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Everybody’s Got a Plan

The agenda for the July 27 GTTA Board meeting includes overviews of the transit plans from all of the GTA regions plus an GO Transit’s schemes.  This material has been updated to reflect the MoveOntario2020 announcement, but not the current budget crisis at the TTC.  In the timescale that these plans operate, that crisis will only be a memory long before any of this is actually built.

Queen’s Park is looking for “quick success” stories, projects that can show some concrete return in very short order.  They actually hoped, at one time, to be able to have photo ops before the election, but that’s not very likely.

Having all of these plans in one place is useful both for people who are not familiar with what each region has been thinking, and to show just how far the entire GTA has to move to make any serious dent in the rising car traffic.  Some regions don’t plan to be above 10% transit share by 2031 and, given their development and travel patterns, how that can be improved is a mystery.  We can extend the reach of GO Transit, but travel within and between regions travel is quite another matter. Continue reading →

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GO Ottawa? (Updated)

On July 27, David Cavlovic passed on another Ottawa Sun article in this thread.  He comments:

Well, NOW it’s getting really ridiculous.

That’s all we need. It’s not enough that resources are stretched in the GTA, let’s stretch it in other cities as well.

Toronto Transit CORPORATION. Oh dear. Harbinger of the future?

[The article’s author is not in touch with Toronto’s transit system as we saw yesterday.]

 Fortunately, there is a bit of good sense on Council:

River Coun. Maria McRae, who is also the chair of the city’s transportation committee, said there is no reason why GO Transit and OC Transpo can’t work together.

“We can do both,” said McRae. “We should pursue that GO model for outside the city, but not lose focus on Ottawa’s transit issues.”

[Original post follows] 

David Cavlovic passed on the following item of interest from the Ottawa Sun.

Ottawa could be moving from the O-Train to the GO Train.

With Mayor Larry O’Brien mapping out an ambitious inter-regional commuter transit plan for Eastern Ontario, the province’s biggest regional commuter carrier, GO Transit, is expressing interest in helping the city with its plan.

“It’s definitely something we would look at,” said Jamie Rilett, communications director for Ontario Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield, whose department operates the Government of Ontario (GO) network in the Greater Toronto Area.

“When it was first brought up to us and we discussed it with various mayors and members from the Ottawa area, it was made clear to them we would look at any proposal they had and if they were interested in having GO participate in whatever way then it’s definitely something we would consider,” said Rilett.

[The full article goes on to talk about how wonderful GO is, and manages to get some of the facts wrong.]

Amusingly, this is yet another situation where a comment comes not from the GTTA but from the Minister’s office.  At tomorrow’s GTTA meeting, maybe they can discuss a small eastward expansion of their territory.

More to the point, Ottawa has to decide whether it wants a commuter rail network providing relatively infrequent service oriented to peak demand, or a transit network.  These are two completely different things.

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St. Clair & Dufferin: Cars 1, Pedestrians 0

City Council, in its infinite wisdom, overturned the recommendations of their staff and of the Community Consultative process set up to review the design of the St. Clair LRT project.

Although the original design for Dufferin and St. Clair did not include an east-to-north left turn lane, this feature has been added by Council direction.  See the Decision Document at item EY7.38 for details.

The staff report on the subject includes drawings of both configurations, and you can see clearly the degree of curb cuts that this decision will entail at an already-crowded intersection.

Two follow-on actions were included in the Council decision:

  • Future studies for the redevelopment of this area should include setbacks from the new curb lane to provide wider sidewalks.
  • The proposed U-turn two blocks east of Dufferin at Northcliffe (part of the 2008 phase of the LRT project) should be reviewed.

This decision bows to those who drive on St. Clair by providing a left turn at the expense of pedestrian space.  Once the construction is finished, we can expect to hear howls of outrage about this change.

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Clarification: Why We Have Budget Cuts in 2007

I have received a note from the Mayor’s office explaining why various agencies like the TTC have been asked to make cuts in 2007 in the wake of Council’s deferral of the Land Transfer Tax and Vehicle Registration Fee.

If these had been passed, they would have taken effect in 2008.  I was under the impression (no doubt from a garbled media report) that the new revenues would have started to flow in 2007, but this is not correct.

Even if Council does vote to implement these measures in October, they won’t be up and running for January, and there will be a shortfall from the anticipated revenue for 2008.  If Council rejects the measures again, well, then I don’t want to even think about the implications.

Either way, the intent of cuts to the 2007 spending is to free up whatever money is available to carry over into early 2008.  The big TTC cuts cannot be reasonably implemented until the new year, but if they are, they will permit a flat-lining of the subsidy from 2007 to 2008.

