Updated October 16, 2012 at 8:30 pm:
The Toronto Star reports that Tim Hudak has pledged to redirect all of the money earmarked for a Toronto LRT network to subway construction if he is elected Premier. This is a truly bizarre stance for someone who claims to be trying to save Ontario money when we consider that almost none of the pledged $8-billion plus has actually been spent or committed, and this is all net new money, new borrowing Ontario will have to undertake.
Hudak was playing to his audience of Ford-friendly councillors who do not have control of Council on the transit file, but who seem to be attempting an end run around Council by having Queen’s Park support his position unilaterally. Anyone who thinks they will get a full-blown Eglinton subway, and a Sheppard line (STC to Downsview) and a BD extension to the Scarborough Town Centre for these funds is dreaming. Sadly, however, Toronto has a bad habit of wanting more than it can afford especially when someone else will foot the bill.
If I try to put myself in a conservative mindset (and that’s with a small “c”), I would be asking how much of that $8b actually needs to be spent at all, or spent on transit rather than some other portfolio. That would be a common sense thing to do, the kind of approach we might expect from Mike Harris. Alas, “common sense” also includes buying off local politicians by keeping their pet subway projects alive.
But no, Tim Hudak wants to spend $8b he doesn’t have on overbuilding a partial subway network apparently because he thinks this will play well to Ford’s base. He might want to think about the uproar over paltry hundreds of millions wasted on shifting power plants out of Liberal ridings and consider whether the lure of the megaprojects has clouded his vision.
Of course, all this depends on “affordability” which is tied to the end of the provincial deficit, and so Hudak will likely never have to borrow that $8b whatever he might spend it on. All he will achieve is even more delay in building any transit for Toronto.
Thanks to the Liberals’ tinkering with project schedules and love for P3 implementation, little work will actually be tendered by the time the government falls sometime in 2013. Cancelling the Finch and Sheppard LRT lines will be child’s play, and the SRT upgrade will probably morph into an unbuilt subway while the SRT lies at death’s door.
Toronto Council needs to wake up and remind Mr. Hudak that the Mayor does not speak for the City. Does Hudak even care, or is he just giving his pal a chance to say “screw you” to his opponents?
Original Post from October 13, 2012:
The Ontario PCs have unveiled a white paper under the rubric Paths to Prosperity. This includes a scheme to improve transportation in the GTA which, charitably speaking, is thin on details. Much press coverage recently focused on one component — the merger of the rail sections of the TTC (subway and future LRT) into Metrolinx. Where we might expect much more from a major political party, there is much less.
Starting on Page 12, the White Paper argues that we must “Break Traffic Gridlock” and claims:
Inadequate public transit and inefficient roads make it difficult for people and goods to move across the region. This forces many people who might otherwise take transit to stay in their cars and drive to work, creating daily traffic nightmares on our roads.
How did this situation arise?
Right now, there are too many governments wasting too much time fighting over what should be done and who should be in charge.
In other words, the only reason people don’t use transit is that we’re too busy talking to actually build anything.
The premise leads to a call for a single agency responsible for major transit (rail and some bus routes) and road infrastructure, and that agency will be Metrolinx. Never mind that in the last election campaign, Hudak described Metrolinx as an example of waste and bureaucracy that he would get rid of if elected. He wasn’t, and Metrolinx is still with us now the centrepiece of the Tories’ transit proposal.
Too many governments fighting? The last time I looked, the only battles were between Queen’s Park’s puppet, Metrolinx, who couldn’t decide whether they’re in bed with Rob Ford or not, Toronto City Council and its transit agency, the TTC. There’s no mention of that nice Mr. Harris who walked away from transit as a provincial priority, a decision we’re still paying for almost two decades later.
On CBC’s Metro Morning, Hudak rhymed off a list of agencies including Metrolinx and GO as separate entities. Earth to Tories — GO is part of Metrolinx and has been for a few years.
Everything will be fixed by merging all responsibility into one agency, a provincial one of course, and I doubt there would be any local input. Hudak’s view is that a single agency will get things done, and of course that means subways, not LRT. The decision would be his, and clearly Metrolinx would be an extension of the Premier’s Office more or less as it is today. Strangely, Hudak says “let’s have that debate” on issues like revenue tools, but wants to be transit czar for Toronto.
From the Globe we know that Hudak’s transit consultant in Toronto is Rob Ford, and that the Tories didn’t bother talking to TTC Chair Karen Stintz. She quickly fired off a response to the proposal observing that Hudak only wanted to take the more profitable parts of the TTC — the subway plus future LRT. Under a Tory regime, these would probably morph into subways or dwindle to busways and hence remain Toronto’s problem. This would leave Toronto with the most expensive part of the transit system — the surface routes — while responsibility for the major links, the rapid transit lines, would be entirely out of Toronto’s (or any other municipality’s) hands.
Again, the white paper claims:
Solving GTHA gridlock requires leadership with a clear vision and plan of action, particularly when it comes to public transit. We believe in public transit, but inadequate access and poor quality service are forcing people to stay in their cars.
That’s an odd way to look at things, particularly considering that the lion’s share of people forced to stay in their cars live in the 905 where congestion is an epidemic throttling the region. A focus on subways as the only technology, and then only when funds are available (whenever that might be), condemns the entire region to a status quo on transit. The White Paper says nothing about improving transit in the 905, nor does it explain what effect, if any, shifting the subway network to Metrolinx will have on travel outside of the 416. There isn’t a word about better funding for local 905 transit, nor for the substantial improvements to GO rail service that would benefit the Tories’ suburban constituency. They may “believe in transit”, but there’s no real commitment. This is leadership?
