Vehicles

by

Goodbye to the H4 Trains

For all the lovers of non-air conditioned trains, noisy ceiling fans, but comfy seats, Friday, January 27 will be the last run of the H4 class cars on the TTC.

Run 64 will leave Greenwood Yard eastbound at 7:27am to Kennedy, make a round trip to Kipling, and then run back to the yard at 9:44.

As more of the Toronto Rocket trains enter service on Yonge, they will replace the H5 and H6 fleets, and the BD line will become an all T1 route.  The last of the TRs now on order are for the Spadina/Vaughan extension opening in 2015.

by

How Many Buses Does Toronto Need?

Toronto’s budget debate for 2012 brought many issues of transit financing into the open thanks to an ill-considered proposal by Mayor Ford to cut transit operating subsidies by 10%.  Recently the TTC put off implementing service cuts originally planned for January 8, 2012, pending a decision by Council on the final version of the budget and the level of TTC subsidy.

However, the TTC’s Operating Budget is not the only one that is constrained by City spending policies.  On the Capital Budget, the total projected City borrowing required to pay for all of the projects the TTC would like to undertake exceeds a self-imposed target on total City debt.  To bring the 10-year debt projection within that target, the TTC restructured its capital plans.

Some projects were postponed beyond the 10-year window so that some or all of the spending (and associated debt) did not count, or might be offset by future improvements in subsidy programs from other levels of government.  Other projects were modified in scope or cancelled.

I discussed the amended Capital Budget in a previous article, but the current debate about Service Standards also has a capital component.  Among the cutbacks on the capital side were a purchase of new buses and the provision of storage space to hold these vehicles.

An order for 134 new buses (of which 26 were for “contingency” to handle unexpected growth in demand) has been cancelled along with the provision of temporary yard space.  Before Transit City was proposed, the TTC had planned to build another bus garage to accommodate its growing fleet.  However, Transit City (plus the opening of the Spadina subway extension) would replace some existing bus service with rail, and reduce the total bus fleet requirement.

Even with a short-term pre-Transit City bulge, only temporary storage would have been needed.  However, now that much of Transit City has been either cancelled or pushed off into the next decade, there will be continued pressure on the bus fleet and on the need for storage space.

  • The Spadina extension will not open until late 2015.
  • The Sheppard subway, if it is actually built, will cover only the portion of the Sheppard East bus services west of Kennedy.  Service east to Meadowvale will still be provided by buses.  The original opening date for the Sheppard LRT was 2013.
  • Finch West will continue to be served by buses, not an LRT line that originally would have opened in 2013.
  • The proposed extension of the SRT to Malvern was originally planned to open in 2015.  In the revised plan, this extension has been dropped.

In a briefing note, TTC’s Chief General Manager Gary Webster states that the capital cost of restoring the bus order and storage for the vehicles could be up to $93-million.  However, in the TTC’s budget presentation, this number is stated as $73m (see Shortfall Reduction Plan on page 52).  If the order is reinstated, the quantity of buses will be smaller by at least the contingency of 26 according to staff comments at the TTC’s last meeting.

The challenge in this whole process is to understand just how big the bus fleet should be given the robust state of TTC ridership.  For this we must first go back to the bus fleet plan as it existed in 2006.

There were two competing views of the future for ridership.  In one version, growth would continue at just over 1% per year following a long trend of the past decade.  In another version, growth would be more robust at 3% per year.  The bus fleet plan had been based on the lower rate, but if the stronger trend prevailed, the TTC would need more buses sooner.  A new garage would be needed by 2012/13 even at the low growth rate, possibly by 2010 if the fleet grew faster than expected.

Indeed, stronger growth is exactly what arrived.  On the original projection, ridership was expected to grow from 436m to 469m between 2006 and 2011.  At the higher rate, it would reach 505m.  The actual number we now know will be about 499m.  The accelerated growth began just after the Ridership Growth Strategy (RGS) rolled out, a policy the current crop at the TTC would undo in the name of “efficiency”.

By 2010, the fleet planning had to take into account new factors including the proposed Transit City LRT lines and the Spadina extension.  Transit City was expected to displace 168 buses between 2014 and 2019, and a further 30 would be replaced by the Spadina extension in 2016.  This led to a plan in which there would be no bus purchases for several years, and the total fleet would actually shrink through attrition back to 2008 levels, well within the capacity of existing garages.

