Finance

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Memo to Queen’s Park

Almost a month after Ontario’s provincial election, the political landscape in Toronto is shifting away from the Ford Brothers and “Ford Nation”.    The Brothers Ford’s hoped-for Conservative ally, a Premier who would support any of their mad schemes, remains in opposition.  The Tories didn’t even manage to girdle Toronto with a sea of blue ridings, and the Liberals remain in power in much of the GTA with the NDP taking several urban seats.  Between them, the Liberals and NDP count for a large block of “not Tory” votes, and Ford’s effect on the election was at best neutral.

The Liberals, content to re-announce past commitments, proposed little on transit during the election.  Queen’s Park remains silent on any transit initiatives.  This might be a sign of consistency if only we did not hear daily about “congestion” and the need for much better transit in the GTA.

Bob Chiarelli, formerly Mayor of Ottawa, replaces Kathleen Wynne as Minister of Transportation (also as Minister of Infrastructure).  The Ministry’s website describes Chiarelli as “a champion of public transit, including clean light-rail expansion”, and for once we have a transition between Ministers that might not wreck a pattern of support for transit within the government.

There is much to do.  Simple recitations of committed projects must give way to discussions of a future, much improved world for transit in the GTA and other major Ontario centres.

Herewith, a few suggestions about what the “major minority” (Premier McGuinty’s term for a not-quite majority) of our new government might do on this file.

Continue reading →

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TTC Commission Meeting Wrapup for October 2011

The Toronto Transit Commission met on October 19, 2011.  With the exception of one item, it was an uneventful agenda.  This article deals only with matters where significant new information came to light beyond that reported in my initial review of the agenda.

28 Billionth Rider

In case you were wondering, the “official” 28-billionth rider chosen to mark the TTC’s 90th anniversary on September 1, 2011, was not chosen with a countdown clock, but from the pool of the TTC’s Metropass Discount Plan subscribers.  The lucky rider gets a free Metropass subscription for one year.

I did not win, although I have been using the Metropass since its inception in 1980, and became a subscriber as soon as this was possible.  By the 100th anniversary (if the TTC still exists by then), we will all be using Presto.  Sigh.

Budget and Efficiency Reviews

The Operating Budget was mentioned only in passing in the context of planned public consultation on “Customer Service”, and the service cuts for January were treated as a done deal that is not subject to discussion.  This is rather odd considering that Council has yet to finalize its budget, and “what if” questions about various funding scenarios will be an obvious part of the debate.

For example, the current TTC budget requires a 10-cent fare increase to balance the books.  What further cuts will be needed if this is not implemented?  We don’t know.  Indeed, we didn’t even know what cuts the present budget would bring until the detailed list found its way to me earlier this week.  Officially, the TTC was still working on the cuts (probably true in the strictest interpretation), but a detailed proposal had already been posted for staff information.

If a higher fare increase were implemented, what could be done with the added revenue?  This type of question, of planning, was at the heart of the Ridership Growth Strategy which, thanks to Mayor Ford, was jettisoned as an unwanted leftover of the Miller era.  With the fundamental assumption that any improvements cannot be afforded, or worse, might be “gravy” undeserved by the beneficiaries, Toronto finds itself cut off from the basic debate of the worth and quality of its services.  The present crew of TTC Commissioners colludes in this by avoiding discussion on alternative budget strategies.  “What if” is a question nobody wants to hear answered.

Meanwhile, Chair Karen Stintz focuses on “good news” stories about things the TTC did, or appeared to do, well.  She is dancing on the deck of the Titanic.

Several issues raised in the KPMG “Efficiency Reviews” are now under study by TTC management.  While many of the areas addressed here are worth studying, they represent comparatively small efficiencies and, moreover, they are one-time savings.  Improvements in the affected cost areas may be found, although some may not bear fruit until 2013.  However, an “efficiency” cannot be repeatedly applied to yield new savings year after year, and the TTC will have do deal with ridership and inflationary pressures in 2013 and beyond without the one-time reductions applied in 2012.

One large “saving” comes from the designation of the TTC’s Pension Fund Society as a “jointly sponsored” plan which does not require full solvency of future liabilities.  If the TTC had been required to fully fund the plan, this would have added $40 to $45-million annually to the Operating Budget through about 2022.  This is really only an avoided cost, not a saving against current spending.

