A common, but troubling practice in talking about transit is the attempt to build a “business case” as if city’s transit network can be examined through a rather simplistic management school lens. Everything is reduced to a monetary value, be that direct spending, spinoffs, or the notional value of benefits.

Aside from basic errors in methodology, this approach assumes that the supposed value of transit spending can be gleaned from a one-dimensional view of its so-called worth in dollars and cents. Bad enough that this practice is entrenched in Metrolinx, an agency that sets priorities based on political, not financial, evaluations thereby undermining the credibility of financial analyses. The scheme has trickled down to the municipal level with a TTC/UofT study intended to show that money for transit has financial benefits and should be encouraged for the good of city and country.

You might ask why a transit advocate has misgivings about this exercise, but the answer lies in my long-standing conservatism (with a very small “c”) about public spending generally. Megaprojects bring press coverage, especially with the opportunity to announce over and over the latest step, no matter how trivial, as work inches along. This tactic works as long as there is success to report, and we just don’t talk about abject failures like Line 5 Crosstown any more often than needed.

A huge problem with the TTC’s gaping hole in Capital funding, and to a lesser extent on its Operating side, is that the cry “please, Sir, I want some more” for transit support wears thin with would-be partners. Moreover, everything on Toronto’s wish list does not necessarily align with political priorities elsewhere, and it must compete with demands from other cities and provinces. Thus the desire to show that transit spending has a great “payback”, but that number hides fundamental questions.

The problem with spending for its own sake is that one rarely hears the question “what else might we do with these billions” or “is this project really worth its cost compared to other demands on public funds”. How much is not built or operated because some other project took priority, or the growing cost of works already underway crowded other new schemes off of the table?

Into our political environment, one rife with patronage, cronyism and outright corruption, comes an attempt to justify spending on transit as an inherently good thing.

In 2022, the TTC launched a joint study with the University of Toronto Mobility Network which surfaced as part of the 2023 and 2024 Budgets. The goals of the study were “to identify and quantify the economic and other key benefits resulting from investment in transit and the TTC”:

• Economic benefits realized from investments in transit services and capital works that enhance TTC’s existing transit network
• Economic impact of the TTC on the local, regional, provincial and national economy
• Qualitative and quantitative social, equity, health and environmental benefits and the economic spin off benefits derived from these other benefits
• Impacts should the necessary service and capital investments not be made in the TTC

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