Updated September 22, 2016 at 11:30 am: Information from the Budget Committee meeting has been added. It is organized by topic so that readers do not have to wade through the meandering nature of a discussion that lasted a few hours.
Fare Evasion:
This topic came up early in response to a deputation from TTC Riders. Commissioner Byers asked whether money could be saved by reducing evasion. TTC management claims that the numbers remain low, but later came to acknowledge that increasing the fare inspection from 80 to 100 would be beneficial. The committee requested that this be addressed in the overall budget.
For reference, a fare inspector costs the TTC at least $100k/year including benefits, and so 20 more would represent an increased operating cost of at least $2 million. Fare revenue stands at about $1.1 billion, and a 1% change in fare recoveries (either way) is worth about $11m annually. The TTC would like to get the fare evasion rate down to 2% or less.
CEO Andy Byford noted that the intent of inspection is to make the chance of being caught and the penalty for this both high enough that few attempt to evade fares. Inspection will actually become more labour intensive with the shift to Presto because the cards must be scanned to determine whether a fare has been paid, while transfers and Metropasses can be quickly checked visually.
Service on Lightly Used Routes
Commissioner Byers also asked whether there were savings to be had by cutting service where buses were running “empty”. This is a complex issue for several reasons.
Before the TTC returned to guaranteed full service on all routes (a John Tory initiative to reverse one of Rob Ford’s cuts), a standard was developed to screen out the worst performers. The metric used was riders per vehicle hour, and the value was set at 10. In other words, if there are two buses on a route, they must carry at least 20 riders per hour between them. Note that these riders are not on the buses all at the same time, but the loads will often be concentrated in location and direction. This leaves the bus running “empty” some of the time.
Many routes have outer edges and branches that do not achieve the same level of demand as the core part of the system. If one were to look only at these sections, one could prune the “poor performing” bits around the edges. However, this would leave major routes operating on a shorter extent than during “normal” hours, and the degree of cutback would vary from place to place. This is a recipe for riders abandoning routes because they are unsure of when service will be available, or that they might miss the “last bus” for a trip home.
Without question, riders on these segments are carried at a higher cost, but that is part of the cost of doing business on a network. One might also add that there is a double standard where it is acceptable to subsidize riders on a subway line at a very high rate, while decrying the “waste” of such an expense on a bus route.
This issue comes up regularly, and there is an underlying implication that vast amounts of public money are wasted where service is not required. The actual numbers tell a very different story.
When the full service to all routes was restored, the cost to do so was pegged at $1.7m for the partial year implementation in 2015, and at $5.5m for the projected full year cost in 2016. This shows that the amount of money available if the policy were reversed is marginal unless the standard for “poor performance” is set much higher and correspondingly more service disappears.
Provincial Subsidy
Commissioner Mihevc raised the perennial question of getting more money from Queen’s Park as an alternative to higher fares, taxes or service cuts. In doing so, he is longing for an era over two decades ago when Ontario paid 50% of the TTC’s operating subsidy, an amount that would roughly have been $305m in 2016. The actual subsidy from Queen’s Park is about $90m which comes from the Provincial Gas Tax allocated to the City of Toronto (a further $70m from this source goes to the Capital Budget).
Queen’s Park might be forgiven for wondering whether any new transit cash would actually improve the TTC’s lot, or simply be used to reduce City expenses and preserve lower property taxes and/or fares. Recent sleight-of-hand in the Capital Budget where nearly $1 billion of proposed expenditures simply vanished from the books, thereby neatly providing the City’s “contribution” to a shared federal-municipal funding scheme at no cost suggest that senior governments are right to distrust municipal intentions.
Mihevc claimed that the subsidy per rider was higher under Mayor Miller. The actual numbers appear in the chart below. Miller’s last budget year was 2010. Note that except for 2008, the provincial gas tax contribution has remained constant, but on a per rider basis is declining due to growth.
Where Is The Additional Service?
TTC Riders observed that people at a Jane-Finch community meeting laughed when told that the TTC had increased service. The problem here is that the service adds vary by time of day and location, and not all riders benefit equally. There is also the discrepancy between advertised and actual service as I have discussed in other articles.
The following are changes in the Jane-Finch area between September 2014 (pre-election) schedules and those in use today:
2014 2016 35 Jane AM Peak 5'00" 4'45" M-F Midday 8'00" 6'15" M-F Evening 11'00" 10'00" Sun Morning 11'00" 10'00" Sun Afternoon 10'30" 10'00" 195 Jane Rocket AM Peak 10'30" 10'00" 36 Finch West AM Peak 3'00" 3'37" * M-F Midday 5'00" 5'20" * PM Peak 3'34" 4'37" * M-F Early Eve 7'15" 7'45" * M-F Late Eve 7'30" 9'20" * Sat Early AM 9'00" 9'30" Sat Morning 6'30" 6'00" Sat Afternoon 5'30" 4'30" Sat Early Eve 9'00" 8'00" Sun Early AM 10'30" 10'00" Sun Morning 6'45" 6'30" Sun Afternoon 5'30" 5'00" Sun Early Eve 9'00" 7'15" Sun Late Eve 11'15" 10'00"
* Changed from regular to articulated buses on 36A Humberwood service.
Saving 2.6 Percent
Roughly two thirds of the $15.8m savings cited by TTC management came from reduced Health Care costs. The reason cited for this is that the ongoing investigations into Benefits Fraud have resulted in lower claims. This effect will bottom out at some point, and so further savings in 2018 cannot be counted on.
In a “normal” year, the $15.8m would have been part of the overall budgetary review, but because of the Council request for an across the board 2.6% cut, these have been separately identified. What has not yet been addressed is the remaining $172m shortfall between the City subsidy and the TTC’s projected needs.
Saving $172 Million
TTC management has a long list of requirements totalling $172m, although they continue review of their budget to see if added savings can be found that do not affect service quality. Andy Byford strongly made the point that he does not plan to cut service. We will have to see what Council and the TTC Board actually direct him to achieve.
The 2016 budget provided for service improvements in September 2016, but these are not required according to the TTC because ridership is lower than anticipated. There has been no public review of actual loading conditions and whether there are routes requiring more service. A common problem is that for peak service the TTC has no spare vehicles, and so budgeted improvements could not be implemented even if the loading standards showed they were required. In years past, the TTC would list the improvements that could not be made due to various constraints (typically fleet, budget and availability of operators), but this list has not been published recently.
