Updated November 19, 2013 at 2:00 pm: The continued Board meeting will occur on Wednesday, November 20 at TTC Head Office in the old board room, 7th floor, 1900 Yonge Street above Davisville Station.
Updated November 18, 2013 at 10:20pm: Because of the long special meeting of City Countil and the large number of people registered to give deputations at the TTC meeting, the Board was unable to complete its agenda today. The meeting will resume on Wednesday, November 20 at 1:00 pm.
The TTC meeting on November 18 is scheduled to begin at 1:00 pm. However, there is also a Special Meeting of City Council called for 12:30 pm to deal with a motion to strip Mayor Ford of his remaining powers conferred under the City’s Procedural Bylaw (two motions addressing some of his former powers were passed on the morning of November 15).
To ensure that the key items in the TTC agenda are dealt with when, presumably, Commissioners will not be busy with the Council meeting, the budget reports will be handled as timed items beginning at 3:00 pm.
Steve Munro 
I see you have managed to resist commenting on Mayor Ford. That must take a great deal of restraint. It’s… quite something… to read about Toronto’s Mayor.
Steve: This is a transit blog. To the degree that the Mayor has interfered with transit development over the past three years, and whose influence will be felt for years to come thanks to his “subway” bias and his laughably ill-informed fiscal policies, yes, I comment. However, there are many issues that need discussing, and people who care about these things need to be ready for a “Ford-free Toronto”. Politically, I have no trouble with moderate conservative fiscal policies in the sense that we need to have money to spend on what we really need first. We’re not going to get a good transit network if we blow billions on vanity projects while claiming we have to cut service to save a few tens of millions on operations. Blame for that idiocy touches many members of Council and the Legislature. Ford created the environment, but everyone else piled on with “me too” policies.
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It looks like only the Operational and Capital budget items are on the agenda for Wednesday. How much of the rest of the agenda did they deal with on Monday? Seemed to fly below the Twitter radar.
Steve: Yes it appears that everything else was dealt with on Monday. I was in the Council meeting with everyone else.
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I couldn’t agree more. Its laughable to see all these city councillors who supported Ford and all his deleterious policies for many years suddenly turn against him as if they were white knights coming to rescue us. They’re just political opportunists trying to save their own hides.
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It’s amazing how low that meeting flew under the radar. For all we know, Stintz may have cut peak transit service levels yet again, and no one knows.
Do any of the councillors on TTC even use the buses and streetcars to commute? They seem very good at protecting their precious subway service, but seem to care little for the surface routes that clearly need more vehicles.
Steve: Regicides do not happen every day at City Hall. It wasn’t a case of flying under the radar, and the budget, where any service cuts might be discussed, is on today’s agenda.
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Nathaniel,
As an editor for Transit Toronto, I’m in the same boat as Steve, but it’s not hard. Transit Toronto has a specific mandate, and any discussion of Ford on the front page should only take place if it has something to do with public transit in Toronto. Whether I want to say something about Ford or not, the front page of Transit Toronto is not the place for it. Steve has maintained a similar mandate for this blog, even if it is his personal blog (thus, see his movie reviews), and I have to respect his restraint, here. Though, it’s not hard if you set strict limits and clear guidelines for yourself.
It also helps to have an outlet for your more personal feelings. I have my own personal blog, and Facebook, which allows me to speak out more often about my opinions outside of transit. I have to wonder if Steve has a similar outlet of his own, even if it is, say, a soundproof closet where he goes into, shuts the door, and screams. 🙂
Such a thing is useful not only for Ford shenanigans, but politics in general. 🙂
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Yes, we can only blame the Fords for so much, though it is a delight to see almost all the wheels fallen off.
But to goose transit fares again, whilst ignoring how the core subsidizes suburban areas and not allowing competition like bike lanes on the east-west routes is quite unfair.
It’s also wrong to not really get into how much the cars are subsidized: would that we had the same degree of user pay for them, as we do for transit.
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Too bad the TTC website does not televise, broadcast, closed-circuit monitor, or whatever they want to call it, transmit the board meeting over the internet.
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In retrospect, the decidedly non-uplifting and divisive tone Rob Ford set at his mayoral inaugural ceremony three years ago – including inviting the likes of Don Cherry to add his crudeness – just about guaranteed that he would use sexually-explicit locker-room language to deny the allegations made against him by one of his female staff; he uttered those words nonchalantly and without blinking an eyelash, totally catching the assembled news reporters off guard.
Given Ford’s remarkable lack of depth of intellect, reasoning and common sense, he must have figured that – since that very same crude language was already printed for all to see in the police report of the woman’s description of a sexual act she’d alleged Ford wanted to perform on her – why not repeat it verbatim at the press scrum? No big deal, he must’ve thought.
Wowee! is all I can say. It’s no wonder Ford flushed Transit City down the toilet, along with just about everything else of value. The guy’s a loose cannon.
Given the increasingly rapid rate of decline taking place in politicians’ and celebrities’ public conduct and morals, and especially now that Ford has broken through another linguistic “politeness sound barrier” to set a new low with his remarks last Tuesday, I’m wondering how long it will be before the general public thinks it’s perfectly acceptable common practice for public figures to unhesitatingly use vulgar and sexually-explicit language on live broadcast television without fear of censorship or retribution? Not long would be my guess.
Yet, I wonder if even “Ford Nation” was prepared to hear their chosen leader say what he did on national TV last week?
Let’s hope that this whole disastrous experience with the mayor has taught Toronto’s citizens – all of them – how important it is to carefully “vett” their candidates before they cast their votes.
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The TTC needs to actually _improve_ service BEFORE demanding higher fares from its suffering riders. Unfortunately, I see little prospect of this. The Queen Car mess you are reporting on in great detail (far too much for me to wade through) is proof of their inability to manage things.
I friend of mine this AM told me of a one hour long ride on the King Car yesterday to get from Danforth to Queen/Shaw for an art gallery opening.
I am going to the Open House to see all the wonderful things coming our way!
Steve: I am afraid you will see a presentation that is shorter on specifics than one would like. One big problem is that the budget was put together still under the Ford shadow, and it does not advocate as strongly as it should for better funding and a return to service quality we can be proud of. I will add comments re specifics when I write up the budget debate tomorrow morning (Thursday).
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LOL. Let’s hope not. Though with Krazy Kelly now in charge, who knows … 🙂
Oh, I don’t blame you for watching the Ford Follies … I’d have done the same, and I certainly was listening along.
Surely the budget stuff is mostly rubber stamping. I’m more curious to hear what the Commisioners asked about that the reversal on the Woodbine tender … but perhaps that was behind closed doors last month. And the TTC/Metrolinx stuff. Or some of the Islington explanations. Or what was said about Yonge-Eglinton.
Steve: If discussions at other Commission meetings are anything to go by, the level of understanding of any of these issues by the Commissioners, let along their willingness to probe the details in public, is rather low.
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Yes, the public commissioners have been rather disappointing and shallow. It’s a shame that the correct qualifications, and experience are seen as more important than an awareness of the technical side, and willingness to ask difficult questions. You’ve essentially added 4 private-sector career bureaucrats. Not bad in itself, but they are all too much the same. One should have been very technical, and another should have been a shit-disturber. (sorry … struggling for a more family-friendly term … ). Yes-men (struggling for a less sexist term) might make things go smoother … but don’t necessarily lead to the best result.
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