like “air rights” or “public-private partnerships”. Ford especially can’t lay claim to provincial and federal money and just retask it for his own purposes. You cannot both cut taxes and promise to spend billions on infrastructure unless you can run a deficit, which the city can’t. If he’s going to cut employees, be upfront and honest about it, and let us decide if we want fewer libraries, community centres and bus routes. Ford, Rossi and the others are the ones promising Torontonians anything and everything, not the left.
Andrew Marshall says: “…and Stephen Cheung gets to move back to New Detroit, er, Toronto as the low-tax, no-transit, shell of a city that all Rob Ford supporters dream of….”
very very offensive – I can’t believe you would actually write that about Mr. Cheung, let alone for all to read, just because he has the nerve to not agree with you and your particular transit views.
Stephen Cheung writes:
“If there was any other candidate around that had a good transit plan while espousing good fiscal responsibility with the credibility to back it up, then I would back that candidate without question. But as it is, none of the candidates other than Ford do this. And I readily admit that Ford’s transit plan needs a lot of work. ”
1) Ford doesn’t have a good transit plan. His transit plan seems to be the worst of them all, in fact. (Something you admit when you say that it needs a lot of work.)
2) Espousing fiscal responsibility? Ford has a good blowhard line about “stopping the gravy train”. Anyway, I don’t think the City of Toronto is any much more fiscally irresponsible than a lot of private sector businesses. A 2.5-million city can’t be run as lean and mean as a one-person printing shop. It doesn’t scale.
3) Credibilty? Ford!? Credibilty???! Ford????!?
This is not to say that there are a whole lot of good transit plans on offer. In fact, Pantalone’s “stay the course” seems the best plan to me, and I’m pretty sure that some course corrections and vision is required.
Ford’s fiscal “plan” is clearly impossible to implement. While I don’t welcome a Ford mayorality, he isn’t going to get any part of his platform accomplished. It would be nice to get some candidates with intelligence and vision, though.
Sorry, Mr. Coleman and Mr. Cheung, but I’m not seeing what was so offensive about Mr. Marshall’s “New Detroit” comment fired back at Ford supporters. Those supporters tout that they appreciate Mr. Ford’s fiscal credentials, which are based entirely on a “don’t spend” premise. That can easily be construed by both political sides as don’t spend on new projects, don’t spend on staff, and don’t spend on services… basically everything that transit supporters hold dear. Ford as mayor would control debate topics and city agenda, and would dominate the budget and it’s apportioning. To believe he will support even the same level of dollars to transit when he’s proposed a lesser revenue stream for the city in a general is folly — it’s very clear he intends to cut. Cut services, cut staff, and cut projects.
You may want that, but why? And why propose it here? The “New Detroit” label is apt — there’s a broad sense out there that Toronto as an economic machine is infallible and can continue to prosper even if we feed it less. Good luck with that. Cities decline very rapidly, and for many reasons, but often it comes down to a handful of leadership decisions here and there, and believe it or not, even large centres can go from bustling to bust within just a couple decades — one short generation. Numerous North American cities were vibrant and growing post-war in the fifties, only to be abandoned and fled-from by the seventies. Took until the nineties for them to start to resemble vibrant cities again, and some — neighbours of ours on the Lakes — have still not recovered and may never.
So go ahead. Chastise writers on here that challenge that model. Support Mr. Ford and somehow believe he actually knows and will do positive things for city transportation — that is your right to do so — but I’m with Mr. Marshall on this. It will start with small cuts and changes, done with an intent to change the overall system by, say, the end of a second term, and change it so fundamentally that restarting it by the next group would be out-of-reach. Ford’s supporters expect him to live up to his fiscal pledges, and guess what? He will. God help us all — everything we’ve looked forward to, everything we talked about and met about and planned about — gone. Gone in a simple act of living up to what his supporters thought they wanted… and within a generation, livability in the city will also be that — Gone.
You are right OC,Corktown…my mistake, transit is king and is the only issue that matters in this election. No, actually, transit is the only issue that matters to the entire city.
Actually no candidate has come out and said anything positive about improving transit or improving the roads. I tend to think that is because transit is not a big issue or rather any issue at all with most people. I think most people are thinking about huge property tax bills, huge water bills, all utility bills have tripled, yet salaries stay the same… I pay twice as much, I get half as much services in return… you know, small stuff like that. But maybe you are right, they should be thinking about the grand LRT that will serve the bustling intersections of Eglinton & Leslie?, Don MIlls?, Bermondsey, Victoria Park? Pharmacy? Warden and so on… Transit is important, but in perspective please!