Much of the “savings” against the originally foreseen $215m budget pressure does not arise from management actions. The delay in Presto rollout is laid at the feet of that agency (see below), and the saving is simply a case of delaying the onset of the more expensive period where TTC and Presto fare collection systems and staff co-exist. The draw from the “stabilization reserve” (surplus subsidy from past years that was not required) will exhaust this reserve in 2017 even though 2018 is expected to be a difficult budget year too.
TTC management often cites “savings” in diesel fuel costs through hedging, and claims an $11m saving for 2017. The total fuel budget for 2016 was $84m, itself down almost $10m from 2015. How much of this reduction is simply a question of market pricing and how much comes from hedging is not broken out. One is a management tactic while the other is simply good fortune that would be reversed if fuel costs go up again. Indeed, this saving will be offset in 2017 by carbon taxes.
The problems with Presto arise from two issues:
- Presto’s IT provider (Accenture) has not yet provisioned sufficient back-office computing power to handle the volume of transactions that Metropass sales will generate. This is being remedied, but will delay the rollout.
- The delivery of fare media vending machines from Presto is running late, and station collector staff cannot be reduced/redeployed because they will continue to sell legacy media.
Commissioner Myers described Presto as a “mini Bombardier” in their inability to deliver a product on time. It would appear that Presto faces a similar problem – the lack of investment in sufficient capacity.
Long Term Savings
The TTC is midway through many changes in how it does business such as the replacement of its archaic vehicle monitoring system and the implementation of computer systems using modern, integrated software. These are expected to produce savings once completed, but there is a short-term hump while changes are developed and implemented.
The Committee asked management to produce a report listing all of the projects together with their projected costs and savings so that short-term funding increases can be justified as “investments” in future savings. The Catch-22 here, of course, is that those savings will have to actually materialize. A more common situation is that new systems and procedures allow improved or expanded functionality and service, part of the justification for undertaking them, but do not necessarily reduce costs.
Collective Bargaining Agreements
The current agreements run into 2018 and bind the TTC to cost increases. In preparation for the next round of negotiations, they will continue to examine ways to reduce costs, but this issue is not debated publicly unless it explodes into the media from specific proposals.
How The Budget Works
Commissioner Campbell is frustrated by the way in which the budget is presented, notably that it shows previous year budget figures, not actual results, as the basis for comparison. One problem here is that work on “next year’s” budget often starts before “last year’s” numbers are finalized, but more generally this is an issue with municipal budgets generally. The use of previous budgets as a starting point is not a problem if budget and actual numbers do not vary by much, but this can be thrown off by unexpected revenue or cost changes.
Moreover, Council is always wrestling with amounts at the margins. For example, the TTC subsidy is almost $500m, but a 1% change in the gross costs (the full budget, not the net after fares and other revenue) amounts to about $17m, equivalent to roughly a 0.6% property tax hike. Moreover, if that $17m were to be entirely recovered through subsidy, it would represent a 3.4% increase on that $500m base sending the budget hawks screaming about “out of control” costs.
Ridership
Ridership changes occur at different rates both by time of day and by location. The overall numbers appear in the monthly CEO’s Report, and a current issue is whether the downturn will be sustained or if it is a short-term effect. Ridership for 2016 is up slightly over 2015, but not by the amount originally forecast.
This is an underlying problem with TTC budgets. At times, simply to produce more revenue on paper and thereby reduce the “required” subsidy, the TTC has aimed high for ridership. Many times, they got away with this, but the tactic failed in 2016. The shortfall (as the numbers above show) represent large percentage hits relative to the subsidy and this creates a funding crisis thanks to overly optimistic projections. Conversely if the TTC aims low, but does better than expected, it is criticized for demanding too much.
Commissioner Mihevc observed that an 8 million drop in projected ridership came with a projected revenue loss of $32m, or $4 per ride. Management explained that there was actually an offsetting additional 4m free rides by children meaning that for paying customers, the shortfall was actually 12m rides at a cost of about $2.65 each. This value is still higher than the average fare paid, and the discrepancy has not been fully explained.
The modal share is growing downtown, according to Deputy CEO Chris Upfold, but falling elsewhere. The boundaries of this effect were not discussed, and we will not have a detailed look at the issue until the 2016 Transportation Tomorrow Survey reports out sometime next year. (This is a quinquennial survey conducted by the University of Toronto for the Ministry of Transportation and many other agencies/cities.)
Problems with capacity arise from a lack of sufficient fleet to carry riders coupled with the ongoing effects of service delays and interruptions. For example, service capacity on 504 King is planned to be substantially improved, but this will require a fleet of new low floor streetcars.
TTC management routinely cites employment stats as the closest indicator of ridership. However, this number is affected by many factors including:
- Core area jobs tend to have conventional hours and produce the well known peak travel effects on transit.
- Off peak workers and those located outside of the core face the double challenge of lower service levels and a network that is not oriented to their travel requirements.
- Many jobs are now part time, and more trips are required for a worker to get between them.
Off-peak service levels and reliability can work against making transit attractive for many outside of the core because of long travel times and transfer connections at inhospitable locations.
The Budget Committee appeared to be interested in more details about the times, locations and causes of demand changes, but did not actually pass a motion to this effect. Chris Upfold remarked that the drop has not been concentrated in specific times and locations (although this contradicts an earlier comment about modal share), and that the TTC does not have the technology to track riding in detail. This begs the question of how they track riding at all, and what data they do have on route behaviour.
Wheel-Trans
Wheel-Trans is a large growth area in the TTC’s budget thanks to several factors:
- 12-13% increase in basic demand.
- 5% increase in demand due to new eligibility criteria.
- Improved call centre performance means fewer calls are abandoned and more rides are booked.
- The unaccommodated rate (requests that got through, but could not be booked) has dropped from 2% to under .5%.
Chair Josh Colle would like to see Queen’s Park contribute to the cost of Wheel-Trans given that it is provincial legislation driving some of the growth. Given that transportation is considered as a human right, this is a cost that must be widely absorbed just as businesses deal with the cost of accessibility and accommodation. For several years, the TTC held its elevator program hostage to demands for more provincial funding, but that charade ended in 2016 when the Easier Access program moved back into the “funded” part of the Capital Budget.
Toronto faces additional costs, and it’s time for Council to accept the responsibility.
