Updated July 6, 2010: Metrolinx has now published the Benefits Cases Analyses for the Hurontario, Dundas, Durham and GO projects. I will comment on these in a separate post.
The original article from July 2 follows below:
This article is a followup to the agenda preview I posted on June 28, 2010. It is a rather lengthy commentary, as much an editorial as a report on events, with the intent of reviewing Metrolinx’ role over coming months and the complexity of the work facing the organization.
Where Did The Study Come From?
GO Transit’s Georgetown corridor, home to many existing and proposed services, has not been a happy place for the Environmental Assessment process, especially on the southern end of the line. Officially, this project was the Georgetown South Service Expansion (GSSE), now shortened to the Georgetown South Project. However, the project has a troubled history thanks to:
This established a confrontational relationship between GO and corridor residents. When Metrolinx published The Big Move, it was obvious that vastly expanded service would be operated along this line including:
GO was so preoccupied with opposition in Weston that it failed to take account of the quickly growing population around the rail corridor south of West Toronto Junction. Aside from the question of daily train movements, GO further alienated residents with a proposal for the Strachan Avenue grade separation that would have created a major barrier within the new King West / Liberty Village community. This matter was not resolved until intervention by Metrolinx and a compromise solution acceptable to the City of Toronto was adopted.
GO runs popular services, and as a provincial agency it is used to getting more or less what it wants. Public participation and accommodation have not been GO’s strong suits.
When the Georgetown South project revealed that there would be over 400 train movements per day on the southern end of the corridor, residents were more than a little upset. Their concerns about noise and pollution were not helped by GO’s appeal to the greater good with claims that, overall, there would be less pollution thanks to auto trips diverted from highways. Those highways are not in backyards in Weston, the Junction and Parkdale, and the benefits that might accrue on Highways 400, 401 and 427 were little comfort to those who would see their local rail corridor gain vastly more traffic than it has today.
From this swelling activism came a demand that GO electrify its system to reduce noise and pollution levels in the neighbourhoods through which it travelled. Electrification had been considered before, but only in the context of the Lake Shore corridor, and only for lower service levels than The Big Move contemplates. This has always been a “nice to do” that gets shunted aside thanks to budget constraints and a desire to concentrate on building service. By late 2009, the demand for a detailed study reached a level where Queen’s Park and Metrolinx could not dodge the issue, and GO’s Electrification Study was born. Continue reading
Last September, I reported on the travesty of new “area maps” for the streets around subway stations. They were so hopelessly inaccurate that an excellent Toronto trivia contest could have been held to spot all of the errors. In very short order, they vanished. (It’s amazing how quickly the TTC can move when it’s embarrassed.)
Joe Clark reports that a new area map has just appeared at Christie Station and has posted photos on Flickr.
Have a look. What is missing? The TTC routes serving the area! There’s a nice green line showing the subway, and the stations are marked, but no surface routes. Yes, riders can look at the big map right next-door to see the local routes, but it wouldn’t hurt to have them on the area maps too.
Also missing-in-action is the alternate entrance at Bathurst/Markham.
The next question for trivia seekers is this: will the TTC replace the even older generation of local maps which can be found in selected locations around the system? These missed the first wave of really inaccurate updates, and were not removed in the great purge. Does the TTC even know they exist, and will they update them with brand new maps?
I have received a few comments from candidates for various offices.
Please note that I do not intend to post any of these unless they bear directly on the issue where they appear, and then are comments on the issue rather than advertisements for the candidate.
If you want to publish your candidacy to the world, get your own website, use Facebook and take your chances with whatever traffic you might achieve.
As and when major candidates publish transit policies, I will comment on them, but on my terms.
[Apologies for posting this late in the evening. It’s been a busy day and I have not been able to blog.]
The St. Clair will resume operation to Gunn’s Loop (west of Keele) starting June 30, 2010. I will update this post with observations, and invite comments from riders.
The Metrolinx Board will meet on June 29. This article is a preview of the agenda, and I will report on the meeting itself later in the week.
The second exit from Broadview Station opened briefly last summer ending the long period of reconstruction at that station. By fall, it was closed again due to ongoing problems with water. The announced opening date kept changing, and most recently signs declared that June 30, 2010 was the new target.
Here is the explanation from the TTC’s Brad Ross:
We’ve encountered a very difficult problem with water ingress at Broadview Station. TTC Engineering and our consultants are continuing geotechnical investigations to determine the source and extent of the water presence.
The next step is to remove the below grade water on a temporary basis to allow the extensive repairs needed to stairwell finishes and the stairs to re-open. In the interim a permanent solution will be developed and implemented to prevent water from entering the structure in the future. There’s a tank on-site is to facilitate remedial and testing measures and removal of the below grade water.
The saga continues.
George Smitherman’s campaign has just released its platform for city services, including parks. Buried in this document is the following:
George supports constructing the Waterfront LRT by 2015 which will enable Torontonians to get to Cherry/Clark beaches and enjoy themselves.
I hate to tell the campaign folks, but the Waterfront LRT ain’t going near Cherry Beach for a very, very long time. The Cherry Street extension will run initially from King south to the rail corridor, and the Waterfront east line will go from Union to Parliament. Both of these will be joined up as part of the Lower Don Lands revitalization that restructures many roads and improves connections under the railway.
Much, much later, the Port Lands service will come in, but it won’t likely make it to Cherry Beach for a few decades, if ever.