The surface system in Toronto carries more people than the subway, and it is essential as a delivery and distribution system for the rapid transit elements in the network. Hudak is silent on the role of rapid transit systems built with provincial money in the 905. Why, for example, is VIVA not part of his regional network? Is it one of the bus routes Metrolinx might grab? What about Mississauga’s, Hamilton’s and Kitchener-Waterloo’s LRT plans? Just dump them in the garbage?
Arguing for integration, the White Paper states:
Contrast this approach with the current situation. The TTC is building a subway to York Region. Metrolinx is building the underground LRT line along Eglinton Avenue. Two levels of government, two owners, two approaches to delivering service.
If Hudak would bother to check, he would know that the TTC is building the Spadina extension into York on behalf of four governments — Toronto, York, Ontario and Canada — who collectively agreed that TTC should be their agent in this work. York is so shy of actual commitment that it won’t even pay for the subway’s operation in its territory, only for maintenance of the interchange stations with its transit system. Toronto gets the marginal revenue and the rest of the costs which will be substantial.
On Eglinton and the other Transit City lines, it’s a 100% provincial show although that was not always the case. Part of this is a result of accounting hocus-pocus, and part is due to the very love for 3P deals that is the centre of Tory philosophy. We have yet to see whether Infrastructure Ontario can manage a project on this scale or write loophole-free contracts that won’t leave future transit riders open to profit grabs and inferior service.
On a regional basis, the Tories would invest in “new transit and highways”, but there are no details. As for the 416:
Our expansion priorities in Toronto will be new subways. Simply put, world class cities build underground. While surface-level LRTs may make sense in more sparsely populated communities, in heavily populated areas like Toronto they are a second best option that permanently rip up road space available for cars without offering the speed and convenience of subways.
I won’t bother listing the “world class” cities with LRT (and even streetcar) routes, and it’s unclear just how sparsely populated a community must be for the Tories to consider LRT appropriate. World class cities build underground to the degree it is practical and affordable. Somehow, there is a thriving industry building vehicles for LRT and subway systems showing that there is a place for both modes. Does Tim Hudak consider Mississauga “sparse”?
Unlike LRTs, subways stimulate job creation with new commercial activity and residential construction along their entire corridor.
That’s just flat out wrong. Rapid transit of any kind stimulates development most strongly, if at all, at stations. The further apart the stations, the less development. Toronto is littered with stations surrounded by low density either because the neighbourhood is stable and upzoning would be political suicide, or the area is unattractive for development.
There’s a reason all the condos are going up downtown even though there hasn’t been a new subway there for over 40 years. Liberty Village, Queen West, the “Two Kings” neighbourhoods, these are all on streetcar lines which could badly do with more service. St. Clair is beginning to see redevelopment, and other neighbourhoods will follow. The stimulus is the location, not the transit route. Yes, Sheppard Avenue has its share of development, but it also has the 401 nearby. Given the predominance of demand on Sheppard originates from buses at Don Mills Station, just how many of those new condo residents actually use the subway?
By contrast to their approach to regional transit planning and management, the Tories believe firmly in local control for local transit. How much they would contribute is uncertain.
… it is also critical that assets that are local should continue to be managed locally. Local bus and streetcar routes should continue to be determined by local communities and their transit boards. If you want a bus stop 50 metres from a new shopping plaza, you shouldn’t have to go to Queen’s Park to get it.
The contrast in attitudes is perverse. On one hand local control (and by extension, fragmentation of local service across the region) and local responsibility are “critical”, but if you find yourself on a “regional” line like Eglinton, it’s the Tim Hudak show all the way. Don’t bother asking for a station at Oakwood, or extensions to Malvern and UTSC because Big Brother will make that decision without the pesky difficulties of local responsibility.
Tim Hudak’s Tories have certainly been listening to the Rob Ford team. Never mind the real situation in transit, invent a story and a collection of problems, then claim that the world will end without your personal intervention. Keep details to a minimum, and hope that the voters won’t notice the Emperor’s new clothes are a tad threadbare.
There may be disagreement about what to build, but Queen’s Park is the most meddlesome player in a Liberal or a Tory world. The only difference is which party’s promises we might believe.
Astute readers will notice that I have not mentioned the NDP in this article. This has nothing to do with my own political leanings, but more with an absence of specific policies from that quarter.
If I have one overriding piece of advice for any party, it is that good transit is an end in its own right. Transit is not a jobs creation program, nor an industrial development strategy, nor a way to turn swampland into gold with the magic of a new subway. Good transit exists to provide mobility and, with it, access to jobs, shopping, schools and recreation for all manner of riders with all manner of trips. Pervert transit from its true role and you destroy its credibility as a transportation system.
Steve Munro 
Steve said:
A: yes they will swallow, and love it. IMHO no one cares about specifics anymore. People want action. You guys are preaching to the choir. The rest of us mindless souls will buy this tripe as it will be seen to be doing something.
The Libs just did a wonderful thing … miles of new subway and mega-miles of LRT stuff. Who cares who operates etc etc blah blah, irrelevant to most folks. Pay ONE fare and that’s all we want to know. You work out the rest.
Ford’s fault, council’s fault, whomever is at fault, it has been a circus at City Hall for a long time. I have to appreciate the fact that Hudak has at least given a position. I am quite surprised and disappointed that the NDP gang, both locally and federally have not uttered a peep about transit plans. Very strange.
I will say that I personally find it strange that everyone clamours for Finch West LRT yet nobody has a clue what the new SUBWAY line is going to do to travel patterns in the area! Changing from Wilson to Downsview did nothing and maybe one more stop to Finch will do nothing new again, but I think we should get it built and try it before sinking mega$$ into another separate line out there. I’d be willing to bet that the buses will be 1/2 empty east of Keele over to Yonge.
