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Keeping My Hand Out Of The Cookie Jar

After my appearance on Metro Morning today, an interesting question came up from a caller — am I paid for the work I do by the TTC?

The answer, quite emphatically, is no.  The last time the TTC paid me for anything was in 1969 when I left a clerical position there to return to school.

My professional life throughout the entire period of my transit activism has been in the Information Technology sector, most recently as Operations Manager for the Toronto District School Board’s IT department.  I have my opinions about how TDSB was managed, but I keep them to myself as befits the role of an employee, and my advocacy has been in other sectors, mainly transit.  I retired at the end of March.  And, yes, as a manager I appeared on the “sunshine list” for 2008.

Over the decades, I have co-authored a few small reports for non-TTC agencies and have received small honoraria for appearing at community events.  A $50 Chapter’s gift card is not going to change my lifestyle or buy my opinion.

I’ve been to countless meetings where the refreshments ranged from pizza and sandwiches, cookies, coffee, cold drinks (if you get there early), water or nothing at all.  People buy me a beer now and then.  Oh yes, Bombardier bought me breakfast once.  I think it cost them about $15.  Dinners at the Ritz are not my lot.

I am actually paid, but not much, for the articles I write in spacing magazine.  The hard copy version, not the blog.

Part of being a “transit advocate” is to talk to people, to advise them on the details of my thoughts on issues.  These have ranged over the years through the media, many parts of City Hall and Queen’s Park, community groups, even people within the TTC.  Some listen more than others, but an advocate can’t expect to hit 100%.  It’s the consistency and credibility of the message that matters.

I must say that the current environment both at the TTC and City Hall are a vast improvement over the days when talking to me was a firing offence at the TTC.  That was a few Chief General Managers ago, and it’s not hard to figure out which CGM might have been so insecure as to have such an attitude.  David Gunn was a huge breath of fresh air by contrast.

There are times that what I say supports TTC policies, and more times when I am highly critical.  Indeed, there have been occasions when I do a better job of explaining what the TTC is up to than their own staff do (or can, given constraints on what employees can say).

Would I like to be paid for all of this?  Well, at times I wonder why I do it, particularly all the work of maintaining this site, but it’s for a good cause.  My cause may not align with the views others have of Toronto’s planning and transit.  They are free to advocate on their own, although I have a few years’ head start.

The moment I get paid, my role would be suspect, and after a long period as a pro bono advocate, showing up as a paid spokesman might confer a credibility undeserved by the client.  I’m not selling my reputation.

The 2005 Jane Jacobs Prize was a special honour in recognition of years of work.  When I did a quick calculation, the $15k award came out to well under $1 an hour, although it was tax free.  The honour was to receive this from Jane while she was still alive, and that I share it with so many others of distinction in our city.  There is no formal requirement of the prize, although continuing my effort is likely assumed.  It’s hard to imagine anyone on that award list treating it as a chance to retire from public life.

If I ever take on paid work, I will be the first to declare it here so that any possible conflict of interest is visible to all.

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Metrolinx “Big 5” Update (November 2009)

Today’s Metrolinx Board Meeting was notable both for the update, in public session, of the project status for five major lines as well as for supplementary information that came out in a press scrum after the public session.

Five projects now have funding and are at various stages in their approval/construction process.

Continue reading →

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Metrolinx Meets Mostly In Private (November 2009 Edition)

The November Metrolinx Board meeting takes place Monday the 16th starting at 1 pm.  As usual, the agenda has a small public session including remarks by Transportation Minister Bradley and reports from Rob Prichard, the CEO, Gary McNeil, the Managing Director, and a progress report on the “Big 5” projects.  These are the Eglinton, Finch, Sheppard and SRT projects in Toronto, as well as the Viva Next project in York Region.

The board then goes into private session where it will discuss the same things all over again, presumably with the interesting, important bits included.  There will also be updates on Presto (the smart card project), the Investment Strategy (how we will pay for everything), and various standing committees including the Customer Service Committee, so appropriate an issue for a private session.

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Yonge Subway Yard Study (Revised)

At its meeting on November 17, the TTC will consider a report on the yard needs for the Yonge-University-Spadina subway. 

Updated November 15 at 6:10 pm:

A reference to the replacement dates for the BD signal system and the T1 fleet has been corrected.  This triggers a discussion of whether the TTC will concoct an excuse to retire the T1’s early on the grounds that it is not worth installing ATO on them.

