A Grand Plan

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A Visit to the City Archives

Now and then, I spend my time browsing through the photograph collections at the City Archives, and this activity can be rather addictive.  The main page includes a link to a search page where you can start your travels.  Note that the indexing is spotty, and if you find items in a series that you really like, it is often worthwhile drilling down into the linked pages for the specific collections and looking for a “browse” link that will bring up the entire content.  I can’t put links to such pages here as they are built on the fly.

After looking at photos of my old neighbourhood in North Toronto, I stumbled on paintings of the Yonge Subway by the artist, Sigmund Serafin, whose paintings of Bloor and University subway stations are posted at Transit Toronto.  I have recently learned more about Serafin’s history, and that post will be updated in the new year.

I will leave the joy of finding intriguing bits and pieces to you, but there are a number of items I thought worthwhile to whet your appetite. Continue reading →

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“Alternative Financing” and the GTTA

At its November meeting, the GTTA approved a report on “Alternative Financing and Procurement” together with a list of projects that will be studied for this approach. For those who seek to understand Queen’s Park’s schemes for transit infrastructure funding, their report provides interesting reading.

In brief, Ontario seeks to have private sector partners undertake financing and possibly construction of new infrastructure up to the point that they go into service.  At that point, the accumulated cost becomes, in effect, a mortgage on the infrastructure to be paid off over an extended period.  This gives the private sector partner (ironically, possibly a large public sector pension plan) a guaranteed long-term return while nothing appears as a charge on the Province’s books.

In the short term, this keeps the budget looking rosy, but as any reputable accountant will tell you, future commitments must appear in your long-term budget plans.  Someone has to pay for all that infrastructure eventually.  In the past, the cost of transit infrastructure (i.e. the interest on capital debt) was buried in the municipal and provincial budgets rather than appearing as a line item in the transit operating budgets.

Long term, we risk having a future government whose support for transit is, at best, tenuous who might point to all the debt servicing costs and say “don’t ask us for operating subsidies, we’re already paying a bundle for your capital debt”.  This sort of remark has already shown up in some budget papers in past years at the municipal level in Toronto.  It’s the invisible part of the iceberg of transit financing.

The projects to be studied for alternative financing fall into two groups diagrammed on maps on the GTTA site.  As I mentioned in my accompanying post on the “Quick Wins, Phase 2”, the concept of “regional” transit has become rather expansive.  Projects are included that might, in the past, have been treated as “local” and outside of the GTTA’s purview.  This comes partly from a recognition that transit anywhere helps the region as a whole, and partly from the desire to move as many projects off of local budgets as possible.

The projects that will be evaluated for AFP include:

  • SuperGo electrification of the Lake Shore corridor.
  • GO rail expansions include using the CPR North Toronto subdivision and, possibly, the station at Summerhill to serve new routes on CPR branch lines.
  • LRT expansions include the Transit City lines as well as the Hurontario and Dundas lines proposed for Mississauga.
  • Converting the SRT to use Mark II RT cars and extending it north to Malvern.
  • Richmond Hill subway extension
  • VIVA extensions in various corridors and conversion to exclusive lane operation.
  • Circumferential  GO/GTTA BRT network

This is a very large bundle of projects.   As usual, Ontario plans to call on Ottawa for 1/3 funding.  Whether they would provide anything, either directly or through their own AFP scheme, remains to be seen.  The problem remains that any current spending creates a future debt service charge, and Ottawa has always been loathe to fund what are, in effect, ongoing operating costs.

None of these facilities will begin operations, and therefore become charges on various operating budgets, until after the next provincial election in 2011.  In the short term, the creative accounting allows us to launch into a rosy transit future, but this must be sustained with solid, ongoing funding for operations.  A problem for politicians still in their infancy, but a serious concern for those observers who, like me, take the long view of transit’s financing and growth as a major part of the GTTA.