Anyways when do you think we can expect some kind of NDP transit plan? I am so fed up with both Tories and Libs I may even vote for them (shocking I know) if they had something worthwhile to say. Do you know Steve if the NDP are even working on a plan?
Steve: I agree that Finch east of Keele will certainly not be as busy once the Spadina extension opens. The LRT line, in its first phase, is planned to run west from Keele, and I’m not holding my breath for an extension further east. Indeed, the proposed piece from Yonge over to Don Mills and south to Sheppard was an invention of Queen’s Park that just makes the map look “complete” but doesn’t actually make sense either for the Finch East corridor nor the area it travels through. Yet another example of ill-informed meddling by the province.
As for the NDP, federally they spent a lot of time on the National Transit Strategy bill that predictably went nowhere, only to find the provincial Liberals picking up the idea. That’s a dead duck until there is a new government in Ottawa, and even then, a strategy that would be seen as equitable across the country would be hard to cook up. We spend too much time playing to small constituencies and ignoring the cities. This problem is much bigger than just transit.
Provincially, I don’t know what the NDP is up to, but it’s a mug’s game coming out with something as a quick reaction to the Tory plan. A reaction is, by definition, dictated by the assumptions of your target, and what’s needed is a fresh start saying “here’s what we believe in”, not simply “we don’t believe in x, y and z”. As I implied in my conclusion, I hope the NDP can address transit on its own merits rather than dressing it up as a job creation scheme (heavy on construction, subway centric) or some other government program to stimulate some part of the economy and, oh, by the way, carry a few more transit riders. Local service has been ignored by Queen’s Park since the Harris years, and yet it’s an issue right across the GTA and beyond. It’s also an expensive issue, and a nearly bottomless new funding demand given the backlog of transit improvements needed to bring about even a modest shift in modal split.
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It seams like the only thing these guys ever come up with plans for is to re-arrange the chairs … never to build new ones, or how to pay for building new ones.
Someone should do a study on campaign transportation plans around the world … and whether it’s more effective to elect someone who is going to “change the organization” or someone who is going to “build xyz”.
Any shuffle of management is going to take 2-3 years to accomplish, at the least … during that time everything will be on hold … then we rebuild the planning teams and start the cycle again.
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Tim Hudak is honestly one of the most brainless “leaders” I have seen in a while. I was really trying hard to contain my laughter while reading this “plan”. There are too many things to criticize about it, I could write pages about it, but I’ll stick to the easiest parts to criticize.
a) Wasn’t he part of Mike Harris’ little possy who cancelled the Eglinton West subway? How ironic that 15 yrs later he’s all for building subways.
Steve: Yes, Hudak was first elected in the Harris government of 1995.
b) Oh yes Tim, I’m sure you really can fund taking over subways from the TTC (ie: increasing the province’s expenses) while at the same time cutting corporate and income taxes (ie: decreasing revenue sources coming from the rich) and also get rid of the Ontario Trillium benefit (ie: hurt the middle class) all while reducing the deficit at the same time.
c) Karen Stintz certainly raises a good point that Tim Hudak will really never understand.
d) How on the planet does this man plan on getting money for his imaginative subway if he is cutting revenue streams to fund it?
Tim should really proofread his own plan before releasing it to the public and making himself look more brainless then he is.
Steve: Proofreading generally catches physical errors with the text, not a howling absence of clear thought.
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The Tories could answer their own question.
The Hudak transit proposals have not been worth the space they have been given in the press. If you read very carefully, the PC’s said IF they build transit (whenever the financial climate is better, whenever will that be) they would build subways. So the guys who cancelled the Eglinton subway, because it was a waste of money, are now subway advocates (without ever admitting their own responsibility for the mess we are in now) who would build subways somewhere, sometime.
The Tory proposals are not only short on specifics, they are short on sense. Where would the money come from for these fantasy subway lines? The Hudak/Ford brotherhood does not believe in new taxes, remember.
The GTA must make up its mind. No more taxes or no more transit. One or the other. Let’s make our choice and then stop complaining. Any politicians who say we can have both should be exposed as untruthful and unhelpful.
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I don’t understand why improving GO isn’t a more politically viable idea. Given that there’s the sense on both sides, even amongst those who support LRT (mostly due to cost-efficiency reasons), that there’s this inherent superiority with heavy rail, I find it strange that nobody’s pushing for turning GO into something that can actually move people. Especially considering that the costs for electrification/rolling stock/infrastructure improvements, if done even half-competently, would be vastly cheaper than new subways.
It’s utterly bizarre that no one can get behind the idea of turning the GO system into something that resembles the incredibly efficient regional rail systems of Europe, Japan, etc. Even Stintz’s OneCity, the only proposal that seems to recognize the importance of through-running, electrification, all-day service, and the other hallmarks of efficient systems still proposed building apart from GO along the rail corridors at massive cost.
Steve: Actually, Metrolinx’ plan, The Big Move, includes conversion of many GO routes to very frequent service, and at that level, electrification is essential. However, GO expansion has always been hostage to whatever announcements the Premier wants to make, not to an ongoing, funded plan. That’s how we got the trains to KW even though they are supposedly outside of Metrolinx’ territory.
I suspect one reason Queen’s Park is happy that few people know about The Big Move is that such information would expose how little has actually been accomplished.
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If you want traffic to move in the core of the city, you must do what world class cities do … no parking on city streets and no left turns. Yes parking facilities would be need to be built. Just takes money and political will. Our politicians have none of this.
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William Paul said:
Actually, they didn’t. That’s partly why the PC’s support dropped off the closer you got to Toronto during the last election when Hudak was trying hard to be the “Other, other Ford brother”.