None of this is at all pretty, and the important political task is to marshall support for the new taxes going into the October Council meeting.  Unfortunately, the TTC will likely be pressured to approve the 2008 cuts in September before they actually know what revenues will be available in 2008.

My preference would be that if they must make a decision, pass a fare increase in September (we are overdue for one anyhow), and hold off on the service cuts until after the October meeting clarifies the budget situation for 2008.

Update [July 23, 6:40 pm]

After I wrote this post, I received this comment from Councillor Gord Perks in another thread, and I have moved it here:

Steve,

In response to a post from M. Huigens you suggested that the land transfer and vehicle registration taxes would have gone into effect immediately, and the need for freezing some spending and reviewing the 2007 operating budget stems from that loss of immediate revenue.

I just wanted to give a small correction. The taxes were scheduled for a Jan. 1st implementation. The deferral created two problems. If the taxes pass council in late October, we are unlikely to make that Jan 1st implementation date. It may be March before they are in place. This will leave a shortfall of several tens of millions.

The second, and more serious, problem is the possibility that we don’t approve them in October. In that event our 2008 budget is bleak indeed.

In both cases we need to control expenditures that will have a big operating impact in 2008. An example of this was the decision to delay extra TTC service which had been scheduled for this fall. If the taxes don’t pass we will also need to generate a surplus this year to give us some flexibility in 2008. Thus every department has been asked to find immediate operating savings. We will better understand what those will be in about two weeks.

In any event the main issue remains. As the Oct. 22nd vote approaches Torontonians need to discuss the kind of city we want. Do we believe in a bare bones paving and policing style of government, or do we want to build Toronto with a broader mix or public programs: Ridership Growth, Transit City, climate change measures, investments in underserviced neighborhoods, culture, libraries, housing, and recreation.

I know your website will be an important place for this crucial conversation.

Sincerely,

Gord Perks

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The Mythology of “Poor Performing Routes” (Updated)

[This article has been linked from torontoist.com where there is another thread of comments.] 

Whenever there is a budget crisis, the TTC trots out its annual report in which they claim to show the costs and revenues associated with each route in the system.  By implication, the routes at the bottom of the barrel are “poor performers” and candidates for service cuts if not outright extinction.  The calculations in this table can be charitably described as creative writing.

Why?

In a flat fare system, it is impossible to allocate fare revenue in any way that makes sense and produces meaningful comparisons between routes.  Continue reading →

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Details of the TTC Proposals

Several documents were discussed at the July 20 TTC meeting, and I have converted them to a format that will be easy to download even for people with relatively slow links.  The texts have been scanned as such, cleaned up in Word and then reformatted as PDFs.  In a few cases, I have clarified the meaning of some TTC texts for a wider readership.

The July 2007 report and the introduction to the March 2007 proposals make interesting reading as a pair.  Although the “crisis” came to light only this week with proposals such as closing the Sheppard Subway, the TTC has been thinking about this for a while.  Indeed, in March, they had a $100-million list of cuts ready to go if the City felt particularly stingy about its annual subsidy. Continue reading →

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Much Ado About Very Little (Updated)

As I write this at 10:20 pm, it’s been a long day.  I spent the afternoon at City Hall for the TTC meeting, had a quick dinner, went to a movie (Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes) and then came home to a mountain of accumulated comments on this blog.

The TTC voted today to defer service improvements planned for September including the opening of Mt. Dennis bus garage, to get a pile of additional information, and to launch a series of community meetings to discuss service proposals.

Updated July 21 at 8:30 am

Now that I’m awake, here is a rundown on the discussion and proposals at the July 20 emergency TTC meeting.

By way of introduction, you can listen to a podcast of my interview on Ontario Today that aired just before the meeting.

The TTC has been asked by the City Manager to trim $30-million from its operating deficit in 2007, and at least $100-million from 2008 to flatline the subsidy at the 2007 level.  Various proposals were put forward (you can see the full list in the presentation), but most of these cannot kick in until 2008.  On the table for 2007 were:

  1. Cut poorly performing routes ($1 million)
  2. Cancel service improvements planned for September through December ($2-3 million)
  3. Defer opening of Mt. Dennis Garage ($2 million)
  4. Miscellaneous cost containment (travel, etc.) (amount to be determined)
  5. A fare increase of 10-25 cents effective September 1 ($3-15 million)

Of these, the Commission approved items 2-4. Continue reading →

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How They Voted — TTC Commissioners and the New Taxes

In the midst of the huge pile of comments I have received (with thanks to the Toronto Star for linking this site to their article), we need to look at just whose vote landed on which side of the debate earlier this week.