By early December 2011, the active bus fleet stands at 1,820 vehicles for a scheduled peak service of 1,520.  Requirements for 2012 and beyond will be very different depending on the service quality and ridership we assume in making fleet plans.

  • Service actually operated in 2011 was based on a budgeted ridership of only 487m, not the 499m Toronto actually achieved.  This is one reason why there are some routes already over the supposed loading “standards” — there is no budget to operate all of the service the standards would dictate.  Conversely, the planned cuts on some routes are impractical and this situation is tacitly admitted by the proposal to retain service on “busy” routes.
  • If the RGS service standards are retained, then the planned peak cutbacks on major bus routes cannot go forward.  In the short term, this can be handled with the existing fleet, but more buses will be needed (by the TTC’s projection) in fall 2013.
  • Multi-year projections in the TTC budget (see TTC Final Budget report for 2012 at Page 7) start from a base of 503m in 2012 and rise to 523m by 2015.  The base itself is less than 1% above 2011’s projected 499m, and the cumulative growth rate is about 1%.  By contrast, ridership is running over 4% above last year, and an ongoing rate of 3% should be easily attained provided that there is sufficient capacity and no economic catastrophe to drive down demand overall.

If we take 499m for 2011 and increase at 3% per annum, this would give a cumulative increase of about 12.5% to 2015.  In turn, the bus fleet would have to grow from 1820 to 2045.

The TTC has not published a detailed fleet plan including such an analysis, but this is as important to the future of Toronto’s transit as the fantasy subway plans.  The capital budget does not include any projection of funding needed to sustain strong transit growth, and the operating budget assumes a much lower rate of growth than we actually see.  The situation is very much like the one back in 2006.

Delaying or cancelling the implementation of Transit City created a crisis in the bus system’s ability to serve growing demand.  The Commission’s response is merely to cut service and ignore future problems with meaningless, low-balled projections of ridership, fleet requirements and operating costs.

Most of the transit Commissioners don’t want to entertain these debates because to do so counters the received wisdom that transit funding must be cut no matter what.  They might even have to admit that the course they advocate — of limiting the growth of service and capacity — is truly a “service cut”, certainly a reduction in the attractiveness and quality, such as it is, of the system, not merely an “efficiency”.

This type of “planning” badly serves Council and the citizens of Toronto because we don’t know what the alternatives are and the implications of various future paths.  Indeed, we risk hobbling the TTC with reduced service, fleet and staff, and creating a hole out of which a more-enlightened administration must first dig just to undo past errors.

Postscript:

In a Briefing Note to the City’s Budget Committee, the TTC advises that it is contemplating the purchase of 150 articulated buses in 2014-16.  If Council decides to retain higher service quality in 2012, the need for these buses could be accelerated.

Seven routes (not named) would convert to artic operation.  The fleet replacement ratio the TTC would use is 1.35:1.

The anticipated annual saving would be $60k/bus mainly in the labour cost of drivers.  The annualized saving with the 150-bus fleet fully in operation would be $9m.  Savings from this scheme have already been built into the multi-year budget projections.

by

TTC Unveils New Streetcar Design and Mockup (Update 2)

Updated November 10 at 4:45 pm: Photos of the mockup have been added to this article.

This shows the mockup (actually three sections of the five-section vehicle) including street level (front door) and island level (at the second door with a ramp deployed) comparisons for boarding heights.

For more photos, scroll down to the bottom of the article.

See also coverage on the Torontoist, Urban Toronto and blogto websites.

Updated November 9 at 5:20 pm:  In response to questions that have come up in this thread and previous articles about the new cars, I have added information at the end regarding the issues of weight-per-axle and the Toronto requirement that the cars negotiate single-point track switches.

The TTC will display a mockup of the new streetcar fleet for public viewing.

TTC Hillcrest Yard
November 12 to 15, 2011
10:00 am to 7:00 pm

Additional information about this event and the new cars is on the TTC’s LRV Page.

39 years ago, the TTC decided to retain its streetcar system, and this will be the second generation of new streetcars.  Toronto joins the rest of the world with a modern car based on designs used in other major cities.

They’ve been a long time coming, and design changes have added almost a year to the process that TTC and LRT advocates expected when the order with Bombardier was approved.  When I have details of the delivery schedule, I will update this post.

For additional hi-res views of the new cars, visit the “Meet Your New Ride” page.  Something that’s immediately obvious is a family resemblance to the interior of the new Toronto Rocket subway cars.