In a separate study, the City is reviewing the consolidation of various pension plans, including the TTC’s.  The possibility of such a move and its financial implications have not yet been reported out to Council.

Wheel-Trans Operating Budget

Commissioner Cesar Palacio tabled a request that staff consider moving from the current 60/40 ratio of contracted versus TTC-provided service to a new target of 80/20.  The question of using private operators to carry more of the WT customers has come before the Commission many times before, although in this case it crept into the agenda unexpectedly with Palacio’s motion.

The fundamental problems with previous attempts at private operation of WT vans/buses has been with the quality of staff, vehicle maintenance and passenger treatment.  How this will be address in the 2013 budget cycle remains to be seen.

One point TTC management has not yet addressed is the degree to which high in-house costs are a function of poor dispatching that affects vehicle utilization and trip lengths.  A new booking system is supposed to reduce these problems, but we have yet to hear any reports on actual operational or financial benefits.

Fitness for Duty

By far the biggest issue for debate was the question of mandatory testing for drug and alcohol use by TTC staff.  The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 strongly opposes this scheme, and the matter is already in grievance proceedings and likely to wind up in the courts.  The ATU’s position is that random testing is an invasion of privacy, and that it does not fully address the problem of a driver’s ability to perform their job.

The ATU supports the implementation of non-invasive technologies to assess driver alertness that check for response times using video displays, a system already deployed in parts of the USA.  The ATU’s position is that this would monitor for all forms of fatigue including those due to tiredness or illness, not just test for the presence of drugs or alcohol.

This is not as straightforward a situation as it may appear.  For one thing, privacy and especially health privacy laws in Ontario are much more strict than south of the border.  The TTC also claims that it is interested in whether someone is impaired at the time a test is taken, not whether there is evidence of past use.

TTC Management and the Commission appear to be exploiting a recent collision between a bus and truck which caused a passenger’s death to push through the new policy.  The driver was charged with “criminal negligence causing death” and it is unclear whether a separate charge for marijuana possession has any bearing on this case.  I will not comment further on this matter, and will edit out any comments that speculate on this subject because it is before the courts.

What is clear is that until various legal and labour proceedings work themselves out, the new policy will be in limbo.

Subway Station and Vehicle Cleanliness

The TTC received a presentation on the cleanliness of its stations and vehicles.  In case you have been wondering why TTC vehicles might be a tad grubby, we now know that the only daily cleaning they get is a “dust and sweep” except for the bus fleet which gets an exterior wash as part of the daily fuelling cycle.  Streetcars don’t need to be fuelled, and they go straight to the yard.

Now that the wash tracks at Wilson and Greenwood are back in operation, subway trains do look a lot better, although some cars remain grungy, notably on the BD line, possibly because the long period without cleaning has left dirt and grease more or less permanently part of the cars.

Audit results for the condition of stations and vehicles show that there has been some improvement, but the TTC is still not at its hoped-for targets.  The streetcar fleet, in particular, is well below the hoped-for level of litter although this is probably due to the relatively large number of vehicles staying in service all day and evening without a mid-day break where basic housekeeping might be possible.

The TTC plans to transfer some subway cleaners from carhouse duties to subway terminals where they can clean out trains at the end of each trip.  It is unclear whether there are enough cleaners for this during all service hours.

Some tile and grout work now underway at a half-dozen locations should be finished by year-end.  However, there was no comment on the many locations where portions of station walls were removed for inspection, and the due date for replacement recedes into the future.  Similarly, there was no comment on locations like St. George where the trackside walls remain filthy even while work continues on the platforms and stairwells.

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More Icing, Less Cake (Updated)

Today the TTC announced the creation of a Customer Liaison Panel following up from the 2010 report of the Customer Service Advisory Panel.

Updated October 13, 2011 at 11:45pm:  The TTC has confirmed that the November Town Hall meeting will occur in the Council Chamber, and they are hoping for live coverage via Rogers Cable 10 and/or Internet in the same manner as Council meetings.

Chair Karen Stintz observed that “customers make our system what it is”, an intriguing comment considering what City Council and the Commission are forcing on customers in response to City funding cuts.  Yes, customers are the heart of any organization and without them, there is little raison-d’être, no matter how lofty a mission statement one might concoct.