Commissioner Campbell moved that staff report on the option of letting registered WT users ride for free on the conventional system so that at least some trips might be diverted. This gets into a difficult territory of the general problem of groups who ask for reduced TTC fares, a population substantially larger than the WT community. This really should be dealt with as part of the City’s overall review of subsidy programs, not as a one-off scheme to avoid WT costs at the TTC.
The original post follows below.
The TTC Budget Committee will meet on September 21. At this point, we have only the most threadbare of reports that gives no indication of how transit service will survive the onslaught of Mayor Tory’s misguided and reckless attitude to funding TTC service.
The report is a mere six pages.
In order to give the impression that TTC management actually are achieving the cuts Tory wants, they have “found” some loose change to meet the 2.6% reduction in operating subsidy.
This saving is achieved by the following projected budget line reductions:
- Remove land lines for TTC staff who are provided with cell phones ($0.3m)
- An increase in capital projects in 2017 will cause a higher proportion of some staff costs to be charged to capital rather than operating ($0.8m)
- Reduced budget for departmental overtime so that increased rates due to the collective agreement are absorbed within departmental budgets ($0.8m)
- Reduced training and travel ($0.5m)
- Reduced stand-by costs ($0.6m)
- Materials and supplies costs reduced by: increased bus warranty recoveries, converting IT contractor positions to staff, reduced furniture and equipment budget. ($1.0m)
- Deferral of the September 2015 service increase translates to a saving in full year costs to continue these improvements to 2016 ($1.5m)
- Lower health care costs due to a downward trend in claims ($10.3m)
Most of the saving ($15.4m) actually occurs on the regular TTC side of the house with only $0.4m as lower Wheel-Trans costs. This is a simple case of the relative size of the two organizations and the tiny amount of infrastructure (beyond buses and a garage) that must be maintained out of the W-T budget.
These numbers are troubling on a few counts:
- Several of these are one-time improvements that will not necessarily be repeated in future years. For example, a reduction in capital work (or an increase in day to day “operations” maintenance charges) would shift staff costs back to the Operations side of the ledger.
- The reduced health care costs and the service deferrals are not “management” actions to trim costs, but rather they are windfalls that landed in the TTC’s and hence the City’s lap. Service will eventually have to be improved, and costs will rise, especially when the Spadina subway extension (TYSSE) is fully opened.
Readers unfamiliar with TTC budgets should remember that the numbers above are only a reduction in the subsidy, not in the total budget which stands for 2016 at about $1.7 billion. That is where the much more difficult problems lie.
The TTC still faces very large pressures in its cost base, and by comparison, the 2.6% cut is trivial. The following list, totalling $215 million, was published earlier this year and is repeated in the preliminary budget report.
- On a budget-to-budget basis, and with no assumed fare increase, passenger revenue will be $32m lower in the 2017 budget than in 2016 due to lower than expected ridership growth.
- Wheel-Trans costs will ride by $31m due to strong ridership growth and AODA changes.
- Start-up costs for the Spadina extension are pegged at $7m.
- Presto costs are projected to be $30m.
- Contracted wage and benefits costs will rise by $25m and $11m respectively.
- Replacement of hybrid bus batteries and increased rail vehicle maintenance will cost $25m.
- Accident claims and general inflation will add $8m.
- Energy costs will rise by $15m of which $5m arises from cap-and-trade costs.
- Other increases total $30m.
Since this list was issued, further savings and possible revenues have been identified:
- Presto fees will be reduced from $30m to $14m due to a later phasing out of legacy fare media than originally planned.
- Energy cost increases have been reduced from $15m to $4m due to lower diesel fuel costs.
- The TTC proposes a $15.4m draw from the “stabilization reserve”, a City account that holds budgetary surpluses from past years.
This would reduce the outstanding shortfall to $172.6m, still about 10% of the overall budget. There is no indication in the report as to how or if this will be achieved:
Options for addressing this will be developed and provided as part of the formal budget presented to the TTC Board later this fall. [p. 5]
We have no sense of the scale of service reductions or maintenance cuts or fare increases/changes that such a revenue loss would require. This is a point where we must ask whether the TTC is hiding this information from public debate lest it embarrass Mayor Tory too extensively, or in some vain hope that the Tooth Fairy and a whole squad of Leprechauns with Unicorns drawing wagons laden with pots of gold will appear out the the blue.
Staff continues to review all elements of the budget to identify reductions in these pressures that do not affect service. [p. 5]
That’s a tall order for a reduction on this scale.
This report claims that the TTC has met the -2.6% target for its subsidy, but only by ignoring a herd of elephants in the room and a $172m shortfall. The three “savings” recently identified are all windfalls and do not represent active management of TTC costs. Indeed for several years, the TTC has quoted a high cost for diesel fuel in their budget only to find “savings” later when the price is lower than anticipated.
And so we will have budget meeting with no budget, no sense of what will be needed going into the City’s budget round this fall. How the TTC Board can take any sort of informed position is mind-boggling, but that’s what we get from this Board. They should be demanding more information, but they cannot bring themselves to demand clear answers from staff.
The Ford-Stintz era at the TTC was all about sunny, bright good news meetings. Tory and TTC Chair Colle profess a concern for transit, but cannot bring themselves to actually address the basic funding problems.
Big announcements for capital projects we cannot afford, while the basics of transit are thrown to mad curs who pass themselves off as budget watchdogs. This is an utter abdication of responsibility.
Steve Munro 
I think that it is time to get rid of the poor executive leadership provided by Andy Byford and company. Andy Byford is more about showing-off than substance as is evident by his repeated newspaper articles lavishing self-praise on himself, photo-ops, etc.
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Tory still sees transit as “a means of getting around for people who can’t afford a car”. He’s ignoring the fact that people who may own a car, may prefer to use public transit to get around Toronto. He’s ignoring that the people want better service, which requires an increase in the operating budget, not a decrease.
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Interesting that they are looking at changing out IT Contractors for Full – Time Staff. Generally, the best talent is contract as it pays better – what the TTC will find is that the $1MM saved will be eaten up by inefficiencies by lesser skilled employees who will work for less. It may look good on a spreadsheet – but just one IT project going off the rails can eat up $1MM pretty fast.
Steve: Having worked in IT all my life, I can say that I’ve seen in both ways. The worst situation is a case where a “consultant” burrows into an organization as effectively full time staff and acquires considerable profile and influence while regular staff who could train into the position are left behind. It is a big morale problem. Consultants for specific jobs — in, do your things, knowledge transfer, out the door — are fine, but 10 year+ is quite another matter.