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Hey Steve,
I was wondering whether you were at all heartened by the absence of any devout scheme to cancel what has already been approved, the first phase of transit city? I parsed Timmy’s words pretty closely; he seemed very deliberate in saying that subways and “lrt’s” would be uploaded to Metrolinx, which seems to me that there is an concession there to allow the agreed upon lines to proceed. He also mentioned that “future money” would go towards subways. Not that I don’t think that this could all turn on a dime once elected, but it strikes me that he seems to be conceding that the approved lines might actually go forward even if the Tories are elected in the near future. It struck me that his tone reflected a more moderate position than the subways, subways, subways nonsense he was spouting during the contentious transit debates earlier in the year.
Steve: Given that work won’t even start on Sheppard and Finch, nor on the surface sections of Eglinton until after the likely date for an election, I wouldn’t count on him to keep what’s not really in the pipeline yet. Listen to the interview on Metro Morning where he muses about the future of surface LRT.
The only thing that will hearten me will be the defeat of the Tories and their funny-money economic policies.
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Christopher Dodd wrote, “No more taxes or no more transit. One or the other.”
I would have said that a few weeks ago, but something that OPSEU president Smokey Thomas said in response to the Queen’s Park announcing that salaries for provincial bureaucrats would be capped has me wondering otherwise. He said, “There’s probably 60,000 too many managers in the entire public service.”
Let us assume there is a little exaggeration in this statement, so perhaps that figure should be 30,000. Unless anyone can show specifics, I strongly suspect it is safe to assume that the average manager he speaks of is costing Ontario taxpayers about $100,000 per year when salary and ongoing benefits are considered. If the OPSEU president is half correct, then getting rid of those 30,000 managers will save the province $3 billion annually once severance has been paid (which I suspect would average to about 9 months each).
Given that The Big Move requires $2 billion per year for 25 years, there appears to be a case that more transit may be possible without more taxes.
Steve: The number we are missing here is the total number of managers from which the 60,000 would be culled. That implies an immense non-managerial workforce under the 60k, never mind the full complement. This just sounds like another variation on the claim that there’s fat in the government and we don’t need taxes to pay for anything. By the way, the Ontario Public Service only numbers 60k, and I have to assume that Smokey Thomas has only a handful of members left for the 60,000 managers to supervise.
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One thing that struck me in the Metro Morning broadcast was that Mr Hudak was very evasive on the matter of funding, agreeing that it was necessary but referring to other entities such as the Chamber of Commerce rather that mentioning any possibilities.
Then I realized the probable reason. There is an old aphorism: “Governments have no money.”
Any funding must come from either corporations or people. Since the Conservatives are dedicated to the policy of reducing corporate taxes, all the funding, whether in the form of income tax increase, sales tax, gas tax, road tolls, will be paid by the people, i.e. by voters. And Hudak is afraid (like too many politicians) to state that fact.
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Every political party is short on details because transit construction spans a long period of time. North Americans get bogged down with environmental assessment, public hearings, community inputs and the like. By the time the shovels hit the ground, the person who decided to build is not even in office. Construction started this year for the Nagasaki and Hakodate Shinkansen. By 2015, one can travel from Nagasaki to Hakodate with only one change at Tokyo. My question to all the politicians, aren’t you ashamed that we cannot even complete the Sheppard tram line until 2020? We are the country that invented the Candu AFR, but we cannot pour concrete?
We need a way to build transit within the time frame of one political term. Metro construction spans a decade. How often do we get back to back majorities like the Union Nationale? The Sao Paulo monorail offers a glimpse what we ought to be looking at. This is a 24 km monorail line with construction started this year. Using prefab concrete support columns and rails, 1 km can be completed in a month. So in about 24 months, the line will be complete. Stations and testing will take a little bit of time. But, by 2015 the line will start revenue service. This is well within a one term office.
Steve: The only reason the Sheppard line won’t open until 2020 is that Queen’s Park is stretching out the capital program to make much of the payment fall in years where they think the deficit will be under control. This is a political decision and has nothing at all to do with EAs, public input, etc. Ministerial approval for the EA was granted on May 7, 2009, and if construction had started as originally planned, the line would open next year.
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I can understand the logic of uploading the subway (and future LRT) to Metrolinx. I think GO has a pretty good reputation amoungst the 905 and they would be perceived as good managers of the rail system. So maybe Metrolinx would be re-branded as GO.
For roads, the local roads feed the provincial highway system. In the same way, the local bus network would feed the higher capacity rails and subways.
What I can not understand is the transferring of the DVP and Gardiner (along with 427 and parts of 401) to Metrolinx. They have no experience running highways. Maybe the DVP and Gardiner could be uploaded to MTO instead. If the reason for this is that transit may need the highways (i.e. bus lanes), then maybe Hydro should be transferred to Metrolinx as well in case they want to run transit on hydro corridors.
Steve: Of course, the highways used to be run by MTO until some helpful provincial government decided to download them onto the city. The truly bizarre theory is that traffic congestion on roads prevents people from riding transit. I wonder how much of southern Ontario Hudak would pave over in a bid to increase ridership.
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Hudak hasn’t got a plan. He’s got a collection of warped ideas put together in something that vaguely resembles a collection of soundbites, not a cohesive plan.
As before, he has clearly shown that he has no clear vision for Ontario, just as Rob Ford has no clear vision for Toronto beyond “cut the fat” and dealing with “inefficient government.”
We elect our politicians to lead, but they only talk to one group of people, those who (supposedly) elected them. Never mind our messed-up ‘first-past-the-post’ system where the candidate with the most votes wins the seat even if the majority of voters were against him/her.
It’s starting to look like my half-baked proposal* for funding public transit is better than the best that the PC Party of Ontario has to offer.