Two observations about the TTC’s website:

  • Comments about the improvement of capacity on routes and the approach to scheduling service are now out of sync with statements in the TTC’s budget papers.  Originally, the TTC was committed to improving capacity on streetcar routes and keeping wait times reasonably short.  Today, this position is no longer as definite because running service above a full standard load is transit gravy.
  • The new cars will operate, according to the TTC, on new routes for the eastern waterfront.  Considering the foot-dragging on this project, the cost escalation and the low priority given to waterfront transit generally, it’s hard to say whether these routes will ever actually be built.

Updates regarding technical issues with the cars follow the break below.

Continue reading →

by

Thirty-Nine

Thirty-nine years ago, the TTC made its historic decision to retain streetcars in Toronto.  At the time service on streetcar routes was considerably more frequent than today, and Torontonians generally thought kindly of that mode.

Over the years, it has been an uphill struggle to maintain this.  Service cuts on the TTC led to fleet reductions, and improvements we should have seen go unfilled thanks to the too-small fleet of unreliable cars.

We have been through one generation of “new” streetcars, and it’s hard to believe that these are now due for retirement.  The CLRVs (regular sized cars) are over 30 years old and although they may physically be capable of continued operation and body rebuilds, their ancient electronics are a challenge.  The ALRVs (two-section cars) are a bit younger, but still elderly.

Ongoing debates about the type of car that would replace Toronto’s fleet and, indeed, whether 100 of the CLRVs would receive a major overhaul including new control systems, delayed the replacement process.  This delay would be merely annoying had control of the Mayor’s office and Council stayed with a streetcar and transit friendly administration, but we’re now in an era where the streetcars are tolerated, not celebrated.

A mockup of the next generation of Toronto cars, Bombardier’s Flexity, goes on display next weekend at Hillcrest Shops.  Design delays, not to mention political foot-dragging, have this project running at least a year late.  Meanwhile, construction of the new carhouse and maintenance facility at Ashbridges Bay has not progressed beyond site preparation.

When the Streetcars for Toronto Committee (of which I was a member) advocated for streetcars, this was not just for the nostalgia of seeing rails in Toronto’s streets.  “Light Rapid Transit” (LRT), a then-modern-sounding pseudonym for streetcars on reserved rights-of-way, could have brought an inexpensive network of suburban routes long before the suburbs as we now know them were built.  Not until the Transit City plan, decades later, did we have an administration that took this concept seriously.  Transit City had its flaws, but these pale beside the madness of an all-underground alternative foisted on Toronto by Mayor Ford and Premier McGuinty.

Engineering challenges may force a rethink for Eglinton’s valley crossings at the Don River and other locations, but these will come grudgingly and the original surface alignment is at best “on the back burner” until less hostile forces occupy City Hall.

The rest of Transit City is so far in the background that even the name has been expunged from official use except as a slur against the Miller years.

Day-to-day transit service is under attack from City budget cuts and Provincial underfunding.  Toronto’s recent history of strong ridership may continue only by an accident of high energy prices and traffic congestion, not from an active plan to serve growing demand and population.

This is really not where I had hoped to see our transit system by now.

The 40th anniversary will come in 2012 when transit will still be fighting for its life politically and financially in Toronto.  We should have been celebrating a renaissance.

Readers of Douglas Adams will know that “42” is the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything”.  What will 2014 bring?

by

November 2011: A Month of Meetings (Updated)

Front Street Redesign

November 3, 2011 (Thursday) from 3:00 to 7:00 pm
Room 309, Metro Hall

This is the second public information centre as part of the Environmental Assessment process for the proposed redesign of Front Street between York and Bay Streets in front of Union Station.  The intent is to make the street much more pedestrian to support the very large volume of foot traffic to and from the station.

One through lane of auto traffic would be maintained in each direction (effectively what is now the case given parked cars, buses and taxis), but the lanes would be wider and would also provide space for cyclists.

This is a drop-in event, not a formal meeting.

For background information, visit the project page.

Updated November 4:  The display panels are now available online.

Ashbridges Bay Carhouse

November 9, 2011 (Wednesday) 6:30 to 8:30 pm
Toronto EMS, 895 Eastern Avenue (at Knox)

This meeting will present the landscape design for the new Maintenance and Storage Facility at Leslie and Lake Shore.  Site preparation work for the new building is already underway, but the contract for construction has not been let by the TTC.  There have been rumours that this will come before the November Commission meeting, but until we see the agenda as well as details of the 2012 Capital Budget this is still uncertain given funding constraints.