A further complication in the public service (and I suspect in some private firms too) is that “head count” is a holy grail, but as “consultants” don’t show up there, a department’s numbers look good on paper, if that’s the metric. Some TTC Board members have a fetish for lower head counts without thinking through what this means.
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GO Transit is getting tens of billions of dollars for expansion while the TTC can’t even properly maintain the existing subway system and it is constantly shutting it down on weekends (while there are endless hugely disruptive events closing roads every weekend). GO Transit facilities are always far better maintained than TTC facilities. It is time that TTC get the funding it deserves to properly maintain the subway system so that it is reliable and doesn’t have to close on weekends as much.
Steve: The subway shutdowns are necessary for the maintenance that must be done. Co-ordination with other events is an issue, however, and the City has a bad habit of approving every street closure as an economic development measure whether it hurts transit or complicates major maintenance or not.
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Though I think the TTC management is far from perfect I think Byford, Upfold, Ross and the other ‘new brooms’ are actually doing a pretty good job in dragging the organization into the late 20th century. Where I think blame should go is to the COMMISSIONERS. They seem to have not clue or interest in how the system works, how it might be improved and the role of a Board. How can they allow meetings to be cancelled, reports not presented and the kinds of questions raise here ignored? It is a scandal that the Budget Committee did not meet for a year and that the Board does not fight for the TTC rather than saying “Yes sir,” to the demands made by the Mayor without pointing out the problems. The Board composition was changed a couple of years ago to include some citizen members – I am afraid this has not made it any better.
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GO Trains are run by the private sector whereas TTC is run by the public sector. Some have also praised the VIVA bus service on this site but VIVA is also run by the private sector whereas TTC is run by the public sector. TTC should as a pilot project have the private sector run some routes and then have the public vote on whether there was any improvement in service when run by the private sector.
Steve: GO Transit has the advantage of carrying far fewer passengers than the TTC and so keeping their facilities in good shape is relatively easy. Also, the folks who run the trains are not the people who maintain the infrastructure. Some of that is privatized, but some is in the public sector.
It is easy to slag off public sector workers while praising the private sector without looking at the differences in what is being done.
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I have been to a few TTC Board Meetings and I tend to agree. I have had a few face palm moments and even got a little annoyed at how many questions were being asked by the citizen members and even the elected members.
The board is simply out of touch with reality and a great deal of time would be saved if they knew what they were doing. Not sure how often it happens, Steve, but it seems like every board meeting items are sent off for staff to report back. If the board could just make up their mind and stick to a decision things would go smoother and quicker.
Perhaps it is just me but I get the impression that if the board knew anything about the TTC and transit the board meetings would finish hours earlier than they do.
Steve: The most embarrassing moments occur when questions trigger a look by everyone in my general direction as someone who might actually know the history behind an issue.
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What about postponing Line 1 subway extension into mid 2018?
Steve: (a) That only puts off the inevitable, and (b) is politically impossible given all the delays already. The real issue here is that York Region is not contributing anything to the deficit the line will run, nor is Queen’s Park who foisted the thing on us in the first place.
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Interesting that deferring Presto implementation will save money when having two fare systems was assuming to be costing more money…
Steve: Any staff reduction that would follow conversion would not occur in the 2017 budget year even if the conversion were on time. The extra cost comes in 2018 if co-existence continues past year-end. Meanwhile, with Presto not fully rolled out, fees that system would incur in 2017 are not triggered.
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I recall reading somewhere that the new extension will be run with every other, or every third, train being turned back (likely at Pioneer Village/Steeles West) only in the AM rush hours.
Steve: The plan has been to have the turnback north of Downsview, not at Steeles. Demand to York U does not warrant full service.
Perhaps extending this to all the time, plus closing early north of Steeles might be a worthwhile endeavour (10 or 11 pm?). There is nothing specific in the June 2008 Operating MOU (the agreement that has the TTC paying for the operation) that defines hours of operation. Though, I could see that the statement, “The TYSSE will be operated as a seamless extension of the existing subway system” could be interpreted to mean it must have the same operating hours.
While it would likely only be a small cost savings, it may have a huge impact on getting York Region users to pressure York to pony up the money needed to run the service they “deserve”.
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So has the final Operating Agreement been reached, or have we pushed TYSSE revenue service past “the end of 2017”?
This is going to explode politically again soon enough. Maybe the end-game being TTC says it will service equal to the SSE extension (half service turned back, trimmed hours), but if York Region wants they could pony up for the operational expenses to raise the service levels.
Steve: One big problem is that any subway has large fixed costs, and the saving from running less or no service at times is little more than the wages of the train drivers, and (in case of complete closing) station staff and some power costs.
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I have yet to see a mass takeover of a TTC station by spiders like has happened at Aldershot this year. They are big ones, and they are everywhere. In the tunnels, in the station, on the platforms. I have never seen anything like it.
Steve: They are, no doubt, private sector spiders planning a larger takeover!
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I just read about the addition of single-ride disposable NFC-enabled Presto tickets next year, much like Montreal has. This is the first I’ve heard mention of it. Was this always in the works or was it hastily added now? I found it interesting the only reason it made it into the news was because organizations serving the poor sounded the alarm about the need for replacing the vast number of tokens they hand out every year. How is the full financial benefit of Presto supposed to be realised if we’re going to be maintaining a parallel ticket system that may see heavy use? These tickets are also going to be even worse a non-recyclable waste than all the thermal-paper transfers and machine-issued ticket receipts already are.
Steve: At the risk of sounding non-PC, I am getting tired of the organizations serving the poor “sounding the alarm” about this over and over. The TTC has talked about the single use ticket for some time, and there are references to this in presentations from April 2016 and December 2015, at least. Some poverty advocates may not trust the TTC to actually implement this, but that is different from saying they are not planning to do so. I will come down hard on TTC and Presto for implementation cock-ups, but it is another thing for an issue that has already been addressed to show up again in the media.
That said, the TTC has done a terrible job of telling people what the “new” fare system will look like, in part because a public discussion of various options that should have occurred a year ago is tangled up in Metrolinx and City politics. I get questions all the time on basic issues.
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True, but the public perception is huge. The typical York resident sees a brand new subway and feels they are entitled to a train every five minutes or better just like every other station on the line. The politicians on York Region Council love to get all the glory for bringing them that ‘entitlement’ but don’t tell them they got the City of Toronto to pay for it via the TTC.