Cheers, moaz
*basically, put tolls on the “express lanes” of our GTA highways. Allow registered carpoolers to get a discount (encouraging carpooling) and use the money paid in tolls for an immediate expansion of GO service throughout the region (encouraging public transit use).
Then, each municipality (Peel, Toronto and York if possible) would get a good portion of all the toll money paid in their city which would be used to pay for local transit expansion. Toronto would be paid from tolls on the 401, 427, Gardiner & DVP. Peel would get toll money from the 403 & 401.
In theory, the provincial government can work out a revenue-sharing deal with the 407 ETR company to build & maintain these “Express Lane Toll Routes” at a lower cost to the province. And if 407 ETR were willing to play nice, they would give Peel & York regions a portion of the revenue from the existing 407, and Durham would get revenue from the eastwards extension of the 407.
ps. as an aside, I wonder if there is any political scientist who has analysed vote counts, riding by riding, to determine what percentage of our elected officials were actually voted against (as in, did not get 50% of the vote) by the electorate in their ridings’.
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As for Queens Park’s excuse about the overheated construction market with simultaneous construction projects, why didn’t they use this excuse when the first round of cuts were announced? Also, did the TTC support the idea of having the Sheppard, Finch, and Eglinton LRT’s open all before 2016 as originally planned (which contradicts their May 30th report about simultaneous construction)?
Steve: The original construction plan, before McGuinty’s first intervention and slowdown, was Sheppard 2009-2013, SRT 2012-2015, Finch 2010-2013, Eglinton 2010-2016. Among the excuses about the construction industry was that they would be stressed by the Pan Am Games. Pull the other one. The revised version in 2010 pushed Sheppard back to 2014, but then we had this little election and everything stopped in its tracks for Rob Ford.
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Tim Hudak can’t have it both ways. If, as the white paper says,
the PCs must also recognize that Toronto, Metrolinx and the current Ontario cabinet have all agreed on a near-term plan for transit on Eglinton, Sheppard, Finch, and for a replacement of the SRT. To scuttle that plan that plan once again would once again delay what the same white paper also says is required,
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I would be very surprised if the Ontario NDP did anything other then continue the paternalistic “we know better then those childish city councillors” approach. Which is funny given P.E. Trudeau’s bon mot about Provincial Premiers being no better then local Kinsmen presidents.
I still think though that this delay and Hudak’s statements have something to do with Bombardier and SRT version 2.0.
Steve: I agree. Lurking in the background has always been Bombardier and their desire for a sole-source contract to “extend” the SRT west along Eglinton. I wouldn’t expect the NDP to be too helpful on that score either.
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Everybody here is complaining about long time frames – hasn’t it always taken a long time? Can you refresh my memory on say the North Yonge extension to Shep/Finch Steve?
I seem to recall it was on the books around 59/60 and Council approved it maybe 66 or 67? Of course it did not open until 73/74 so that’s 13 years from inception, and maybe 7 years since approval. Maybe today’s delays are not all that long comparatively? Am I close with this Steve or totally out to lunch?
I did not pay too much attention back in the day because I lived on Leslie north of Sheppard and even with a new subway it was way faster to stay on the Leslie bus to Eglinton Station. My options were transfer at Sheppard (back then the WB 85 buses were so jammed you had to wait for three or four WB buses until there was room to get on) and the same at York Mills. The York Mills buses were absolutely jammed. They had just introduced a new short turnback at Victoria Park so this helped a bit but not much. I guess as far as bus travel is concerned, it hasn’t really got that much better in the last 40 years.
Wasn’t it also a long time for the Spadina Sub to get going also?
Steve: Yes, there have always been long delays. Spadina’s extension took even longer than Yonge’s. To be fair, long range plans are not necessarily about what will be built tomorrow, but the primary constraint has always been financial (one line, at most, at a time) and the resulting political deadlocks about which line goes next. We have the Downsview extension only because it was common to a Spadina north and Sheppard west project, and was allowed to proceed while the two factions battled out for supremacy. Eventually Spadina won, in part because it has more political friends than Sheppard, but also because if you’re going to build a subway, Spadina makes more sense of the two.
By the way, the Waterfront West LRT (a rather poorly thought-out line from Union to Mimico via the waterfront) was proposed back in 1990, although the approved EA has been modified almost beyond recognition. The LRT line to Malvern was first proposed in the 1960s, along with lines to the airport.
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From inception to opening the Spadina subway took 20 years. It was originally proposed in 1958, and didn’t open until 1978. A Yonge extension to Sheppard was first talked about in 1960, and didn’t open until 1974.
Bloor-Danforth was an unusual case. It was originally supposed to open from St. George to Greenwood by ’66, and Keele to St. George plus an eastern extension (to Woodbine only) by ’69. The entire project was actually sped up and extended to Islington and Warden when the province loaned Metro the necessary cash. The line still took 10 years from inception to opening: ’58 … ’68.
The SRT was first proposed in ’69 and didn’t open until ’85. The idea of Sheppard goes back to the mid 80s but it didn’t open until ’02. The current Spadina extension to York was first talked about in 1990. By the time it opens, it will have been 25 years as well.
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Thanks “M. Briganti” for the recap info. I had totally forgotten about the BD ‘speed-up’ thanks to the Province. It seems so long ago that somebody at QP not only wanted to assist TO, but actually put up the cash without a fight! I would guess that a point could be made is that, with exception of the SRT and the Provincial meddling, these lines were eventually built straddling through successive Councils, Mayors, Premiers and Prime Ministers? Gives a bit of hope current projects will be able to continue.
Makes some sense to me now why Spadina went up the ditch instead of Dufferin or Keele now. Way back in 58, Dufferin was still getting sewers built up to Wilson so it was not considered a major artery yet.