Meanwhile, the Waterfront West line is in Transit City limbo with no funding, and an implementation date off in the late 2020s. The route will not, if the TTC has its way, serve the western beach, but will muscle its way through the Queen and Roncesvalles intersection, and proceed out via The Queensway. The route along Lake Shore to Colbourne Lodge Road is so much better, but that’s a “Miller” plan and therefore not likely to be found in Smitherman’s platform.
The Toronto Star reported today that an article (Only a Radical Approach Will Fix Toronto’s Transit Woes) written by Rob Ford’s Director of Policy, Mark Towhey, back in February does not represent the Ford campaign’s position on transit.
For the record, I attempted to get the campaign to react to this article by writing to the ever chatty candidate on June 17, but heard nothing in return. The Star was a bit luckier. Ford and Towhey don’t have much use for the media, or anyone whose political leanings could be described as left-leaning, and so I may not be one of the people who “count” in Ford’s political analysis.
Ford’s official position seems to consist of little more than scrapping anything that even vaguely resembles a streetcar, building subways, and having the TTC declared an essential service.
I will not do Towhey the honour of dismembering his drivel at length, and leave it to readers to peruse his attitudes. They show a profound disrespect for people who use transit and for spending on anything other than the most obviously money-making ventures. The idea that transit is a both a service and an investment in the city is utterly foreign.
Just a few points deserve mention:
In an election year, the exclusively left-wing political elite on the TTC board are [sic] ducking for cover.
If Towhey had done the most basic homework, he would know that the TTC board includes such flaming lefties as Peter Milczyn and Bill Saundercook. They may be in a minority, but that’s also the makeup of Council. An “exclusive left-wing” board it is not. They argue strongly, and sometimes successfully, for their positions.
Apparently, there is a General Manager (a position that was high profile a number of years ago, but has since subsided into irrelevance,) however I can’t find anyone who knows who this person is, nor what he (or she?) does.
Gary Webster, who is frequently quoted in the media, will be surprised to learn that he is unknown. He is hardly irrelevant.
In fact, 16 per cent of the $9.2 Billion (yes that’s Billion with a ‘B’) 2010 operating budget of the City of Toronto goes to keeping the TTC rolling.
Well, in fact, that number is the gross cost of running the TTC, not the net cost after you include the farebox revenue (which also shows up in the City’s books along with property taxes and all of the other fees, subsidies, contracts, what-have-you). In fact the net cost of running the TTC is considerably lower than the cost of running the police force which gets almost no subsidies from anywhere.
This information is easily available in the City’s budget background information online, and one would hope a “director of policy” might be somewhat familiar with how the budget works even if his boss isn’t.
On the capital side, City Hall will spend $1.33 Billion this year alone to purchase new buses, streetcars and make other capital investments in TTC infrastructure. These are real dollars and they are driving out-of-control increases in property taxes that are forcing Toronto residents, and especially its small businesses, to begin planning an exodus to the outer suburbs.
Yes, the Capital Budget for TTC this year is $1.33-billion, but that’s the gross number. Over half of this will come from Queen’s Park and Ottawa, some via the transit share of the gas tax, some via project-specific funding (such as the Spadina Subway), and some through a grab-bag of other funding schemes (see TTC Capital Budget for details).
Towhey proposes that all funding for the TTC be cut off on April 1, 2011. I am not making up this date. He would sell the TTC and use the proceeds to pay down various municipal debts. The fact that these debts and liabilities include many related to the TTC itself seems to have escaped him. Moreover, he forgets that large chunks of the TTC were paid for by other governments who might ask for a share of the proceeds.
But how will people get to and from work, shopping, school, etc? Good question. I imagine more people may drive — so some of the billions the city saves should go to improving its roads. Others will be forced to use bicycles, hire more taxis, join car pools, etc. Apparently, that’s good for the environment, even. Bonus.
What is utterly missed is that the idea that transit might be a general benefit like water, or a fire department, or even roads. Taxis are a prohibitively expensive way to get around, especially for long trips. Car pooling has its limitations, especially for non-commuting trips, and we all know what Ford’s attitude to cyclists is — put them anywhere but on a road that might go someplace useful.
Towhey has a vision for transit:
I want a fast, convenient and affordable way of getting from the door of my home to the doorway of my workplace, shopping centre, school, theatre, friends’ houses, etc. That’s what the TTC should be providing: door to door solutions. The subway has value only when it’s delivering this. Ditto buses. Ditto streetcars.
Door-to-door service will not be provided by transit, ever. If Towhey had wanted this, he might have at least advocated for land use controls that would make it possible, or at least cheaper. Of course, in his world, all of this will be provided by the private sector.
Many bus routes, however, would be abandoned. They’re not profitable. Such is life. The TTC should have dumped these routes long ago. But what about the people who need them? Well, life’s tough. Instead of being the only three people on a 60 passenger bus, perhaps these people will have to introduce themselves, get to know their neighbours and share a taxi.
Yes, life is tough, and it my profound hope that the citizens of Toronto dump Rob Ford and his Director of Policy for whom large chunks of the population don’t warrant their attention or public spending.
Recently, I received a comment that the hyperlinks in articles are not always obvious given that unvisited links are in green and not easily spotted in the body of an article’s text.
I have tweaked the style sheet so that these links are now underscored.
Steve Munro 