To engage customers better, the TTC will conduct quarterly “town halls” beginning on Thursday, November 24 at City Hall.  I hope that they use Council Chambers [this has now been confirmed by the TTC], not a small committee room with limits on numbers and speakers so appallingly shown by Toronto’s Executive Committee.  TTC’s new Chief Customer Service Officer, Chris Upfold, observed that it is “dangerous to meet customers en masse … you don’t know what they will say”.  That’s precisely why you need to meet them — if you already know, or presuppose, what comments riders might have, or prejudge which ones were worthy of attention, then why meet at all?

Stintz noted that “it would take some time” to implement recommendations as “culture change” is not an overnight thing in an old organization.  This statement is odd on two counts. The age of an organization should not condemn it to bureaucratic paralysis — that’s the outcome of a lack of direction and focus on quality and improvement, an assumption that the TTC is the best on the planet.

Moreover, this doesn’t address the issue of frontline staff versus management attitudes and support.  Customers have many complaints about the staff they meet every day.  However, the way the system is operated, the priorities for improvement and the dedication to follow-through beyond photo ops and notices, these are issues for management and the Commission.  Managers must manage, and Commissioners must provide resources to match expectations.

Stintz listed five goals for improving customer service:

  • feedback to customers
  • cleanliness in stations and vehicles
  • a mission statement
  • changing practices to have a customer focus
  • encouraging customers to be advocates for transit

Stintz went on to list various projects such as the new subway cars, the York-U/Vaughan subway extension and the Eglinton line as examples of what the TTC is doing for its customers.  That’s fine, but the real issue is that in only two months, the TTC will cut service in response to budget constraints at the City.  We will get baubles, a few new lines, one almost a decade in the future, but meanwhile don’t try to get on the Dufferin bus.

Chris Upfold spoke in more detail about the TTC’s engagement with its customers.  There will be more surveys, the Town Halls mentioned earlier and the liaison panel.  A few issues are already being addressed:

  • Fare and ticket/transfer policies will be reviewed to eliminate nuisances and to prepare for the transition to the Presto smart card system.  The intent is to look at what works for customers (a novel idea in many technology implementation projects).  There are no specifics, and what might be a “nuisance” obviously varies depending on who you talk to and what form of ticket they already use.  Transfer rules, for example, have no effect on passholders.
  • The Customer Service Centre hours will be extended to reflect when people actually need information and assistance with support available via phone and online, including social media, from 0700 to 2200 daily.  The TTC will actively attempt to follow up with timely callbacks in response to problems.
  • The Request Stop Program, formerly available only to women, will now be offered to all riders looking for a safer or more convenient drop off from buses at night.

Upfold hopes that riders will recommend the TTC to their friends and family, a hope that implies considerable improvement in the typical rider experience at a time when the quality of that experience is being cut back.  Stintz tried to make the best of the situation by hoping that improvements such as cleaner stations would offset issues with wider headways and crowding.  If she really believes that, then there’s little hope for the TTC.

Stintz argues that the City has told the TTC to operate with less subsidy, but she ignores the fact that there has been no public debate about the effects and benefits of alternatives including fare increases or freezes, service standards, and the long-term problems of handling growing ridership.  The TTC may save 1% or so on its 2012 budget with the revised loading standards, but that’s at best a one-year fix.  When buses are full, they are full.  What will the TTC do in 2013?

Indeed, it’s the unseen demand, the would-be riders the passenger counts completely miss, who are the problem.  They’re the equivalent of the “silent majority” of voters who, some claim, feel that transit is oversubsidized.  These lost riders vote with their feet, their bicycles, their cars.  Their potential political support for transit is squandered in the name of municipal economy.

Steve O’Brien (who chaired the 2010 advisory panel and will sit on the liaison panel for 2012-13) was asked if he was satisfied with the rate of implementation of his reports recommendations.  He claims to be “impressed”, that the panel didn’t “expect instant results” and that he is “very proud” the TTC took the recommendations seriously.  Chris Upfold noted that about 20 of the 78 recommendations would be implemented by yearend, and that a further 25 would be rolled out in 2012.

What nobody mentioned is that most of these recommendations address problems of communication in a broad sense, but the report is silent about system management and service quality.

There has been no discussion of the service implications of the budget cuts beyond the general policy change in loading standards — we don’t yet know which routes and time periods will be affected, or how much more crowded they will be.  Chair Stintz stated that the proposed cuts, in detail, would be part of the budget process at the TTC and Council.