No it won’t. It will be a much better, more accountable and livable city. Rob Ford is not campaigning on a “don’t spend” premise, more of a “spend responsibly” premise. Transit is necessary spending and Ford isn’t shying away from it. What I am more concerned about is the increasing cost of doing anything here in Toronto. Out of control contracts with unions who have too much power in this city. Out of control contracts with third parties costing more money than the nearest competitor. Councillors spending taxpayer money to fund expensive parties and cappucino machines. This stuff is what gets me riled up about Toronto politics these days. Ford wants to cut down on the increased overhead. Cut off councillors from spending taxpayer money on frivilous things. Contract out services like garbage collection. Make sure every contract signed with the city is competitively sound.
As for Transit and the notion of cutting underperforming routes, I’m talking about buses that spend most of their time empty while going through their routes. 98, 115, 120, 162, and 169 are the worst offenders. These are not “Suburban routes” by a longshot, they simply run empty 99% of the time. No one takes these routes. So why do they still exist? Otherwise, I’m not calling for a gutting of the transit network. That would simply be foolish.
For the record, Adam Vaughan paid for the cappucino machine in his office out of his own pocket just like Rob Ford pays for his own expenses.
If you are going to slag misspending at City Hall, get your facts straight.
Are they? For the 120, I agree, but I’d be interested in knowing what metric you used to conclude these as the “worst offenders.” To explain, I’ll present the metric that I would go by, which is cost-recovery.
Let’s begin with the cost-recovery of the routes you listed:
Route (Cost-recovery ratio)
98 Willowdale-Senlac (34%)
115 Sliver Hills (34%)
120 Calvington (24%)
162 Lawrence-Donway (42% (paired by TTC with 124 Sunnybrook))
169 Huntingwood (29%)
My picks for worst offenders are as follows:
107 Keele North (15%)
192 Airport Rocket (22%)
120 Calvington (24%)
127 Davenport (25%)
51 Leslie (26%)
I don’t support cutting any of these, as they’re subsidized by the highest-performing parts of the subway network that they feed riders into, and that they all play a role in keeping most of the city within a certain walking distance of a transit stop, which is an important policy in delivering choice to people. If people aren’t within a short walk to transit, then they do not have a choice; they have to drive, unless they’re very brave cyclists.
The source, for the record, are 2005-2006 TTC figures for every surface route that used to be on their old website, but as far as I know was never transferred to their new one.
Karl: The TTC had some sort of metric in which it identified worst performing routes with the criteria that if a particular route were to be scrapped, what is the impact, given if there are other routes in the nearby area.
Let’s go through the routes that both of us have posted here:
98 Willowdale-Senlac: I’m only proposing that this be a weekday daytime route since during other times, ridership is almost next to nothing, and it is close to the subway and other major routes. I don’t dispute the importance of this route during peak periods.
115 Silver Hills: The only major ridership on this route is on York Mills, and not the Silver Hills area itself. In fact, buses empty their passengers just as it turns on to Leslie. Why do we need this when the 95 York Mills bus can do its job? It basically is just a glorified short turn bus.
120 Calvington: We are both in agreement on this one, so I won’t go into these any further.
162 Lawrence-Donway: Not many people ride east of Bayview. West of Bayview, it is shared with 124 Sunnybrook. I don’t think people on the Bridle Path would miss that bus anyway.
169 Huntingwood: Only the portion on Van Horne sees any significant ridership. The portion between Victoria Park and McCowan is very underused. There are so many north-south routes crisscrossing this route it is uncommon for people to rely on those routes instead.
107 Keele North: My question is why doesn’t YRT take over this route given that 75% of this route is outside of Toronto.
192 Airport Rocket: Almost all of the riders here are either starting or ending their rides at the airport and not in between. Tossing all those riders in the cold would be foolish. The only alternate service, the 58A Malton doesn’t even come close to properly serving the Airport.
127 Davenport: Did you know this was supposed to be just a rush hour route when the Harris cutbacks took place? That’s how bad this route was.
51 Leslie: The route still performs strong during the daytime, so if anything, only evening service may not be necessary. I remember seeing a proposal at one point that would have a branch of this route running from Lawrence to Steeles with timed transfers with the 54 Lawrence East at Leslie and Lawrence.
Steve: Sometimes I wonder if people ever look at a map. Davenport Road is isolated to the south by the CPR and to the north by the escarpment. The 127 exists for people who don’t want to tackle the hill to get north to St. Clair, or walk the long way around to a street going under the railway and thence to the less-than-frequent service on Dupont. Some other routes exist to fill in holes in walking distance to transit. The routes you mention run infrequently, and the amount you will save by cutting their service is minimal. However, the cost-cutting brigade trots them out regularly as if all of the TTC’s ills could be solved just by getting rid of such routes. That’s misleading, as they say in parliamentary language.
As for Keele North, the service north of Steeles is contracted by YRT and doesn’t cost the TTC anything. Cutting the route only transfers the physical operation from TTC to YRT.
Okay, it may have been stated elsewhere here, but here’s a position I’d like to put forward.
To those on the right advocating cutting transit:
I’d support eliminating transit subsidies if you’ll support de-assuming roads.