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Thirty-Five Years

November 2007 marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the TTC’s decision to retain streetcar operations in Toronto.  Godfrey Mallion wrote me recently asking if I would reflect on the events of past decades prompting this post.

When the Streetcars for Toronto Committee formed in 1972, our goal was to fight the proposed removal of streetcars from the St. Clair route which, at the time, ran from Keele Loop to Mt. Pleasant & Eglinton.  The TTC had surplus trolley buses from the Yonge 97 route (Eglinton Station to Glen Echo) that was replaced when the subway opened to York Mills Station, and these buses were to operate on St. Clair.  The fact that the TTC didn’t have anywhere near enough trolley buses to replace the streetcars, and a substantial service cut was required to make this work, undermined the proposal from the beginning.

The TTC’s long-range plans foresaw removal of all streetcars by 1980 when the Queen Subway would open.  Pause here for laughter because it was clear, even then, that a Queen line was not going to be built any time soon, if ever.  However, the streetcar fleet was wearing out, and St. Clair’s conversion was to be the beginning of the end.

A few years earlier, the TTC had worked with Hawker-Siddeley (whose Thunder Bay plant is now owned by Bombardier) on the development of a new streetcar for Toronto.  Its cost was quite reasonable for its day, and one big advantage was that it evolved from the existing PCC, a car long-proven on Toronto’s streets.  It did not have to be re-invented.  Work on this car stopped cold when Queen’s Park got into the high tech transit business with Maglev trains and GO Urban.

Toronto’s decision to retain its streetcars came at the beginning of a light rail renaissance in North America, although the real leadership came from cities like Edmonton, San Diego and Calgary.

Over the years, Streetcars for Toronto, and later I as an individual advocate, were involved in many issues:

  • Implementation of trolleybuses on Bay Street as a hoped-for first step in renewal and expansion of the network.
  • Advocacy for LRT technology to build a network of suburban lines at a time when much of the suburbs did not yet exist.
  • A detailed review of operational practices on downtown streetcar lines to address service quality.
  • Advocacy for increased transit funding, not just as capital megaprojects (usually subways), but for day-to-day operations.
  • Advocacy for what became the Harbourfront and Spadina streetcar lines.  This started in the 70s, but only bore fruit two decades later.
  • Advocacy for improved service quality as a TTC goal leading to the Ridership Growth Strategy.
  • Renewed advocacy for LRT leading to the Transit City plan.

Continue reading →

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Union Station Revitalization

On Wednesday, November 14, the City of Toronto will host an open house at Union Station to display plans for the station from 12:30 to 6:30 pm.  Further information on the Union Station project is available on the City’s website.

Please note that although I am a member of the Union Station Revitalization Public Advisory Group for this project, the following comments reflect my personal opinion, not that of the USRPAG.

Today, the National Post reported GO Transit’s Gary McNeil as saying that GO should buy the station to take it out of the hands of “dithering politicians”.  McNeil, along with others who mused recently about taking over the TTC, should stick to running their own businesses before they weigh in on City matters.

Union Station’s future was mired for years in a failed scheme to have it managed on a long-term contract by a private company, and there was good reason to believe both that the selection process for a private partner and the financial situation for the City were less than ideal.  Much time was wasted in this exercise.

Although the detailed report is not yet public, some indication of the short-term spending requirements has already appeared in the Budget Analyst’s notes for the City’s Capital Budget.  Some Council members will groan about the high cost of owning this heritage station, and McNeil’s proposal that GO would happily take the building on will have an eager audience.  They should think twice. 

GO has been starved for funding for well over a decade, and the last thing it needs is the expense of bringing an aging and poorly-maintained station up to first class condition.  Moreover, GO’s operations will soon fall under the GTTA which may have its own spending priorities.

Meanwhile, some members of Council mused recently about shops and markets in Union Station.  This is a nice idea, but why couldn’t they wait for the staff report on the station to come out? 

A fish market at Union, if nothing else, will lend a distinct aroma to Gary McNeil’s trains.  For those long winter nights when trains languish miles from Union Station, McNeil might add a self-serve grill to the GO concourse so hungry passengers can eat their catch-of-the-day while it’s still fresh.