Steve: Spadina went “up the ditch” partly to make the proposed expressway (which would have come all the way into downtown south of Bloor) palatable. At the time, some argued that it should be under an arterial, but the expressway advocates won the day.
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I thought I read in the Globe and Mail that Tim Hudak wants to build subways once the province’s $15 billion deficit is zeroed, and that he plans to cut corporate taxes as well. The idea is that the tax cuts will generate economic growth, but I don’t think it’s possible that any tax cuts that Hudak could make would result in enough growth to recover the cost of those cuts in the first place, never mind produce the additional revenue needed to zero out the deficit any time soon. This means sure, Hudak’s promising subways, but the delivery date attached to that is so far down the road that it pretty well means no new subways at all, for all practical purposes.
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Steve Said:
To be fair, only about 5 or 6 km (from 427 to Humber River) were transferred to Toronto. Of the 3 options (i.e. pre-1997, current, Hudak proposal), I would say Hudak’s makes the most sense since those highways do serve a Regional role, and the pre-1997 option is the worst choice. Why would only the short stretch of highway serve a Regional role and the remainder of the Gardiner and DVP serves only Toronto?
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Folks, if you want to see public transit expanded then STOP voting in hard-core Neo Conservative governments?
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It went in the ditch because it was much much cheaper to build it that way. The contention was on the alignment south of St. Clair. Alternate proposals had it connecting at Christie, Bathurst, and the current Spadina Stn. (but with the new platform south of and parallel to the BD one).
The alignment that was finally chosen was the one that was least disruptive to the homes in the area and made use of the tail tracks at upper St. George (which were always meant for Spadina when they were built in the early 60s).
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Uploading the TTC to Metrolinx is a good idea, even though I don’t agree with most of Hudak’s other ideas, because it would take control away from Toronto city councillors which have not done a very good job of managing it. Transit expansion plans need to be designed by experts, not politicians, because many transit expansion plans designed by politicians (e.g. parts of Transit City, One City) were not very well thought out. Toronto politicians have consistently ignored the need for more subway expansion instead of just light rail, ignored commuter rail expansion completely and ignored needs for better transit outside of Toronto city limits.
Steve: Well, until Transit City came along, Toronto thought only of subways even though there were possibilities for LRT that were ignored. As for commuter rail, that is not Toronto’s responsibility, and the glacial pace of expansion is entirely due to foot-dragging by Queen’s Park. Your history is out of kilter, and with it your claims about what Toronto might have done.
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Dear Steve,
I take if we asked for the feasibility studies or the names of the Subject Matter Experts they consulted for their transit policy, they would have a blank look on their faces? It seems that ALL political parties develop policies at their conventions or board meetings based on only the headlines they have read about the subject rather that do studies or consult with experts. Isn’t it basically impulse shopping with the taxpayers’ money?
As for LRT, it seems most of Toronto has too much density for buses and not enough for subways, so LRT is the perfect fit in many areas. I believe the ‘St Clair disaster’ was mentioned a number of times in interviews and though there were definite implementation problems, overall the area seems to be booming now. I noticed most people who mention St Clair or that they prefer subways, haven’t been to St. Clair recently.
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@Scott mentions “The St. Clair Disaster” which the right-wing politicians and the Toronto Sun (one certain female columnist in particular) keep dredging up as opposition to LRT. What they fail to mention is the fact that the TTC work came in on budget!! The massive delays in the completion of the project were caused by: a lawsuit launched by a group of residents and shopkeepers along St. Clair; water main and sewer work by Toronto Water; gas main work by Enbridge; cable work by Bell Canada; cable work and new lighting by Toronto Hydro. None of this additional work was coordinated by the various agencies. I recall seeing pavement being ripped up and replaced numerous times along St. Clair; none of it in the ROW!! I spent a considerable amount of my working hours on St. Clair driving a replacement bus and had a ringside seat to the construction. I have learned not to trust the statements of the right leaning politicians and press when the topic is the St. Clair ROW!!
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TTC Passenger said:
I’d say that the issue with Hudak’s “tax plan” is less of one of size but rather that he has no idea which taxes he should be considering to cut in the first place.
The idea that tax cuts can pay for themselves through economic growth is not completely insane. However, they need to mainly be targeted towards stimulating the demand side of the economy for the idea to work. The problem is, Hudak is proposing tax cuts that will stimulate the supply side which won’t do much if demand for Ontario goods and services doesn’t change for the better. It’s the same reason why the federal conservatives are complaining that corporations aren’t “putting their tax cuts to work” because, outside the resource extraction part of the economy, demand for Canadian goods has stagnated.
So, while you are probably correct in that Hudak couldn’t cut anything to trigger the amount of economic growth that he is dreaming of, the current target of his tax cuts can make things a lot worse for the province’s finances by reducing revenues with virtually no growth to show for it.
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@Gord, left wing, right wing, in-between wing, pro-LRT and anti-LRT has nothing to do with the fact that the St Clair build was a disaster! All of you ‘in-the-know’ people fail to realize that, IMHO, almost 100% of the population see NO difference between the TTC and the City. They are perceived as one and the same. The TTC is owned and run by the City. If you hire a contractor to rebuild your house and it’s late because of screw-ups with the plumber he hired, you do not blame the plumber, you aren’t paying him, you’re paying the contractor so he rightfully takes all of the heat! Nobody will ever blame Bell or Rogers or lawsuits by whoever, they will always blame the main guy, in this case the TTC. Personally I think they (TTC) did screw it up. I do think the TTC will be all Metrolinx by the time the new lines open. I think the writing is on the wall. One agency will handle the GTA period.