Note:  The public display of a mockup of the new TTC low-floor Light Rail Vehicles will likely occur over the weekend of November 11-14.  Further details will be posted here when they are available.

For background information, visit the project page.

Toronto Talks Mobility

The Cities Centre at the University of Toronto will host a two day forum on mobility in the GTA.  There will be two free events, but both of these require pre-registration.

November 9, 2011 (Wednesday) 7:00 to 9:00 pm
City Hall Council Chambers

November 10, 2011 (Thursday) 8:00 am to 5:00 pm
Wychwood Barns

According to the event description:

… this event is not about re-hashing the “Transit City” vs. subway discussion debate. Rather, “Toronto Talks Mobility” will examine what we do next as a region to build on progress made to date (including the Big Move) and how we can ensure long-term success. Ultimately, the event aims to kick-start a campaign to bring a broader civic voice to our transportation future.

I can understand the organizers’ reluctance to get bogged down in debating Transit City or various alternative.  However, any discussion of mobility must address the basic questions of whether we plan for networks we can afford to build, how we will pay for them (and by extension, just what “afford” means) and the tradeoffs between transit modes, speed, road space and network capacity.  This will inevitably touch on Transit City, if only as a starting point.

A “broader civic voice” is definitely required, but this requires ears willing to hear the message.  If Queen’s Park and the City of Toronto reject funding strategies that inevitably require new sources of revenue, this will be an exercise in debating the obvious to no effect.

Calling on Ottawa for new funding is a predictable, but pointless, exercise if we are not prepared to begin the work of funding transit ourselves.  We will be talking about massive network expansion at a time when day-to-day service and quality are under attack not just in Toronto but in many parts of the GTA.

Metrolinx Board Meeting

The regular meeting of the Metrolinx board will be held on Wednesday, November 23 at 8:30 am.  I will post a summary of major issues when the agenda is released.

TTC Commission Meeting

The regular meeting of the TTC will be held on Wednesday, November 23 at 1:00 pm.  I will post a summary of major issues when the agenda is released.

TTC Customer Information Town Hall

November 24, 2011 (Thursday)
City Hall Council Chambers (final details TBA)

This is planned as the first of an ongoing series of Town Hall meetings around the city for the TTC to get public input on a range of issues.  Whether we will actually get to complain about budgets and their effect on service quality remains to be seen.

Waterfront Toronto Queen’s Quay Project

Waterfront Toronto recently hired a Project Manager to oversee this project, and they plan to hold a public meeting covering the construction plans for work on the redesigned Queen’s Quay.  Details will be posted here when they are available, but the meeting is likely to be in late November.

There is also a Community Update meeting planned for the East Bayfront (Yonge Street east to about Parliament).  This is a general update regarding land developments and related projects, but there is not likely to be much info on transit as the whole question of the “Harbourfront East” LRT is hung up in funding problems at the City and TTC.

November 22, 2011 (Tuesday) 6:00 to 8:00 pm
Corus Quay (Atrium), 25 Dockside Drive

by

Budget Cuts Threaten Transit, Not Just Streetcars

The Toronto Star reported on July 30 that the TTC may defer its order for new streetcars in a move to free up room in the capital budget.

As I have often written here, the TTC’s capital plans badly strain the ability of the City of Toronto to carry the ongoing spending, and constant cutbacks in funding from Queen’s Park are a major problem.  Every chance they get, provincial Ministers tell us about billions “committed” to transit in the GTA.  The problem is that much of the actual spending won’t happen for many years, if ever, while current spending is a major problem.

Many programs that funded parts of the TTC capital budget have wound down, and the only provincial funding stream the TTC can actually count on is the gas tax.  That brings in about $150-million annually, and even this is partly split with the operating budget.  Meanwhile, the TTC has reached a point where it classifies almost every project as “state of good repair”.  That incantation, brought to us by former Chief General Manager David Gunn, is supposed to indicate the scope of work and funding needed just to keep the lights on and the trains rolling.

However, it has been abused in TTC budgets to include projects such as provisions for additional capacity on the subway.  This is not to say the capacity isn’t needed, but that’s a different class of spending, certainly one that should include regional, not just local funding.