Union Station needs a lot of work to handle the expected growth in demand over the coming decades.  Many agencies need to work together with each other, with the politicians and with the public to make Union Station the great hub it can be for downtown’s transportation systems.

Those who take off in their own directions wanting only to read their name in the National Post as often as possible do nothing to aid this vital project.

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A Made in Ontario One Cent Solution

Later today, we can expect our friends in Ottawa to announce that indeed the GST will be reduced from six to five percent.  Once the dancing in the streets winds down, we need to focus attention on Queen’s Park.

The idea that one cent of the GST should be redirected to municipalities was first raised by Mayor Miller of Toronto and gradually attracted support from other “big city” mayors across the land.  Even outgoing Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara endorsed the idea about a week ago.  Alas, Stephen Harper’s government wants nothing to do with this scheme.  That’s their prerogative.

However, if Queen’s Park were really serious about funding local governments, they would move into the space vacated by Ottawa and raise the PST by one percent.  This money would be dedicated to Ontario municipalities.

Of course, Dalton McGuinty would have to actually defend this position saying that cities and towns really need the money, and if that nasty Mr. Harper won’t give it to them, our Dalton will simply do the taxing at the provincial level.  It’s easy to blame Ottawa for problems, much harder to take action locally.

The marginal cost to Ontario taxpayers would be zero — one percent is one percent regardless of who collects it.  The cost to Queen’s Park would be zero because this would be new revenue simply passed through to local governments.

This approach would undermine the campaign to get Ottawa at the table for transit funding.  However, we will wait a very, very long time before a federal government of any stripe makes real commitments to transit that don’t come with severe time and eligibility constraints.  (Even the Liberals would only fund new hybrid buses and other projects that could be construed as a contribution to the Kyoto protocol goals.  Replacement and rebuilding to maintain what we already have wasn’t on the table.)

We really need to start funding transit infrastructure and operations with local provincial and municipal revenues.  Transit should not be hostage to Ottawa’s hatred for the municipal sector and for Toronto in particular.

Is anyone at Queen’s Park listening?

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Getting On GO Transit

At the GTTA Board meeting yesterday (see previous post for additional information on this), GO Transit presented an overview of its plans for additional parking on the network.  I won’t go into the fine details here, but broadly this contained two important directions:

  • GO is moving toward parking structures, possibly in conjuction with development of its parking lot properties, as an alternative to continued outward expansion of the lots.
  • The target growth rate is from 1,500 to 2,000 spaces per year.

GO currenly operates 48,500 parking spaces, and the park-and-ride sector now account for 67% of ridership.  Other modal shares are kiss-and-ride (15%), walking (9%), local transit (8%) and cycling (.5% to 1%).

In the long run, parking is not sustainable at its current modal share.  Assuming a 20-year growth rate in the middle of GO’s cited range (1,750), this would give 35,000 more spaces.  However, GO expects its riding to double over the next 20 years, and external factors such as a stepp rise in oil prices could accelerate this.  Clearly, parking will handle a lower, even if still important, proportion of total ridership.  A further problem is that a route such as Lakeshore with plans for large increases in capacity through electrification and extension is not necessarily where the additional parking capacity can be easily located.  Rapid growth in ridership may outstrip parking growth on this line.

This puts a considerable additional demand on local transit service to the GO stations both in quantity and in hours of service.  This will be a challenge for local transit operators and, by extension for the GTTA.

As the GTTA contemplates the future role of transit, it must adapt from provision of downtown-oriented, peak Monday to Friday communting service (including the local transit component) to service that makes travel by transit within and among the regions easy.  After all, much of the GTA gridlock comes not from commuters to downtown, but from travel between the regions including phenomena such as the lunch-hour traffic jams.

This is one of several cases the GTTA must not adopt a “more of the same” approach to transit.

