Day: January 12, 2025

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TTC 2025 Budget Meeting Follow-Up

This article includes observations and updates from the January 10, 2025 TTC Board meeting. For background information on the Operating and Capital Budgets, please refer to my previous articles:

The budget report and presentation deck are available on the TTC’s site:

This was the first Board meeting for Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik and Councillor Alejandra Bravo as Commissioners. They replaced Councillors Chris Moise and Stephen Holyday.

There was relatively little debate on the details of the budget with the overall sense being relief that the TTC will be able to make some improvements in service in 2025. However, three Commissioners proposed amendments to the recommendations that foretell a more actively involved Board in setting policy in the coming year.

Normally the Board agendas are released at least a week before meetings in keeping with practice by the City Clerk for Council and Committee agendas. Although it appears, according to Commissioner Matlow, that the budget report was completed a few weeks ago, it was not released until a few days before the meeting when the Mayor and TTC Chair held a press conference to announce the high points. This may serve their post-holiday scheduling, but not the public’s (or other Board members’) ability to digest and comment on the budget in time for the Board meeting.

Motion by Commissioner Matlow

[The Board] Directs the TTC CEO and Director – Commission Services, to publicly release the TTC’s annual budget at least 10 business days prior to its consideration by the Commission.

For many years, the budget has arrived as a fait accompli at the Board with no room for debate about priorities or changes in underlying assumptions about the Board’s goals even when a new Board inherits the philosophy behind an outgoing Board’s budget. The Board has taken a very hands off approach leaving decisions to management with, as we have seen recently, less than ideal results as the priority for tight budgets compromised system integrity.

The motions below are intended to re-establish an active Board as the TTC and City look to establish a stronger role for transit, and to set priorities before budgets lock in past assumptions.

Motion by Commissioner Bravo

[The Board] Establish a Strategic Planning Committee to assist the TTC Board in managing strategic planning and priorities, including through a Ridership Growth Strategy and other existing strategic documents, and direct the Director, Commission Services to report back to the February 24, 2025 TTC Board meeting on a proposed structure and meeting schedule after canvassing Commissioners’ interest in committee membership.

Amend the 2025 Schedule of Meetings to add a Special Meeting of the Board in September 2025 to consider recommendations from the Strategic Planning Committee, receive an update on the 2026 Budget, and discuss budget priorities informing the development of the 2026 TTC Operating Budget; 2026-2035 Capital Budget and Plan and 15-Year Capital Investment Plan and Real Estate Investment Plan Update.

Direct the Director, Commission Services to include a Special Meeting to consider recommendations from the Strategic Planning Committee, receive an update on the next year’s budget, and discuss budget priorities informing the development of the next year’s budgets in future year’s recommended annual schedule of Board and Committee meetings for the Board’s approval, in accordance with Section 20 of the By-law to Govern Board Proceedings.

Chair Myers proposed overlapping goals based on the TTC’s Ridership Growth Strategy. The original RGS from 2003 operated from the premise that management should tell the Board what might be possible as a menu of costed options, rather than precluding discussion on the basis that “we can’t afford it”. The 2018 update was written in the context of rising demand and crowding, and included changes such as the two-hour transfer and GO Transit fare integration. Unsurprisingly, it flagged key factors for both existing and potential new riders: trip duration, wait time, crowding, affordability and reliability. Fare changes can only go so far, and service quality is inherent in four of these five.

The points about hiring strategy are important because past attempts to implement service improvements were hamstrung by “we have no staff”. Establishing priorities well before the budget is finalized can reduce lead times to expand service. (A related change in the 2025 Operating Budget speaks to the need for an improved recruitment process within the TTC.)

Motion by Chair Myers

TTC Staff conduct public consultations and develop a Ridership Growth Strategy 2.0, building upon the Ridership Growth Strategy 2018-2022 and report back to the Board in July 2025;

TTC staff develop a hiring strategy on the basis of the approved Ridership Growth Strategy 2.0 and report back to the Board by October 2025; and

TTC staff use the approved Ridership Growth Strategy 2.0 and associated hiring strategy to inform the 2026 TTC Budget process.

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