Toronto will get a sense of where its new Council and TTC Board are headed next week when the City launches its budget for 2015 on Tuesday, January 20. This will be followed by debates at Budget Committee and the TTC’s own budget meeting on Monday February 2.

After months of election campaigns and an early honeymoon, our politicians will have to pick which “Transit City” they really want.

• Do we face more of the small-minded penny-pinching, the false economies of the Ford era, or a view of Toronto and its transit services where policy is more than drawing fantasy subway maps and stuffing more people in fewer buses?
• Will Toronto be a city with expanding, attractive transit service for riders on the network as a whole?
• Will Council spend money on transit today and make real changes, or do we face four more years of making do with inferior service?
• Will capital spending focus only on megaprojects (ideally ones paid for with other governments’ money), or will Council recognize the needs of the existing system for maintenance and improvement?

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