One would think a politician would love to tell the constituents they got them a service without needing their tax dollars to make it happen. Trouble is, when you aren’t paying the piper, the piper can freely start playing another tune.
What a day it will be when the TTC starts playing another tune on the tracks north of Steeles. THAT will make a bigger difference than the small dollar savings.
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How much savings in administrative costs can be realised by eliminating some TTC bureaucracy to be realised by merging TTC with Metrolinx?
Steve: It would be much more the other way around. TTC is huge compared to Metrolinx, and Metrolinx existing staff simply do not operate on the TTC’s scale on the operational side. For planning, the types of work done by the two organizations are quite different and so there is little duplication. Metrolinx does have HR and Financial departments, but they serve a tiny organization by comparison.
The issue of Metrolinx “taking over” the TTC comes up now and then, but there are certain assumptions about relative levels of productivity and accountability that don’t stand up to an apples to apples comparison.
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Glad to have yet another column of straight talk and worthwhile comments. A major problem we have in this carservative City are the false fiscal conservatives who tackle the obvious and yes, larger, costs of the transit system, while ignoring the many hidden and less obvious costs of private automobility, though the cars etc. can be very useful sometimes. An older figure from Vancouver indicated the totality of avoided costs/subsidies was c. $2,700 per car each year, and that’d be about $2,700,000,000 a year here, not counting inflation and check the vtpi.org for more info. Combine this with the extravagances of subways into sprawl, which is a reflection of the suburban/low-rise domination of the denser City, we’re in trouble, and often even the ‘good’ politicians don’t get upset enough, though they may be overwhelmed. One case in point is Mr. Perks and Mr. Layton’s apparent support of a local Front St extension between Strachan and Dufferin, exactly where a Downtown Relief Line was proposed to run 20-odd years ago. So all car and no transit, and while sure, Liberty Village needs access and they’ve been bled, the local politricks are leading towards a car-based ‘fix’,
We very much need a Vehicle Registration Tax; a tax or user fee for the drains of asphalted surfaces (and for everyone; everywhere), user-pay on the Gardiner to the same level as the Island Ferry, and some political will to set up some sensible but faster sub-regional transit, perhaps busways.
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How much money can be saved by shutting down the Sheppard subway?
York Region paid their share of the subway and also the cost increases as TTC botched the project resulting in very large delays and cost increases. Mr Cotnam has been very inconsistent on this issue: sometimes blindly supporting York Region and sometimes blindly opposing York Region.
Steve: York paid for the municipal share of the capital cost north of Steeles, but is contributing almost nothing to the operating cost. Moreover, fare revenue that the TTC had originally expected to receive from York U students travelling across the border from York Region has disappeared. The TTC expects to lose $30 million annually to operate the subway line. Given that about 40% of that is in York Region, their share would be $12 million simply on a pro rata by distance basis.
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The major benefit of Metrolinx taking over the TTC would be to get rid of the old style management that clings to power and refuses to change.
Since Metrolinx is paying for the Crosstown I was hoping to see Green & White LRT’s run by GO/Bombardier staff. Give them a chance to show everyone how things should be run. Why give it to the same old bunch?
Steve: You have an extremely rosy view of Metrolinx. Grass. Other side. Greener?
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You mistakenly grouped my first line with Cotnam’s comment quoted by me.
Steve: Fixed.
We will be paying our fare to be pocketed by the TTC.
Where did it go?
Steve: York U students complained that the single York Region fare they now pay to ride a YRT bus to the university campus would become a YRT+TTC fare if they are now forced to transfer at a subway station and ride south. It is my understanding that Presto will not charge an extra fare if people originating in York Region exit at the university, although this will require tap out validation. Therefore, fare revenue the TTC expected to get for a good chunk of cross-border travel won’t come to them.
Meanwhile, a substantial number of subway riders are people who are already using the TTC either at Finch or further south on the Spadina line. They represent zero new revenue. At least for those who live in Toronto, they will be contributing to the TTC through Toronto taxes, but York Region residents will get a much improved transit service at almost no cost on their tax base.
You are complaining about 12 million minus fare revenue from York Region riders but the TTC is losing many times that on the POP. How is it our fault that TTC negotiated such a crappy deal for themselves? How is it our fault that the Liberal government might have forced it on Toronto? If Toronto has such a problem with it, then Toronto can choose to vote for a different government in the next provincial election. With the Liberals in power for the last decade and a half, either you should be very happy with the status quo or vote for change but you can’t keep voting for the status quo and then forever crying and complaining about the same status quo that you voted for.
Steve: You really have not being paying attention to my political position. I have never voted Liberal, but have supported the NDP although they try my patience. I live in an NDP riding (provincially). As for the Tories, I lived through the dark ages with them in power. They are worse than the Liberals. Kathleen Wynne has been a huge disappointment, and I say this as someone who first met her in her days of municipal activism.
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Come to think of it, I wonder if YRT, and by extension, York Region Council, have considered how many of their own fares that carry commuters across the border will be lost by York residents who will get dropped off at the subway north of Steeles or park in one of the relatively few parking spots available. It may require more tax dollars or service cuts even before York Region residents start crying to their councillors when the TTC cuts back service to try to reduce their costs.
Indecently, there will be no parking spots at VCC and the 407 station will have only 600 spaces. The TTC will collect the parking fee, which must be a minimum of DOUBLE the average of the TTC or YRT fare, whichever is lower. That’s $7.25 based on today’s fares.
I didn’t think it was necessary to state this again in this thread, but I am a York Region resident and pay substantial property taxes only to see it go to the subway-subway-subway mentality that afflicts far too many up here.
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Good article.
I had hope Tory would do what right with taxes while creating a better balance between building for those that have and those that don’t in this City. I won’t completely judge until after next year but he is showing clear signs of being just another “kick the can” politician.
He even had the nerve to test the idea to sell Toronto Hydro today. That’s the short sighted, undemocratic nonsense that has got Wynne in a rich pickle at the moment. Likely more Capital budget (Smarttrack related), but similar to the Political games & insufficient funding on the Operational end none the less.
The City’s Left will spend but mainly in the current transit core growth or as they see fit for others, The Right won’t spend a dime and will tackle issue mainly outside the core and so far the present “Centrist” Mayor is hiding from inevitable taxation by trying to take pages from both playbooks to achieve that avoidance. This term was the right Political climate to implement the necessary taxes with moderate support from both sides. That ship may be sailing away. Not good.