Chief General Manager Gary Webster confirmed that the cuts would go into effect in January 2012 to get the greatest benefit for the budget year.  Verification of riding counts is now in progress and schedule design will follow shortly.  By mid-November, the details of January service levels will be known, certainly in time for the first Town Hall.  However, if any Fairy Godmother plans to rescue the TTC from service cuts, they will have to do so quickly.  Stintz may talk about this as part of the budget discussions, but the City won’t finalize its budget until February, long after the service cuts are already on the street.

The currently proposed fare increase of 10¢ per token will only offset the roughly $29-million hole in the TTC’s budget which already includes service cuts.  If current services are to be funded through fares, then an increase of at least another 5¢ would be required.  Looking ahead, the TTC’s total operating costs will grow by about $100m annually.  This implies an ongoing need for about $67m more in subsidies and $33m more in fares (equivalent to a dime every year) just to keep the system as it is.

At a time when the world needs serious, informed discussions about finances, Toronto is again papering over its transit cracks with one-time fixes.  Those who argue for better service, even for retaining what we have, are portrayed as whiners, special interest groups who do not represent the broad voice of taxpayers.  We must wait three years for those taxpayers, those voters, to vent their true feelings on City policies.

Better Customer Service is a good idea.  Adding this to an already excellent and improving system (dare I say it, one with the kind of pro-transit outlook that brought us the Ridership Growth Strategy) would be icing on an already rich and delicious cake.  In the face of service cuts, greater crowding and an inevitable decline in staff-to-customer relations, that cake will be small, thin and bitter no matter how happy a smiling face sits on the thick icing above.

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Creeping Toward Earlier Subway Closing?

The TTC is increasingly fond of shutting down parts of its subway system for maintenance late at night.  The practice began with the project to repair the tunnel liners on the North Yonge subway (Eglinton to Sheppard) that, through a design flaw, were causing the tunnel to gradually go out of round.  Rather than work for only a few hours each night, the repair window was opened by ending subway service on the affected part of the line at 12:30 am.  This will continue until sometime late in 2012.

The Bloor-Danforth line is now shutting down at midnight for rail grinding with a rolling schedule working across the entire route:

  • September 19 to 23:  Kipling to Islington
  • September 25 to 30:  Kipling to Jane
  • October 2 to 7:  Ossington to Broadview
  • October 9 to 14:  St. George to Broadview
  • October 16 to 19:  St. George to Woodbine
  • October 20 & 21, 23 to 28, 30 to November 2:  Woodbine to Kennedy
  • November 3 & 4, 6 to 11:  Warden to Kennedy

Replacement bus service will operate overlapping the section of the route that is shut down.

This project begs the question of why there is a need to do rail grinding on a scale and with a level of service disruption we have not seen since the subway opened.  Once upon a time, there was a two-car train of PCCs used for grinding, but these are long-retired.  A problem arose many years ago on the high-speed section of the subway north of Eglinton where lateral sway of trains (a particular problem with the H1 series of cars) generated long-period horizontal equivalents of “corrugations” that reinforced the unwanted car movements.

I have asked the TTC for an explanation for this project, and also about any plans they might have for similar work on the Yonge-University-Spadina line.

It will be intriguing to see how the replacement bus service fares especially in the heavily-travelled central section of the line, and whether the crowd control and passenger information provided by the TTC at closed stations will amount to more than a few hand-written signs.

With late night services under attack in some quarters, I can’t help wondering when some bright spark on City Council will conclude that we really don’t need the subway open so late, and with it the many bus services operating to 2:00am and beyond.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, the Nuit Blanche celebrations will see limited overnight subway service on October 1-2 finishing at 7:00am Sunday.  There will be a brief interval where the subway is closed before the start of regular Sunday service at 9:00am (trains are actually out on the line building up service somewhat earlier).

  • BD line: Keele to Woodbine every 12-15 minutes
  • YUS line: St. Clair West to Eglinton every 10-12 minutes

The 300 BD Night Bus will only operate on the outer parts of the route not covered by the subway.  The 320 Yonge Night bus will have frequent service north of Eglinton, and a Spadina shuttle bus will operate north of St. Clair West.

Whether the TTC will put signs on the night bus stops advising that travellers should use the subway remains to be seen.  Even more challenging will be whether people will read them.