On the motion to defer consideration of new taxes until the October Council meeting:

TTC Commissioners in favour:

  • Suzan Hall (Etobicoke North)
  • Peter Milczyn (Etobicoke Lakeshore)
  • Anthony Perruzza (York West)
  • Bill Saundercook (Parkdale-High Park)
  • Michael Thompson (Scarborough Centre)

TTC Commissioners opposed:

  • Sandra Bussin (Beaches- East York)
  • Glenn De Baeremaeker (Scarborough Centre)
  • Adam Giambrone (Davenport)
  • Joe Mihevc (St. Paul’s)

This means that there is a majority of the Commission who were behind the deferral at Council and in whose hands rests the fate of the TTC’s service.  The weak vote, I am sure, is Anthony Perruzza, a junior member nominally one of Miller’s camp, but who jumped ship on the vote at Council.

When I report on the events at the emergency TTC meeting, I will include the voting pattern. 

I can think of a few wards where service cuts make good economic sense — let the authors of this mess explain why their buses don’t run any more.

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Emergency TTC Meeting re Budget Cuts [Updated]

In response to a request from the City, the TTC is holding an emergency meeting on Friday, July 20 at 1:00 pm in Committee Room 1 to discuss possible budget cuts.

Jeff Gray at the Globe reports that the TTC is considering options such as a 25-cent fare hike and closing the Sheppard Subway to save $10-million per year.

Jim Byers in the Star has additional details about the type of cuts we are looking at.

Critics call this fear-mongering, but I believe that it is important that the residents of Toronto and the TTC users understand the position the irresponsible action of Council has created.  The TTC was already having trouble convincing even pro-transit members of Council that they should continue spending to roll out the Ridership Growth Strategy, and with the latest decision, any hope of new services vanishes.

From an activist’s point of view, this is a black day for the TTC.  As I have already written, if the City is going to walk away from supporting the TTC, then the real alternative is higher fares, not service cuts.  Better we have a transit system that people want to use than one that comes a distant fifth in preference after driving, walking, cycling or cabs. Continue reading →

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What Driving For the TTC Pays

In response to a comment in the thread about TTC costs, someone claimed that a TTC operator made $75K per year.  The perception of how well paid, or not, an operator is deserves its own thread, and here is a comment I received on the subject from an operator named Gord:

Just a quick comment to correct a little bit of mis-information showing up in this discussion.  Tom B. states that TTC operators earn about $30.00 per hour.  I wish I did.  The actual top rate of pay is $26.58 per hour for an operator with over 30 months on the job.

Doing the basic math shows that $26.58 X 40 X 52 = $55,286.40 annually.  If you factor in the cost of our benefits, pension, etc., I am sure that you can make the argument that we earn more than this but that is not what I actually receive in my pay each week.

Just to set the record straight: I am paid for 8 hours and 53 minutes each weekday BUT my actual workday is 11 hours and 46 minutes long because I work split shifts (swing work in TTC parlance).  I start work at 5:49 am and do not finish until 5:35 pm with 4 hours and 16 minutes between the two pieces of work that I do.

I’m not complaining; I choose my own work and I enjoy what I do (like most TTC operators).  I don’t have weekends off (but get two weekdays off instead) because only the most senior operators can get this work.

In terms of operators/collectors showing up on the Sunshine list, think of how many hours they have had to work to get there. This is because there is a lot more work available than there are operators to do it. In order to provide service, the TTC needs to pay overtime to fill the vacancies.

You are correct to state that recruitment is falling short. There are a lot of trainees who do not make it through training, and there are also a number who do not make it through their first year on the job due to the stress involved.

Working for the TTC isn’t a “9 to 5″ job (unless you drive a night bus).  We’re on the job long before most people even wake up in order to be there when they want to go to work.

I’m sorry about the length of this comment (maybe you could start a new topic on the typical day in the life of a TTC operator).

Steve:  Don’t worry about the length of the comment.  Some of my regular contributors are rather long-winded themselves.  Thanks for filling in this information for others to see.

Just one bit of clarification:  The reason for the oddball amount of time in a day is that an operator is paid for the time actually scheduled for the run plus some basic allowances such as travel time to and from the route if they don’t pick up the bus or streetcar at a garage or carhouse.  Very few operators get exactly 40 hours pay per week because it is impossible to divide up the work that way.

Comments on this post have been closed.  I am not running a site for info on how to apply for jobs at the TTC or pass their screening tests.