Steve: One of these days, Metrolinx will have a big enough project that they screw up and everyone will start pointing fingers. One that has been invisible to all but those who live along it is the work on the Georgetown rail corridor. Metrolinx/GO was an appallingly bad neighbour at West Toronto Junction where only the intervention of a federal agency stopped their ongoing invasion of the neighbourhood with extremely noisy construction. Elsewhere on the line, there is a fight in progress against immense noise barriers being installed despite a long battle in which Metrolinx claimed that a large increase in diesel train traffic would not be intrusive. But this is a rail corridor in a comparatively poor part of town, no motorists are inconvenienced, and the work isn’t on public display to a large audience for years on end. Metrolinx has a good reputation only because they have done so little in the public eye.
Provincial agencies operate with a level of insulation from public review and direct redress that municipal ones don’t enjoy.
Your planning guys do very well, excellent I think. Bob Dorosch. has been there forever as scheduling and crews, Superintendent of Schedules I think, anyways he even does run-cutting lectures all over the world but how much longer will he be there? Same for Mitch who also has been there forever. Last I recall David Tice and Brian MacFarland did crews/runs also splitting the garages. Bill Dawson also. I do not know Ron Gambin but he used to do the schedule and crew for rapid transit and collectors. It’s been a while so aside from Mitch who is still there, none of these other people may still be with the corp, I don’t know. Are there any really good young guys coming along in this department??????? I do hope Bob is still around. I saw him last at a CUTA thing in Orillia about 7 years ago. I signed up for runcutting 1 & 2&3 along with Inputs to Scheduling. He was a great lecturer!
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Looks to me that Mr Hudak is cherry picking from the Translink model in Metro Vancouver (Translink operates the major highway infrastructure as well as transit throughout Metro Van), although the Translink model 1) evolved over time, & been a bumpy ride 2) is a mix of merits & drawbacks & 3) is closer to the TTC in a pre-amalgamated Toronto than what Metrolinx seems to hope to be, with some exceptions 4) serves a region that is certainly not the scale (by population) of the GTHA.
The summary as I know it is that the mayor’s council is the political leadership; the board of directors oversee management (including the CEO). I believe the mayor of Vancouver has a limited veto power regarding projects in the City of Vancouver proper, and (of course) the provincial government holds the purse strings on any major infrastructure projects.
(FYI I have never lived in Vancouver, but have worked there extensively & have spent many hours utilizing a good chunk of that system)
It does provide a VERY well integrated system, but not without drawbacks. Surrey & the North Shore (City of North Vancouver, City of West Vancouver) want local LRT lines as Skytrain is unbelievably expensive & impractical for their needs but main bus corridors are becoming incredibly overcrowded (not to mention major road corridors are completely girdlocked) – BUT Skytrain is shiny & cool & therefore makes politicians salivate, even though many commentators say you could build 8 times the km of LRT network for the cost of Skytrain. (sound familiar ie Ford’s Sheppard Subway??) The cities of Surrey & Delta (south & SE of Van) have become so frustrated with neglect & having their hands tied they nearly pulled out of the pact 2 years ago until concessions & promises were made. It is also ironic that Canada Line tunnelled under Cambie Street, a VERY wide boulevard with 3 to 4 lanes of space between the northbound & southbound lanes which would have easily accommodated grade-level LRT at a fraction of the cost for a large portion of the journey although the Olympics/fed’s theoretically paid for the cadillac automated mini-subway it essentially is.
I should also note that the north shore agencies still exist, but they operate under Translink (West Vancouver transit still owns all their own buses/etc.). Also the single-corridor West Coast Express (commuter rail, inspired by GO Trains) is run by Translink, but on a completely separate fare system, although with virtually no overlap to other transit options & is completely commuter-focussed (5 trains inbound in the morning; same 5 outbound in the afternoon).
As unpopular as such a model is with persons such as Steve, though, I do see merit to an integrated system BUT I would not trust for a minute that Mr Hudak has a clue how to apply such a model in a manner that would be effective nor is motivated by principles of sensible urbanism, & the toxic track record of Queen’s Park towards GTHA transit regardless of who’s running the show makes the idea of the provincial government having even more power (or even primary responsibility) in regards to transit frankly terrifying. Effective planning & systems integration is less of a model-specific issue (Seattle-Tacoma, whose systems I have also used frequently, have many different agencies overlapping, but it connects quite seamlessly, especially with their version of the Presto card to automatically sort out the fare structures, which they implemented region-wide very expeditiously. The regional transit authorities work very cooperatively & coordinate their planning & efforts well).
It is tragic that, as difficult as the TTC can be, the alternative (Metrolinx running the whole show, including an uploaded TTC, with little-to-know consciousness/give-a-shit of local needs in their top-down Queen’s-Park-Knows-Best mentality) seems to be much worse – a classic dumb-or-dumber conundrum. What a mess.
Steve: To be clear, if I had any confidence that there was an agency with good, professional people who cared about and really understood transit, and a government that didn’t spend all of its time meddling at the local and regional level, I might be willing to give consolidation a chance. But the desire for centralized control also brings responsibility, something that doesn’t fit well with a tax cutting philosophy and the attitude that transit is something we will do when we can afford the one overpriced option on the table. As you point out, integration can work without consolidation when multiple agencies present a common face to the rider and sort out issues like revenue sharing behind the scenes. The real barrier to integration in the GTA is money — getting rid of those multiple fares and reconciling the system to eliminate inequities of the boundaries will cost money, not to mention the effect an integrated fare might have on service and related costs. The Hudaks and McGuintys don’t want to spend on transit except for capital projects that are pushed ever further into the future.
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Interesting about the province putting forward more money to help get Bloor built faster (via a loan). Would such a thing work in reverse? Could Toronto council vote to speed up construction on some of the lines with a local Toronto tax that would run for 3 or 4 years, and gets loaned directly to Metrolinx to improve their cash-flow situation. (Or maybe Toronto just owns a % of the lines, with the agreement that Metrolinx will buy it 5-10 years after the project is complete).