A 15-minute headway will operate on the following surface routes overnight transitioning to the start of Sunday daytime service:

  • 301 Queen
  • 305 Eglinton East
  • 306 Carlton
  • 307 Eglinton West
  • 504 King

The question of an earlier closing time for the subway is related to service expansion plans.  As the YUS gets longer and longer, and as the headways are shortened with automatic train control, the number of trains on the line rises considerably.  Most of these trains will originate at Wilson Yard, and there is a physical limit to the number of trains/hour that can enter service for the morning peak.  This will require the loading of service, if not revenue operations, to start earlier than it does now and will limit the time when the line is available for maintenance work.

Available alternatives include earlier shutdowns, extended weekend outages on affected sections of a route or the construction of additional storage capacity elsewhere on the line, preferably on the Yonge side to balance out service loading requirements.

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TTC 2012: Cuts, Cuts and More Cuts (Updated)

Updated Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 12:00 noon:

Toronto’s Executive Committee at its marathon meeting of September 19-20, moved that “City Council receive the following Recommendations”:

2m. TTC: Consider rolling back some of the service improvements implemented under the Ridership Growth Strategy, including changes to the crowding standard. Also consider reducing/eliminating the Blue Night Network or making it a premium service by raising fares.

2n. TTC: Review service levels of support activities to conventional transit.

2o. TTC – Wheel Trans: With conventional transit becoming significantly more accessible, the role and service levels should be continuously reviewed. Consider potentially developing individual plans for riders to use conventional services for their needs, relying less on Wheel-Trans.

While this motion indicates that Executive may want to save the all-night services, an action already taken by the TTC itself, this motion also removes the idea of rolling back service standards to pre-RGS levels.  Given that the TTC has just approved such an action, and has the right to do so independently of Council, it is unclear just what the policy of the two bodies would be.

The original article from September 14 follows the break below.

Continue reading →

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Did Wheel Trans Botch A New System Implementation?

Recently, I received an email from a reader reporting a major problem in the implementation by Wheel Trans of a new booking system.  Here is the relevant part of the note:

On August 6th, Wheel-Trans took down its online booking system to install a “New and Improved’ reservation system. Two days later the new page was up and running — sort of. Wheel-Trans had cleansed half of our list of “preregistered addresses” and, in so doing, had forced us back upon the hugely overloaded and barely functional phone reservation system.

The consequences were devastating. Bus operators, contract minivan owners, taxi drivers, reservationists and customer service agents, and the customers, all felt the effects; customers arriving late to appointments or not able to book rides or make cancellations, drivers attempting to meet an impossible schedule while driving to cancelled or abandoned calls, and agents and reservationists facing a never-ending flood of calls from frustrated, desperate, and, in some cases, irate customers. Like a locomotive shunting cars, each missed or late call rippled down the whole system; drivers run further and further behind in their schedule, customers wait longer and longer for their ride which, increasingly, as the day wears on. are abandoned or never arrive at all. And the traffic on the phone system grows and grows.

Even those not directly involved with the system— customers’ employers, physicians and therapists, hospitals and labs, friends and families—are all dealing with missed or late appointments.

Everyone I’ve talked with over the past few weeks, customers, Wheel-Trans drivers and phone staff, and health care professionals has a story to tell. And not one has a happy ending. Although everyone has different tale to tell, they all want a return to the old setup. But no one knows how to make this happen.

This has all the earmarks of a botched IT project although the exact reason has not come out yet.  In my own IT experience, this could be a question of bad specifications, of the official client not understanding how their own system works, or a badly executed data/functional migration that wasn’t properly tested before the system went live.

I am not a Wheel Trans user, although I have heard enough horror stories about the service it provides.  It’s a vital service for users, and yet the TTC and City are entertaining a cutback to the amount of service or the eligibility of riders, not further enhancements as part of the 2012 budget.

This article is intended as a repository for comments about that service, and in particular about the effects of the recent changes to the trip booking system.

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Why Toronto Needs A Fare Increase

Back on August 19, The Star’s Tess Kalinowski ran an article about TTC fares including remarks from me advocating an increase.

Let’s get this straight: Pro-car Mayor Rob Ford has told the TTC it can’t hike fares to solve its budget problems. Meantime the city’s leading transit advocate is calling a fare freeze “madness” given the system’s operating challenges.