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As someone that’s worked for (but not at) both TTC and Metrolinx, I can directly compare the experiences. TTC is very regimented and very hard to change their opinions, but they have both a strong commitment to keeping costs down and very strict rules for technical submissions that drives up the quality (if it’s not good enough, you redo it for free). Metrolinx is easier to work for in a way, as they are more willing to give extra time and/or money (for example, 2016 is when Metrolinx decided to have a corporate standard for which coordinate system to use). However, there are constantly shifting project goals and a hurry-up-and-wait timing where things will sit dormant until they are needed urgently or vice versa.
For clarification, the 30M loss per year is net of any additional fare revenues. It is possible to successfully complain about two bad projects at the same time.
This project was thrust down the throat of Toronto by Greg Sorbara and Jim Flaherty, the first getting a subway in his riding and the second getting the 407 East extension to his riding.
It’s not a matter of fault, but cost and benefit. This will be a significant cost to the TTC (who are facing a $170M deficit this year, which would be about a $0.50 fare hike). The cost of operating the TYSSE will be about $0.10 per fare. I believe it’s at least partially responsible for Toronto to be considering fare-by-distance on the subway as part of “fare integration” just so that they can charge more AND fill the terms of the MOU as a seamless extension of the existing system.
You seem to have a very bipolar view of the world. All governments are capable of both good and bad decisions. You can be very unhappy with the status quo, but still believe that it’s better to any of the possible alternatives.
Transit is perverse in its funding implications. Lower ridership means lower farebox revenue, but also lower service demands and consequently lower subsidy requirements.
Ideally, Tory would have pushed for a solid tax increase in his first year, which would make every subsequent change both smaller and less necessary.
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For the issue of service on lightly used routes. I think it about time to consider every hour service (or 45 mins) on lightly used routes like 33, 169 etc etc. During midday weekdays and weekends. Might not be a whole lot of savings but it better than running empty buses.
Steve: So you care more about the optics than the service, even with only a small saving. The problem is that the focus is on trivial savings while we waste billions on projects like the SSE.
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Transit is perverse in its funding implications, and theory is great until it is put into practice.
I questioned whether YRT had even considered the change, but assuming they did, what is the likelihood they predict it accurately? Assuming they hit it on the nail, then they can reduce the service level and hence the subsidy, from day one of the opening of the subway. That sounds great, but it leaves the rest who will still use their service to get to the new subway, or to whatever other destination they go to now, with less frequent service than they do now.
We are, after all, talking about YRT where the term “frequent service” means under 20 minutes — or is that under 30 minutes? I’m never quite sure. 10 minutes or less is strictly reserved for the VIVA services. The smallest unit of reduction in service, generally the removal of one bus, can result in a change of headway from 18 minutes to 24 minutes. Heck, the Elgin Mills route 80 has a peak service with about 22 minutes service. Reducing that route involves taking off one of its two buses to give 44 minute headway which they do outside of peak hours.
Getting back to the topic at hand, YRT’s “sweet deal” is going to come back to bite them, in more ways than one. Them having to reduce their own service is one thing, but at some point, I see the TTC doing it as well.
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So Steve, you suggest that we keep running empty buses. There are currently so many different routes with very frequent service in neighbourhoods/areas like Rosedale, Forest Hill, Mount Pleasant, etc which mostly run empty especially empty bus after empty bus late at night; those savings are not trivial.
Steve: You are full of crap on this one. “Very frequent service”?
If you are going to talk about well-served neighbourhoods, at least get your facts straight because it destroys your argument when you’re wrong.
You and Downtown councillors describe a much needed Scarborough subway as a waste but a “Downtown rail deck park ‘desperately needed,’ a Downtown councillor says”. Please see the citynews link. So, a much needed Scarborough subway is described by Downtown councillors as a waste but a fancy multi-billion dollar park over train tracks in Downtown is described by Downtown councillors as “desperately needed”. Please help shed some light on this.
Steve: I have problems with the cost of the park too given competing demands for scarce capital, and the very real chance that a few pet projects like this will eat up money that is needed more elsewhere. Don’t conflate me with “downtown councillors” just because I think the SSE is a waste.
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You complain about lack of parking spots but you should have told us before that you wanted more parking and might have saved us a few billion dollars on a completely unnecessary subway and we would have happily paid for more parking lots instead of a subway extension that will largely run empty north of Steeles. I have always thought that the Scarborough subway should have been built instead of a subway to the empty fields of Vaughan though building to York University made sense.
407 station will have 600 parking spots and a ridership of 10 at best. Why did we even construct a station at the 407? And we thought that Bessarion, Rosedale, Summerhill, Castle Frank, Old Mill, and the like were a waste.
Steve: As you well know, the Vaughan extension was forced on us by Queen’s Park who are also responsible for the SSE which exists only because they wanted to buy votes with their “subway champion”.
As for little used stations, Castle Frank carries only slightly fewer riders than Lawrence East, while McCowan, Midland and Ellesmere all fall well below the others you have cited except for Bessarion. You really need to do better research before making comments like this.
See TTC 2014 subway station usage counts (2015 has not yet been published).
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Why can’t we just have an “adult” conversation on road tolls many other cities do that or a congestion charge yes nobody wants to pay more but I am sick and tired as a transit user to having to pay more all the time. On top of that the city loses so much because of gridlock yet nothing is done to combat that and instead charge more for TTC.
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If only we could run the TTC as an essential service and not as like making profits and such like it could be run much better also I wish that some of the TTC board had been made up of riders or people with transit background.
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Where did I ever complain about a lack of parking spots?!? I was pointing out that there are not very many parking spots available at subway stations north of Steeles because York Region is so very car-centric. So much so that I find another poster’s use of the term “Caronto” instead of “Toronto” hilarious when viewed from my home in Richmond Hill.
A huge group-think up here believes that their commute has to involve the car, that gives us a transit modal split of only 5-10%. Those thoughts also tend to believe that some form of public transit can be nothing less than a subway line, and one that they can drive to. Heaven forbid they have to use a bus to get between their home and the subway station.
I’ve been saying for a long time, and publicly since 2008, that rapid transit in York Region would be best served by LRT instead of subway. Unfortunately, we’ve pissed off a whole lot of money for an 8 km Sorbara Subway instead of getting three to four times the rapid transit reach that LRT could have accomplished with a significant part, if not all, of it already in service. Now we are faced with the juggernaut of supporters of the Jones Express.