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The GTTA’s Regional Plan

Yesterday (October 26), the GTTA Board met in Toronto and unveiled its planning and timetable for the creation of a Regional Transportation Plan (RTP).  There is a report outlining the work plan for the next year, and an accompanying chart on the GTTA’s site.  Related to this is the Communications Framework containing a chart of the public participation process.

This is a very aggressive timetable compared with studies we have seen in the GTA, and the intent is to have a completed plan by fall 2008.  Much work needs to be done producing position papers and analyses to convert the shopping list of schemes like MoveOntario 2020 into a prioritized, coherent plan.  One refreshing change is that work will not stop for the summer doldrums.  Indeed the final feedback and approval processes are scheduled for summer 2008.

A number of interesting comments came out during discussion of these items.

The GTTA is looking forward to the new, streamlined Class Environmental Assessment process that came into effect for most transit projects in September, but recognizes that this is only one part of a larger legislative scheme.  For example, federal funding of transit will trigger the Canadian EA process, and this is comparably onerous to the old Ontario one.  Other legislation triggers the need for other types of review.

The GTTA hopes to consolidate as much work of these various studies as possible into one process, and is working with the federal environmental officials to ensure that this can be done.

Mayor Miller raised the issue that the structure of the EA fights the consultative process by spending undue time on the choice of technology when the issues that most exercise the public are matters of design and neighbourhood impact.  There is hope that with the new streamlined Class EA, more time can be devoted to the subjects that engage people, the “what will it do to me” question.

Funding and prioritization of projects are important parts of the GTTA’s work.  On the funding side, the GTTA will co-ordinate its efforts with those of other large regional agencies in Montreal and Vancouver, as well as with the “big city mayors” caucus and its lobby for federal infrastructure funding.

As for prioritization, the short-term focus is on “quick win” projects that can get shovels in the ground and visible improvements as soon as possible (two years or less from project start).  As things now stand, only $100-million has been allocated by Queen’s Park for these projects, and an important issue later this fall will be to see whether additional funds will be available in the upcoming fiscal year starting April 1, 2008.

The hard debates will come in 2008 as the project list grows with items missed by MoveOntario 2020 notably much of the day-to-day capital cost of infrastructure and fleet renewal.

Mayors Miller and McCallion made comments that show some, at least, of the GTTA board members are seeing transit on the large scale necessary. 

Miller noted that the idea of consulting with “commuters” was inappropriate because these are only a subset of the total transit-using population.  Indeed, many issues related to needs for extra household cars and of transit captives in the suburbs come back to transit service designs that only serve downtown-bound commuters.

McCallion noted the importance of service.  Subsidies to transit riders via tax rebates have their place, but, as she said, if it’s the middle of winter, and there is no bus to get on, the subsidy is worthless.

As the GTTA Board evolves from a club of regional mayors and chairs to a group that must consider hard questions of policy, planning and finance, their workload will go up and the decisions will not come as easily.  Much will depend on funding promises from Queen’s Park and how much Ottawa is prepared to contribute.  If the available funds won’t pay for what is really needed, the GTTA could descend into the sort of us-versus-them debates that paralyzed transit planning at the old Metro Toronto council.

The next year will prove whether we, as a region, can address our transportation problems and rise above me-first bickering.

Postscript:  The public meeting began with a declaration by Chair Rob McIsaac to Mayor Miller that he had no intention of attempting a TTC takeover.  That issue surface with a Toronto Star story, quickly denied by all concerned, that Queen’s Park would like to take over the TTC.

What I think is happing here is left-over manoeuvring about the new Toronto taxes.  Some Councillors feel that if the TTC were uploaded, then the new taxes wouldn’t be needed.  However, Queen’s Park really doesn’t want to have to worry about the Queen Car, and leaving the TTC (and other systems) in local hands has the benefit of offloading detailed decision-making and complaints about service and fares to the local politicians.  Dalton gets the photo ops when construction begins on a new line while David gets to explain why people can’t get better service.