In 10 years, when the cash-flow situation improves Metrolinx could pay Toronto back with interest, and Toronto could spend the money building another line.
This gets us 2 for 1, it’s very clear what the tax is for and it’s a very short-term tax.
Steve: I think if you have listened to provincial pronouncements, they are set on the current schedule and claim that the construction industry cannot absorb more work (that’s this year’s excuse). If they took money from the city to accelerate projects, they would be admitting that their excuse is BS.
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I think the province should just give the TTC expansion money with no strings attached, with planned amounts over the next 5 years, and next year they decide how much they want to spend 5 years out. The best organization to figure out where and how the TTC should expand isn’t the Prime Minister, it isn’t the Premier, it isn’t the mayor, it isn’t even the chair, it’s the planners and engineers in the TTC who have all the rider and load data, so they know what routes need expanding, and where there should be more service. The planners knowing what money will be available in 5 years can better utilize that money.
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@William Paul,
You have missed the point of my comment. The TTC completed their project on budget, and would have completed the project on time had it not been delayed by all of the external forces. The TTC was NOT acting as a “general contractor” for all of the other work that took place and caused the “St. Clair Disaster”. The water projects, the hydro projects, the Enbridge project, etc. were not under the TTC’s control. But, typically, you are assigning blame where it is not warranted. The true blame should be assigned to the actual City of Toronto for their lack of coordination, control, and oversight!
Steve: Also, although the general public might not be able to tell the difference between the players, a senior politician should know better. Of course, if the goal is to score points without bothering with facts, that’s a different matter.
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Hey Gord, I think I did get your point however my point was, the general public knows not and cares not. To the average person the TTC, The City of Toronto, Hydro are one and the same. When you blame the City of Toronto you are in fact also blaming the TTC because they are one and the same. Senior politicians should know the difference but again most people, even if you explained, could care less what the little technicalities are. It’s either the City, or it’s the Province that controls everything. Therefore I do believe the TTC is at fault for St Clair because the City and the TTC are one and the same.
BTW Steve and I know I should be more well read on the subject, because of the recent announcement that Mr Dalton is finally throwing in the towel and proroguing Parliament, is there any facet of the current LRT that NEEDS Parliament approval at this time? Or is everything still full speed ahead on the current transit/LRT construction?
Steve: The problem is that the major contracts for construction (other than the western part of the Eglinton tunnel) have not been let, and in most cases I don’t think Infrastructure Ontario even has drafts. Thanks to the love for P3s, we add at least a year to the process just to build the paperwork that will ensure, we hope, that the private contractor will do what we would expect of a public agency. I think that the whole thing, including The Big Move, could be killed or “postponed”, and certainly under a Hudak regime we would not see any LRT. Eglinton would become a shortened subway if they’re stuck with the tunnel contract, but I would be amazed if it got east of Yonge.
Any contract or project Metrolinx gets into must go through Cabinet.
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It is so unprofessional for Mr. Hudak to talk about what he wants to build without talking about how he is going to raise the money to pay for it.
Sometimes I too will have daydream fantasies about what I would do if money would magically fall into my lap. But I don’t embarass myself by publishing them. Mature adults know that if they really want something, they have to come up with a plan to raise the money to pay for it. Otherwise they are just blowing hot air over patties of bovine effluent.
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Unlike Rob Ford, I can’t imagine anyone perceiving Hudak to be some poor big-hearted average-joe. Hudak is a well-greased suit, a professional “politician”, and simply mimicking Rob Ford’s words isn’t going to instill the same reaction in the public.
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Gord wrote about the ‘St. Clair Disaster’,
Unfortunately, far too many people have little, if any, idea of what level of government has jurisdiction and responsibility over what services an issues. Is it any wonder why so many cannot distinguish between the City of Toronto and the TTC as William Paul accurately points out.
Steve replied,
A politician trying to score points without bothering with facts?!? Say it isn’t so!
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The biggest and long-term headache on St. Clair W. is yet to come, as the railway bridge that spans over the street at Keele st. has not been widened and with ARL opening and full operation there will never be an opportunity to re-visit this issue.
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Steve,
No progressive conservative would ever agree with Hudak’s plan, or with anything that party is doing right now. That is a Conservative party through and through, like in Ottawa. Their insistence on moving to subways baffles the mind, especially when LRT really is the way to go in Toronto, like with most other jurisdictions. As a voter it is incredibly frustrating knowing that when the Liberals are defeated the money for transit expansion is dead, the PC’s don’t have a credible plan and the NDP are suspiciously quiet.
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TO Council needs to wake up and go at one or more of the surface LRT lines themselves, along with the necessary new taxes. And no, I disagree that the change in funding arrangement presents any actual delay, thanks to the Liberals.
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Steve – your expertise/understanding is needed. I have read/heard on numerous other websites and blogs that the fact that QP is shut down means nothing as far as transit. Metrolinx can still approve, go thru cabinet and so on. It’s only the opposition that is shut out. Is this correct? Is it really business as usual? I realize that they cannot change an LRT to a subway but as far as day to day business/procurement..all is still on track and not affected by this McG move. What’s the truth here sir? What can and cannot be done (specifically transit).
Steve: Metrolinx can still work and it can go to Cabinet for approvals. The problem is one of timing. Because of the combined effect of project delays to stretch out the spending, and because the need to build contracts through Infrastructure Ontario will add a year (!) to the procurement process, very little will be in a position to go to Cabinet in the near future. The election will come sometime in mid-2013 given the likelihood of a defeat on the budget which must be presented in the spring.
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