Setting aside my belief that the whole extension should not have been built, off the top of my head:
1) To give reason to build no parking at VCC and move the drive-to-the-subway crowd to a field to park their car.
2) To (try to) get people coming across the 407 to park there and head downtown on the subway.
3) To support that great concept of the “mobility hub” because we’re going to be building a busway along the 407 any minute now.
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This project is such a bad idea, it just makes me sad. The Millennium Park in Chicago is the “comparable” which cost $482M in 2004 to build. If you look at the Mega-Casino proposals under Mayor Ford, the air-rights to the USRC (which are owned jointly by CP and CNR) are a huge unknown and they can’t be strong-armed with the threat of expropriation. These have been estimated to be up to $500 per sq.ft (basically a price too good to refuse). Toronto paid $60 per sq.ft. (plus HST) for the air-rights to build the Fort York Bridge. So using this as the conservative low estimate, that’s $67M alone (the high end being $555M). Next, CN and CP maintain emergency running rights through the USRC, so this park would need vents for diesel fumes even assuming this is built after the USRC is electrified. The Bathurst Bridge is a historic structure. Finally, Metrolinx has plans to build a “upper level” station over Bathurst North yard. It’s almost like this was done by Planners who don’t have the first clue about the rail network.
If the park were combined with the “Spadina GO Station” and developers’ cash were used to pay the City’s share, it could be workable, but it’d still be in the billion range. Not sure how the suburbs would feel about development funds being diverts for a large downtown park though.
I think road tolls should be sold as reducing traffic and reducing taxes. Assuming $0.26/km (average 407 toll), 39km of Toronto expressway, and 10% of 200K AADT, the City would raise $74M per year for a HOT lane. I prefer something closer to the London system: an entry fee plus an ownership fee. $100 vehicle registration tax ($110M) plus a $5 out-of-town congestion charge (assuming 25% of 400K AADT) would bring in $292.5M plus make transit very competitive ($5 to drive plus parking vs. $6 for TTC).
Wow, interesting concept: competent people in charge instead of politicians. Some days I feel like I’d prefer to live in a constitutional bureaucracy.
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I was speaking of subway stations ONLY which cost gazillions of dollars to build and NOT the ultra-cheap RT stations dumped on Scarborough which cost only small change compared to super-expensive subway stations. Besides, I was NOT saying that Bessarion, Rosedale, Summerhill, Castle Frank, Old Mill, and the like should be closed (they should NEVER have been built) and what I was doing was to say that the 407 station will be even worse than those in terms of ultra-low ridership numbers.
Steve: No, you complained about low usage stations.
BALANCING THE BUDGET
You support keeping low ridership bus routes, keeping low ridership subway stations open, etc and you also oppose any salary/benefits/pension reductions, oppose job-cuts, etc and so how do you suppose the budget is to be balanced?
From the Toronto Sun: TTC spokesman Brad Ross confirmed the TTC saves about $2.2 million each year by contracting out its service lines. In addition, “by contracting out washroom cleaning, the TTC avoided employee costs of about $1.5 million,” Ross said.
That’s $3.7 million (over $4 million in 2016 dollars) saved every year from privatising only a small proportion of TTC cleaning jobs.
Steve: Now you’re turning this into blanket issue about union benefits and job security. The savings from the conversion of cleaning jobs turned out to be overstated, by the way. As for low usage stations and bus routes, the marginal cost of keeping them operating is a very small portion of the total TTC budget.
From the CBC, the city saves $11.9 million (over $13 million in 2016 dollars) every year and that’s from having privatised only a small proportion of the garbage pick-up.
Steve: You may have noticed that extension of contracting out has not progressed east of Yonge even though we continue to have a Council that would support this move. Turns out it does not save as much as originally claimed.
My concern is balancing the budget and NOT supporting any pro-privatisation ideology. If privatisation is not embraced, then the budget balances will have to come from service reductions and/or job cuts since no one is willing to accept a salary/benefits/pension cut.
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Of course one could raise more money instead of privatizing or cutting services.
Contracting out the garbage was one of those initiatives where the directive came down from on high that “this will work.” So it does not surprise me that savings of $XX million are calculated. What is not announced so publicly is the creation of many management jobs (who get paid lots more than those “overpaid City garbage collectors”) to watch over the contracted services, to make sure that the contracted work is actually done, without taking advantage of loopholes.
Interesting that Green For Life (GFL) only held on to the contract in my district (Etobicoke) for one cycle, and has since been displaced by Miller. You could either say that this is the beauty of markets in action, or you could say that contractors may be a shifty and unreliable bunch where you are always looking for a better one.
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Or, perhaps, the Mayor and Councillors should have the stones to tell their constituents that a progressive city actually charges realistic taxes for services rendered and that living in a big city doesn’t come for free. Also, that owning a house with an assessed value of $500,000.00 while only paying $3,439.87 in taxes – including School Board costs – or a $1 million home and paying $6,879.73 seems to be pretty cheap when apartment renters can easily pay up to 3 times that amount with nothing to show for it at the end of the year as far as assets. Don’t believe me? Here’s the link to the City of Toronto property tax calculator. Note that that also includes a “Transit Expansion” cost, which is code for Rob Ford’s only contribution to public transit in this City.
“Balancing a budget” does *NOT* *EVER* consist solely of cutting, cutting, cutting to find “efficiencies.” That is the lazy politician’s answer to dealing with *not* dealing with potentially angry constituents who have, over the past 5 years come to believe that they deserve something for free – because RoFo and now John Tory have told them so. How many people will benefit from the big money being spent to fix up the Gardiner Expressway? How many streetcar riders still languish in their “transit only”[sic] lane on King St., behind one or two left-turning cars? Running the transit system isn’t cheap in this city and servicing all the suburbs with transit, which was forced onto the TTC by suburban representatives on Metro Council years ago, made it so the TTC didn’t have an annual balanced budget because of losing the zone fares but still having to pay to run the service. Those same suburban councillors of today still want their cake and want to eat it (transit service for the voters) but don’t want to increase the budget proportionately to maintain, never mind increase service where it’s warranted.
I will say it again, as I have on this site in the past: You want to live in the Big City? There’s Big City prices connected with that. Don’t brag about your wonderful house on your 1-acre lot out of the one side of your mouth and then gripe about those “high taxes” out the other side. Always doing things on the cheap just means you’re pushing the burden down road for future residents to deal with and making sure that present-day residents don’t get the services they need to live in a functioning “world-class” city….