The order for 200 new low floor light rail vehicles (LFLRVs) for the “legacy” streetcar system has a pricetag of about $1.2-billion including inflation, spare parts and warranty coverage.  Toronto gambled when it put this deal together that Ottawa would come in for 1/3, but they chose not to participate.  Indeed, Ottawa has always been selective in its spending on transit across the country preferring to drop money where there is a time limit to the spending, where funding is project-specific and doesn’t imply or create an ongoing commitment to all cities.  Ottawa’s only standing funding is from the federal gas tax, and even that falls in relative value over time because it is not indexed.

Toronto’s and TTC’s budgeting practices have not helped.  In a bid to keep the potential draw on the City’s borrowing capacity under control, at least on paper, TTC projects have been either shuffled off beyond the 10-year planning window, or simply ignored as a potential pressure.  Confusion about where and when funding might actually arrive adds to the problem.

Although the TTC produces multi-year capital and operating budget projections, there is never any explanation or discussion about the options that would shape future funding.  Every year, more projects appear on the list, some the inevitable result of decisions already taken (e.g. if you increase the size of the subway fleet, you need more carhouse space to store the trains, and more staff to operate and maintain them).

Adding to this mess is the Mayor’s desire to extend the Sheppard Subway.  Although funding for this might somehow arrive from the private sector or through links to future property tax revenue, if the project is going to launch, a considerable portion will be in public sector budgets.

In this context, the new streetcars are an easy and obvious target especially as they are not loved by the Mayor’s office.  The Star mentions a $1.5-billion shortfall in available capital over the next ten years.  Whether stretching out or delaying spending on new streetcars will make a big dent in this is hard to say.  A scheme for Metrolinx to pick up the cost and lease the cars back to the city is only an accounting trick — one way or another, we have to pay for them just as we will for anything purchased with borrowed money.  (The proposed financing of Presto is a similar piece of sleight-of-hand.)

The fundamental problem is that the revenue stream (be it operating or capital) dedicated to transit in Toronto and in the GTA is far too small for the region’s demands.  Queen’s Park refuses to address new “revenue tools” even though several analyses of the situation by such radical lefties as the Toronto Board of Trade flag the urgency of more spending on transit.

Once upon a time, we had a plan, no an announcement, called MoveOntario 2020.  It had lots of goodies in it including a network of LRT lines in Toronto.  That’s gone, replaced now by a single $8-billion project for an “LRT” subway across Eglinton and replacing the Scarborough RT.  Planned improvements of GO included electrification of the Lake Shore corridor, but what we actually get are small scale extensions dribbling out one announcement at a time.  Even as and when Metrolinx does produce its “Investment Strategy” with recommendations for revenue sources, along with “The Big Move 2.0”, the likelihood any government will have the stomach to raise new taxes is very low.

Meanwhile in Toronto, despite an $85-million hole in the TTC’s operating budget, Mayor Ford wants yet another freeze of transit fares.  This is madness.  Fare revenue totals about $1-billion and we know that the combination of strong riding demand and good service will minimize the negative effect of a fare hike.  The TTC projects a 10% increase (to $2.75 per adult token, with other fares adjusted proportionately) would bring $50-60m, but this is conservative.  It includes a considerable allowance for “elasticity”, the degree to which a price increase leads to a drop in demand.

Service cuts alone will not address that $85-million, and that approach would ignore both the overall growth in demand on the TTC and the close linkage between service quality and the system’s attractiveness.  Moreover, the $85m does not include the $25-$30m cost of an arbitrated labour settlement TTC workers will likely receive.

While it is tempting to blame everything on Mayor Ford, this is a case where many others must share the burden.  TTC financing has occupied a never-never land in Toronto and Ontario budgets for years.  Toronto is badly served when an agency appears to have an unlimited appetite for money, but a financial plan consisting of “let’s hope for better next year”.  The City is also badly served by doctrinaire budgeting that decrees funding and service cuts with no regard to their effect on system users, on the viability of an essential part of the City’s transportation network, and on the ability of Toronto to attract and serve its businesses and residents.

A 2012 TTC budget will probably show up on the agenda for the board meeting of September 20, although I suspect details will continue to leak out in coming weeks.  How many decisions will be made behind closed doors before those budgets formally appear?  What options will citizens or Council have to examine the details, to debate the options for the future of our transit system?