Updated November 15 at 4:30 pm:

The Subway Rail Yard Needs Study (aka SRYNS) proposes that future operations of the Yonge-University-Spadina line through 2030 be provided through a combination of various facilities:

  • Expansion of Wilson Yard
  • Storage of 6-8 trains at Davisville Yard
  • Consolidation of all non-revenue equipment (work trains) at Davisville Yard
  • Provision of online storage for additional trains at Richmond Hill
  • Sheppard Subway equipment (four 4-car T1 sets plus a spare) would be serviced at Greenwood

However, looking beyond 2030, staff foresee a need for additional storage and are asking the Commission for perimission to protect for a new yard on the Yonge line with purchase of property, should it become available.  This is a rather oddly worded request to which I will return.

The SRYNS was funded by York Region in recognition of the storage and servicing issues that a Richmond Hill subway extension would create for the YUS line.  The study explicitly does not look at requirements for the Bloor-Danforth line, but the report recognizes that this too must be examined.  The restructuring of the fleet and storage requirements for YUS trigger a move of all T1 subway cars to Greenwood, but that yard is not large enough to hold all of them.  In the short term, the TTC owns more T1s than would be required to operate both the BD and Sheppard subways, but this fleet will reach 30 years in 2026 and replacement with newer cars will occur within the timeframe of any projected yard requirements. Continue reading →

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What Should We Do About Fares?

In my previous article, I reviewed the TTC staff report about the proposed fare increase, but didn’t say much (except in the comment thread) about my overall view on the situation.

The most important fact about Tuesday’s TTC decision, whatever it will be, is that it will not set, once and for all, either the fare and service levels for 2010, nor general fare policy for the future.  Any attempt to do so runs directly into the limitations of the TTC’s mandate and the simple truth that neither the City nor Queen’s Park have clearly stated how much the TTC might get in operating subsidies for 2010.

For next Tuesday, as I have said many times, I support the proposed 25-cent token fare increase with all other fares rising proportionately.  The attempt to grab $5 extra a month from Metropass holders is an unfair, precipitous action brought forward by TTC staff who have always fought against making the pass “the better way” to travel.  That the scheme was announced by a press release rather than by a formal proposal from the Commission itself raises serious questions about who is setting policy at the TTC.

If the Commission adopts this fare scheme, the TTC will still be about $50-million in the hole going into the 2010 budget process.  At this point we have no idea what sort of tradeoffs this might entail, and the Commission is asked to implement a fare change without all the facts on the table.

As I mentioned in my previous article, TTC staff claim that the system’s costs will rise by 7% per annum for the foreseeable future, but they do not quantify the source of this magnitude of change.  Some factors listed in the staff report are non-recurring or have a limited effect on future budgets.

Next Tuesday, as we always see when fare increases are on the table, there will be many groups calling for various changes in fare structures ranging from a complete freeze to new discounts for certain groups of riders.  I believe that the Commission, and by extension the City, should not be making fare policy on the fly.  We are all badly served by “debate” that is inevitably presented as a decision that must be taken today lest the sky fall tomorrow. Continue reading →

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TTC Budget Report: Raise the Fares

The TTC staff report recommending a fare increase is now available on the TTC’s website.  This will be formally considered at the Commission meeting on November 17, but of course this subject has already been discussed at length in the media and on blogs.

The new price for adult tokens will be $2.50, up 25 cents, with all other fares increased roughly pro-rata.  The one exception is the Metropass for which the proposed fare multiple (the ratio between the pass price and the token price) would be bumped by the equivalent of two fares.  This places the burden of the fare increase disproportionately on the Metropass users.

The TTC projects essentially flat ridership and service for 2010 relative to 2009.  Projected riding is 473-million, up only 2-million over the likely 2009 level.  Other than the full-year effect of service changes added during 2009, no major service improvements are planned for 2010.

A particularly striking comment in the report is that TTC costs are expected to rise next year by 7% and to continue rising at that rate for the foreseeable future.  A number of factors are cited, but they don’t all make sense over an extended period.

  • Labour costs.  The TTC is committed to wage increases at the currently contracted levels, but unless there is a major change in economic circumstances, the next round of bargaining will almost certainly result in a lower rate of increase.
  • Energy costs.  It is unclear whether all of the TTC’s energy costs (diesel fuel, electric power) will rise at greater than the rate of inflation and if so, by how much.
  • General inflation.  Since labour and energy are already out of the mix, this only affects costs such as materials.
  • Annualized service increases.  This affects only 2009.
  • Low floor bus adjustments.  By the end of 2009, high-floor buses are planned to be less than 10% of the bus fleet, and by 2013, last of them will be retired.  The capacity adjustment for changing to low-floor buses will be completely worked into the system substantially in 2010 when 58 of the remaining 100 “New Look”s are retired.
  • Construction and congestion adjustments.  Some additional construction effects can be expected as programs such as watermain replacement ramp up, but this will hit a new plateau at some point.
  • Increased vehicle and facility maintenance requirements.  I can understand better facility maintenance (although stations are covered in a separate bullet), but if anything the vehicle maintenance costs should start to drop with the implementation of large new fleets of vehicles in all modes.