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In my district (downtown multi-unit building east of Yonge) it was exactly the opposite. Miller won the first contract and GFL got the recent renewal.) Plus ça change!
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I have a….let’s say ground-level…..inside view of garbage in the City of Toronto. I can see the case for both privatization and keeping operations in-house. Needless to say, the advantages and disadvantages are nowhere near as self-evident and clear-cut as either the privatizers (politicians [of certain stripes], industry lobbies, and the usual pundits) or the in-housers (politicians [of certain stripes], unions, and the usual pundits) would have it.
From my ground-level view, it’s the committment to doing your job by employees, and making sure that the tools are there and the jobs make sense by management, that results in a successful operation. There is absolutely no guarantee that either in-house or contracted-out will deliver better service simply because they are in-house or contracted-out. But contracting out certainly gives rise to a professional class of contract managers which would not be necessary if the work is kept in-house.
In other words, you can’t say that privatizing the TTC will automatically result in greater efficiencies. The operators are still needed, the garage workers are still needed. But on the TTC’s side, there would need to be dozens, if not hundreds, or new employees who do nothing but review contracts for loopholes, deal with violations/preceived violations of contracts, and even follow around buses and streetcars all day.
And I’m not making the last up: there are City of Toronto employees, who are typically in management and therefore well-paid, who follow around contractor garbage trucks all day, and then write reports on what they observe. This stuff isn’t necessary when it’s operated in-house.
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We should not forget that the house prices have little relation to the owner’s financial capabilities. A person or family who bought the house in the city decades ago, may have seen its potential sale price growing 10 or 20 times, but their income remains modest and they cannot use their book wealth unless they sell their house and move elsewhere. It does not feel right to evict people with modest means from the city, just because their house happen to be located in a desirable location.
Small property tax increases are OK. But in order to fund ambitious city building and improvement programs, we should rely on tools like sales taxes and road tolls.
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We should rely on user fees and NOT property taxes, sales taxes, other taxes. Road tolls are okay to fund road construction/repairs but NOT transit. Transit fares should fund transit construction and operation. Property taxes should be used for housing/building related infrastructure construction/maintenance like clean/waste water infrastructure (including treatment plans), etc. It’s not okay to make drivers pay for transit that they will never use just like it would not be okay for Toronto taxes to pay for say library construction in Brampton – a library that Torontonians will likely NEVER use. It’s about fairness – would you be willing to pay my grocery bill and if not, then why should drivers pay for transit that they will never use?
Steve: The problem with your claim is that both roads and transit are general public goods with benefits beyond the immediate users. For example, without GO and TTC, the downtown core could not develop to the level it has because employees could not get to work. There is a benefit directly to property developers, to companies that can locate centrally, and to the city as a whole because of the economic vitality. Similarly the road network has wide benefit beyond those who drive on it. If you really want “user pay”, I look forward to the toll that will pay for the half-billion reconstruction of the Gardiner/DVP connection.
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Not necessary to supervise employees when the work is done by public sector workers? That’s great – let’s get rid of various ombudsmen, auditor generals, etc. Keep in mind that politicians are also public sector workers but accountability is guaranteed for “in-house” (public sector) operations and so why waste taxpayer dollars on ensuring accountability? Let’s also get rid of the civilian police boards and various oversight agencies like College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, etc as police, doctors, etc are public sector employees and hence “operated in-house”.
A few years ago, there was a westbound 85 (Sheppard East) bus parked at Agincourt mall for more than two hours while the driver went shopping and dining (I did complain to the TTC but I was given one of their standard copy-pasted responses I got in relation to my other complaints). I think that the city should follow around not just contracted workers but also public sector workers as people are people – most of the people who are working for private companies picking municipal garbage west of Yonge St are the same ones as those who worked for the city and so, there is nothing that I can think of that would cause “hard-working” city workers to become lazy overnight just because their employer is now a private company instead of the municipal government as before. I agree with many of Michael Forest’s previous posts but the claim I quoted above is outrageous and has ZERO scientific basis.
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TTC driver speaking.
Every time I see the claims of low fare evasion rates, I laugh. The ones that evade fares habitually know not to try it on streetcars, they take the bus to the subway and grab a transfer there so they look legitimate. Rates are at least double what TTC management thinks.
Example. The worst route out of my garage has anywhere up to 10 people per HOUR who are “short today”, or “forgot to get a transfer”, or “will pay at the station”, or or or. I’ve counted a few times, just for my curiosity. Now, that’s cash fares only, so bump it up for fake passes and tokens, and then again for folks that started on another bus, or walked in through the bus driveway. Fare evasion rate on that route is significantly into the double digits. Obviously, that’s the exception and not the rule, but even the best major routes from my garage are solidly in the 1-2% range as well, so the claims of 2% overall are a joke.
The problem is, when TTC drivers call in to report fare evasion… head office doesn’t care. There’s one guy I hate. Walks past the driver, then when he goes to get off he will come up to the front and say “give me a transfer or I’ll kill you.” I see him about once a month, he’s never once paid. Called it in several times because, hello, death threats, and they won’t act on it… So of course the drivers don’t bother to report it after a while, and then another passenger sees that and they stop paying too.
20 more fare inspectors? Not enough, aim for 50 for now, and reassess whether to replenish or taper down in a few years. Devote a few of those to cycling between the bus bays at fare-paid stations nabbing people walking in through the driveway; devote some more to riding undercover in pairs on random bus routes. Start nabbing a few people, and see what happens to evasion rates.
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Property tax is not a “wealth” tax – it is a tax collected to fund services. In Toronto, the assessed values are typically higher than outside the city. This means that the mil rate can be lower. To properly compare property tax rates one needs to look at similar families with similar accommodation and the actual dollars paid. Comparing mil rates does not tell the property tax story.
Having said that, Toronto has frozen property tax increases for four years since the megacity was formed. If the inflation rate in each of those periods was 3% – then we are about 12% behind the 8 ball. Toronto does need increased property – and other – taxes, because of the above and also because we do not have enough money to fund our needs. It is not an “efficiency” to live in a declining city.
In conclusion, bring on the “revenue tools” – even be honest and call them taxes. Don’t however, engage in Toronto bashing by improperly analysing tax rates and then suggesting that means Toronto is getting a free ride. The Toronto Star regularly adds to this misunderstanding by printing “feature” articles that are poorly researched and inaccurate.
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