Instead of that debate, we have far too much focus on what we can do without, on what we can cut.  That is not city building, and certainly is not city leadership.

by

Will Nobody Stop Fords’ Folly?

The Toronto Star and Globe & Mail report that TTC Chief General Manager Gary Webster’s days may be numbered thanks to his failure to support the Sheppard Subway proposal.  Not only might we lose Webster, but we might gain a Ford cohort, a politician with no real transit experience, as his replacement.

I will leave readers to peruse the full articles, but here is a key section in the Star:

The plan to get rid of Webster “is in play now,” said former TTC vice-chair Joe Mihevc.

“(The Fords) are so committed to Sheppard they are actively contemplating getting rid of the entire streetcar system in Toronto,” he said, adding that the cost of the new streetcars could be applied to the subway.

“If Doug Ford bullies his way through on this, it truly will be the victory of extreme authoritarian ideology over good public transit policy and good business management,” Mihevc said.

Elsewhere, we learn that TTC Chair Karen Stintz who, as recently as yesterday morning praised Mayor Ford’s support for TTC customer service initiatives, is actually frustrated with the speed of implementation of changes.  The fact that there isn’t a penny for this program in the budget, and that the TTC faces a 10% cut in city funding for 2012, shows what the real level of commitment is in Toronto.

Meanwhile, the only project of any importance to the Brothers Ford is the Sheppard Subway whose “private sector” financing is a bubble of their imagination that burst months ago.  Every penny that can be scrounged from other projects, plus tax revenue from developments miles away on Eglinton, would be used to finance Sheppard and minimize the level of private sector participation needed to top up the budget.  This is financial trickery of the worst kind.

According to the Globe’s story, Stintz appears to be splitting from Ford’s all-or-nothing approach to the Sheppard line preferring instead to build to Victoria Park as a first step using money originally earmarked for the Sheppard LRT.

Queen’s Park struck a deal with the devil to preserve the Eglinton LRT as a subway while leaving Ford free to work his financial magic on Sheppard.  The streetcar system appeared safe if only because replacing it would be a long-term, difficult proposal.  However, the Liberals’ hold on power is tenuous, and a Ford-favouring Tory government would no doubt be happy to cancel the streetcar order (and probably the LRVs for Eglinton as well) with Bombardier, and the voters of Thunder Bay be damned.

In ten years, we would have a much reduced quality of transit service in the central city, we would choke streets with clouds of buses and limit the growth of major areas served by the present and proposed streetcar system.  In return, Sheppard Avenue would have its subway, and what started as Lastman’s folly and a Liberal campaign promise by former Premier David Peterson would become a full-blown monument to the stupidity of transit planning and politics in Toronto.

Has any of Rob Ford’s transit scheme gone to Council for review?  No.  Council, especially its “mushy middle”, is too busy currying favour with the Mayor to rein in his actions, leaving the Fords to dictate policy on the transit file and so many others.

by

The Route to Ashbridge Carhouse (Updated)

Updated July 7, 2011 at 1:15 pm:

At its meeting on July 6, the TTC board accepted the staff recommendation that the access route to Ashbridges Bay Maintenance & Storage Facility remain on Leslie Street.  The presentations accompanying the discussion were more extensive than those in the online version and I have reproduced selected pages below.

My deputation to the meeting argued that the TTC should keep open the Knox/Russell routing option in case problems with the Leslie option are even worse than are now known.

Several others appeared in support of various options and alternatives.  Neighbouring businesses and residents on Leslie are generally opposed, while Canada Post maintains its strong dislike of the Knox route.

Continue reading →

by

Understanding TTC Project Cost Creep

The recent TTC meeting saw Commissioner Minnan-Wong digging into questions about rising costs on two TTC projects, the design of Finch West Station and the resignalling of the south end of the Yonge subway.

Reports asking for increased spending authorization come through the Commission quite regularly, and Minnan-Wong has raised the question of “out of control spending” at Council on past occasions.  Just to declare my political leanings, I have never been a fan of the Councillor, even though there are certainly legitimate questions to be asked when project costs rise unexpectedly.

Unfortunately, Minnan-Wong tends to approach these issues as if someone is trying to pull the wool over his eyes and implies outright incompetence as the starting point for discussion.  This approach brings more confrontation than information.  Let’s have a look at the two projects in question and consider how information about them (and their many kin in the overall budget) might be better presented.

Continue reading →