If Rob Ford is elected, I will lobby hard for killing all municipal maintenance and improvement of road infrastructure. All of this is pure subsidy, paid for by the tax payer. I have no car, and yet 20% of the rent I pay goes to taxes. A huge portion of that goes to roads, the overwhelming beneficiaries of which are drivers of single occupancy vehicles. So let them pay.
How about this? If you own a property that is on a local street, your neighbourhood association can contract with a road maintenance firm (there are already several in town currently paid by the city) to maintain it, or maintain it yourselves as a cooperative effort. I’m sure the kids will love learning to fill potholes and lay asphalt.
Arterial roads can be paid by toll transponders on every car. The tolling can be mananged by a private company (407/ETR inc, for example). And maintenance can be provided by them.
Of course, all liability for injuries caused by unsafe roads can be assumed by anyone who maintains them. Your neighbourhood association will have to be especially vigilant about potholes, bumps, and other imperfections, because personal injury suits are expensive.
But hey, it’s your road, isn’t it?
As I pay my $8 fare to board a TTC LRT, I’ll chuckle a bit in air conditioned comfort as you sweat maintaining your local street while I whiz by on infrastructure I paid for, but I’ll know at least that finally we’re all paying our fair share.
And hey, our tax bills will be real small, won’t they?
… Or we could just decide that some things are ‘social goods’ when we all subsidize them.
Your call.
Hi Steve, I’m in Montreal though there are people here that have a lot of concern about this Rob Ford guy and his anti-tram agenda.
I wouldn’t want to see Toronto make the same mistake that we did here in the 1950′s, now we’re trying to bring back trams in Montreal!
“For the record, Adam Vaughan paid for the cappucino machine in his office out of his own pocket just like Rob Ford pays for his own expenses.
If you are going to slag misspending at City Hall, get your facts straight.”
It was reported in the Toronto Sun that the Cappucino machine somehow ended up on Giambrone’s expenses list. Only after this was exposed did he “reimburse” the city.
Technically, it was paid from his own pocket, but the perception that the city is mired in wasteful spending remains.
Steve: What does Adam Vaughan’s cappuccino machine have to do with Adam G? The inaccuracy of the Sun’s reporting is a good example of how people are misled into thinking the “waste” at City Hall is out of control. Ford wants to concentrate on the small stuff that people can see in relation to the personal budgets, but cannot begin to address the really big issues.
“Giambrone vs Vaughan”
Whoops, got the names mixed up. Not thinking right. Thanks for the correction.
Streetcars cause traffic congestion? That must be why the Don Valley Parkway seems to be always in a traffic jam, the streetcars must be removed from the Don Valley so that the single occupant cars can move better.
Steve: Don’t forget those traffic jams on the 401, highway 7, anywhere in Mississauga (these are anticipatory jam-ups in case the Hurontario LRT is actually built). And only 56 years later, those streetcars are still making a mess of Yonge Street.
Yeah, and look at the awful mess the streetcars are STILL making of traffic on Bloor and Danforth! It’s just positively horrendous there!
Seeing how a lot of the track is new and improved, wouldn’t it take decades for Anti-Streetcar advocates to justify abandonment of Streetcar routes? I’ve heard that a reason why Trolleybus service was abandoned was because the entire system needed upgrading/replacement after many decades of neglect.
Steve: Yes the TB system, both vehicles and overhead, were decrepit by the time the system was decommissioned. Of course TTC management used problems induced by the systems condition as part of a general attack on TB’s as a transit mode. The fix was in from the start.
I have also been censored by Ford on youtube. And I have to agree with andrew marshall: Ford does aim to create an anti-transit shell of a city where everyone live north of Lawrence, thanks to his plan to get rid of streetcars. That’s exactly how Detroit went to sh@t. Their streetcar system was axed by municipal governments just like Ford. His supporters just don’t seem to get this.
On another note, we’ll have to see whether Detroit becomes more vibrant when (if) the M1 LRT opens in 2016. I’ve already noticed some new housing developments being built in a formerly derelict area close to the proposed route.
Steve, you said: “Indeed, he would shut down our streetcar network and sell our new cars elsewhere to recoup whatever money could be had.”
It is my understanding that the TTC rail system for both subways and streetcars uses a 1,495mm track gauge, which is unique in the world. If I’m not mistaken, then wouldn’t that mean that selling these already outdated streetcars would face the additional roadblock of expensive upgrades to the wheel mechanisms to be usable on any other streetcar track system?
Of course, I could be completely mistaken on so many fronts, but I would appreciate a little bit more knowledge, because saying that he’ll sell streetcars to recoup costs for busses is one thing, but saying that he’ll be able to find buyers for unaccessible, outdated streetcars with unique track gauges seems more than a little bit ridiculous.
Steve: The new streetcars have not been built yet, and as the Toronto cars are adapted from a design that normally is built for standard gauge, it would be child’s play to manufacture them in the “standard” configuration. Ford is talking about selling off the new cars, not the old ones.