If we are looking at a sustained 7% growth in the TTC’s operating budget, even without service improvements, the underlying reasons must be clearly understood.  This has very serious implications for transit funding, service and fares in the coming decade. Continue reading →

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Eglinton LRT Update (Revised)

At its meeting on November 17, the TTC will consider a report on the Eglinton LRT Transit Project Assessment.  A few items have caught my eye already:

  • Another round of public meetings starting from November 23 to December 10 will present the final version of the design.
  • The scheme for handling left turns has been modified from that shown in the original plan.
  • Construction is proposed for three stages, but service will not reach the airport until 2020.  The section west from Eglinton West Station to Commerce Blvd. would open in 2016, the east section to Kennedy in 2018, and the airport link in 2020.  Promoters of the Pan Am Games might have questions about that timetable.
  • The Silver Dart alignment to the airport remains the preferred option, and the line will not serve the hotel strip on Dixon Road.
  • The station formerly located at Brentcliffe is now at Laird.

Revised November 13, 10:15 am:

The process for handling Commission approval of the Transit Project Assessment is rather odd because only the Executive Summary is available at this time.  Full details of the proposal have not been provided, and yet the Commission is being asked to sign off on the TPA.

This begs the question of how the TTC can “approve” an assessment when the document is not before them and may not yet exist in final form. Continue reading →

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A Little Accuracy Would Be Nice

The National Post reported comments by former City budget chief David Soknacki at the Board of Trade in which he claims that in the past decade:

  • The TTC staff went up 13%, while the service operated rose by only 1.3%.
  • The cost to Toronto taxpayers for the TTC went from $125 to $250.

This sort of statement gets red-blooded, tax-chopping politicians, not to mention the Board of Trade, hopping mad.  If only the information were accurate and in context.

First let’s look at service levels.

In 1998, the TTC operated 106.6-million km on its surface network, and by 2008, this was up to 126.3-million.  That 18.5% more, and even allowing for the fact that 2008 was a leap year (and had one more day’s operations in it), that’s a lot better than 1.3%.  The surface fleet rose from 1,744 buses and streetcars to 1,985, or 13.8%.

On the rapid transit network, service rose from 71.7m to 78.2m km, or 9.1%.  Most of the increase came from restoration of mid-90s off-peak service cuts and a small bump from the Sheppard Subway opening.

During this period, the TTC was subject to changes in labour laws restricting hours of work in the transit industry, and this triggered a requirement for more operators to perform the same work.

We can have long debates about the merits of Local 113, not to mention the non-union staff at TTC, but the simple fact is that over the past decade the TTC ran more service and hired more people operate the system.

Second, the “transit tax” per capita.

During the mid 1990s, funding for transit and other municipal services was butchered by Queen’s Park, and the City of Toronto (among others) is still digging its way out of that hole.  Transit services were scaled back, ridership dropped, and the farebox recovery rate went above 80%.

Over the next decade, City policy favoured a return to better service quality (the Ridership Growth Strategy) and to a farebox recovery at the so-called historic level of 68%.  There is nothing magic about this figure.  It just happened to be the level when Toronto and Queen’s Park came to an agreement about the amounts of subsidy each would provide, locking in at the then-current level.

In 1998, an adult token cost $1.60 (and had done so since 1996), while the Metropass cost $83 and was not transferrable.  Today, the token costs $2.25 and the Metropass $109 (leaving aside various discounts available).  That’s an increase of 41% on tokens and 31% on passes.

Better service and a higher proportionate subsidy for service combined to drive up the subsidy required by the TTC.

  • In 1998, the total operating subsidy was $146.3-million paid entirely by the City.
  • This rose to $299.6m by 2007, of which $208.0m came from the City with the rest from other governments. 
  • The next year, 2008, the City contribution dropped back the 1998 level even though the total subsidy continued to rise to $316.9m.
  • For 2009, the total subsidy will be about $400m thanks to the combined effects of inflation and the 2009 fare freeze.

Over the 1998-2008 period, it is roughly correct to say that taxpayers somewhere (local, provincial, federal) roughly doubled their contribution to the TTC, but that increase was paid back to riders in better service and lower fares, relative to the total cost of operation.

Many politicians pay lip service to the need for better public transportation, and if anything, spending is far behind where it should be, especially for system expansion.  None of that will come without higher subsidies.  We can debate whether those the TTC and other transit agencies get today are spent wisely or effectively, but the need for more transit is inescapable.  Talk about efficiency plays well to the mythical taxpayer, but more often this is code for “no more transit money” at a time when that’s the worst possible choice.

For a detailed look at TTC fares and operating statistics, please visit Bob Brent’s website.