Streetcar crusader and transit blogger Steve Munro believes predictable, moderate fare increases are preferable to service cuts, given that the TTC is facing an $85 million operating shortfall next year.

“If they have a fare freeze this year on top of other cuts they’re contemplating, it will be disastrous … just at the time the system is doing so well,” he said, referring to the 15 million more riders the TTC is anticipating next year.

Politicians of all stripes are spooked by fare hikes, says Munro. By holding down transit prices, Ford is just repeating the actions of his predecessor, David Miller, who also pledged a fare freeze in 2009.

The article set off a storm of comments divided between those who feel that going to riders for more money is the wrong approach; those who take a hard line attitude that the problem lies entirely with inefficiency, poor management and union contracts; and those who agree, one way or another, with my position.

Heather Mallick picked up the topic in her column on August 22 arguing that fare increases hurt the poor who are more likely to pay using the most expensive fare medium, the single cash fare.

My position on fares has been quite consistent for years.  Service is the most important “product” the TTC has to sell, and if we compromise the ability to give good service to riders, we might as well shut down the system.  Fares are one component of the revenue tools available to the TTC, and by contrast with many other cities, Toronto’s fares are the main funding for day-to-day operations.

While we might play around with fare structures and subsidies, transit costs overall will rise through a combination of inflation, wage increases and system expansion.  Unless there is an endless supply of new money, or a decision to cap the scale and scope of transit service, fares cannot be frozen forever.

Politically we lurch from regime to regime with policy changes on funding for and the role of transit.  Many decisions take place in the context of improvements or cutbacks in previous administrations.  Reports going back decades recommend modest annual fare increases at roughly the level of inflation, but we never see this implemented.  Multi-year freezes alternate with big jumps in fares, and these are especially hard to sell when subsidy cutbacks force more of the load onto the farebox. Continue reading →

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Service Changes for September 4, 2011

Many service changes are coming in September 2011 including additional service on routes that are now overcrowded.  However, the TTC will be considering lower standards for crowding (the “there’s still room on the roof” school of service planning), and many of these changes could be short lived.  (I will turn to budgetary issues in my next article.)

The service improvements are the upshot of the bargain trading little used periods of service on some routes effective May 2011 for better service where it is needed.  The budgetary headroom from the May cuts is not enough to pay for all the needed additions, and many improvements that would other be justified by current standards will not be implemented.  That justification may vanish if the standards are lowered. Continue reading →

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What Mayor Ford Should Have Asked For

Wednesday, August 17, saw Rob Ford going up to Queen’s Park in a time-honoured Toronto tradition asking for money for the transit system.  I won’t go into much detail on this as you can (and already may have) read all about it in other media:

Marcus Gee in The Globe

Karen Howlett and Patrick White in The Globe

Daniel Dale in The Star (with a wonderful photo in which Ford appears to be channeling the subway gods)

Martin Cohn in The Star

Chris Selley in The Post

Natalie Alcoba in The Post

Mayor Ford’s dream of a subway paid for entirely by the private sector has evaporated.  Brother Doug Ford claimed on CBC’s Metro Morning in February that developers were just waiting to invest $5-billion in the line, but they’re not queuing up chequebooks in hand.  Desperation set in a few months back when even Ford’s hand-picked transit fixer, Gordon Chong, openly questioned the proposed financing.  Since then, any public sector funding that Ford could scrape together was thrown in the pot so that the private sector “ask” would drop by a billion or two.

Back in March, Mayor Ford signed an agreement with Queen’s Park (a document that has not yet been ratified by Council) in which Ontario takes over responsibility for an underground Eglinton line (at a cost of $8-billion or so, using up almost every penny of the Transit City money), and Toronto is on the hook for the Sheppard subway.  If there’s money left over on Eglinton, up to $650-million will be given by Ontario to Toronto.  Ford wants that money now, and fears that a Federal contribution of $330-million to the Sheppard LRT project will be lost if the Sheppard project doesn’t get on the rails soon.  He has also been after money from “PPP Canada”, a federal agency, but they’re a pesky bunch and want to see a business plan.

The Mayor came away from Queen’s Park empty handed, and Premier McGuinty made it quite clear that Ontario is in no position to advance funding for the City’s project until the true cost of the Eglinton line is known.

This has to be the biggest waste of a bilateral meeting in quite a long time. Continue reading →