Ideas for funding the TTC?

[Northern Light]

Walmart Station? Ugh, I'd move.

That just sounds awful.

More over, it sets a few different bad precedents.

One is that public policy and investment should be dictated only by those individuals or businesses who can pay. That would seem to be contrary to the whole point of government planning or regulation (at least in theory) which is to plan for and protect the greater public good.

This also excuses gov't from raising taxes/fares/fees etc. when it ought to. Surely if a core-service or piece of infrastructures justifies public investment then it ought to get public funding, period.

I'd also be concerned, as a already am; with donors getting naming rights when they are NOT the majority contributor even. I mean really if the gov't pays 75% of the cost, then it, rather than a company paying 25% ought to get the naming rights, it is, after all, the lead donor.

Anyone who believes Wal-Mart would shell out even 51% of the cost of a subway station and a pro-rated amount of tunnel and rolling stock are, I think, living a fantasy, as that would cost $150,000,000 or so.

While one station would hardly break Walmart, its difficult to see shareholder return paying off on that.

No, let gov't raise what it needs, not a lot extra, let is spend wisely; but don't make it beg or borrow for projects that can and should be tax-supported.

****

It needs to be pointed out that taxes (overall) are at historic 35-year lows.

Sales tax down 2 points (or 30% from peak); income taxes are well below what they were a few years ago, whether that's provincial rates (down 30%) or Federal rates ( peak tax rate used to be 34% federally, its now 29, and the low income rate was 17 for the longest time, now 15)

On income tax alone, the peak rate (combined) has gone from over 47% to only 40%, but that is deceptive, as Capital Gains taxes have been cut by a 1/3, RESPs introduced and a host of other tax deductions added. While corporate taxes (combined) were 44% 10 years ago they will be just 25% in 2 years time.

There is tax-room available along with options like road tolls.

No need for Walmart Station, please and Thank You!

 

[Dan416]

How about a Subway Levy (a la the healthcare levy)?

Maybe $50 per person? If you applied it to everyone in Ontario, that'd be over half a billion dollars each to fund subway construction.

 

[CodeMonkey]

How about a Subway Levy (a la the healthcare levy)?

Maybe $50 per person? If you applied it to everyone in Ontario, that'd be over half a billion dollars each to fund subway construction.

Good idea, but people in places like Ottawa or Windsor will complain that their paying for something that doesn't benefit them.

 

[Darwinkgo]

How about a Subway Levy (a la the healthcare levy)?

Maybe $50 per person? If you applied it to everyone in Ontario, that'd be over half a billion dollars each to fund subway construction.

Don't we already have that in Toronto with the vehicle registration levy? Plus we only hit people that are driving. In any case, would be no different than just increasing property taxes. If the levy is not enough, it should be increased.

Why should someone in Waterloo support a transit line here? They have their own line to worry about.

A big thing the city has not taken advantage of is the power to introduce tolling on the highways with city limits.

 

[kEiThZ]

Good idea, but people in places like Ottawa or Windsor will complain that their paying for something that doesn't benefit them.

Exactly. There is already some resentment in Ottawa that Toronto is getting all of Transit City funded and that they are getting such a rough ride over the new transit plan (5 billion of which rail is only 1.5 bn). If a tax is imposed on them for transit, they'll want to keep it.

 

[kEiThZ]

A combination of road tolls, registratiion levies, and gas taxes could probably do a decent job to raise money for transit. I do think that all such money raised should go to the capital budget for system expansion and not be drained for operating costs to keep fares low.

 

[Darwinkgo]

A combination of road tolls, registratiion levies, and gas taxes could probably do a decent job to raise money for transit. I do think that all such money raised should go to the capital budget for system expansion and not be drained for operating costs to keep fares low.

As long as the capital expenditures are seen as reducing the operating budget I think that is fine. The is what Transit City is about, taking buses off the road.

In the short term you would have to use some of that new funding to support the operating budget, but long term if the investments are correct (like maybe refocuses the transit city bus plan, or making it only a transition plan to a second phase rail plan) you should be able to fix the budget situation.

 

[Whoaccio]

1.)What about getting rid of route managers? The guys who sit around taking down streetcar info. I can't think of a more egregious waste of manpower. Could you imagine if Hertz or Beck Taxi placed "managers" around the City to monitor vehicles? A commercial GPS transponder is like 50 bucks, if that. My IPhone only cost a few hundred bucks, and with Google Latitude I can keep track of anybody who wants to be kept track of. Instead we are probably paying someone overtime to sit at Queen and Spadina with pen and paper.

2.)Get rid of most escalators. If all they do is breakdown and need maintenance, what is the point of them? Most stations are shallow enough that nobody with legs should have difficulty taking the stairs. We got rid of the accelerated walkway at Spadina, might was well get rid of some escalators and cut down on maintenance. Paint it as the TTC's contribution to fitness, put those piano stairs they have in Copenhagen.

3.)Move back to high-floor conventional diesel buses. I think Low-Floor buses were required by some kind of Provincial legislation, but I remain unconvinced as to their usefulness. On my local busroute, I've noticed no major change in usage between the older HF buses or LF buses. Now we pay premium for less capacity and less reliability. And move back to conventional diesel buses. The Hybrids haven't been anywhere near as useful as they were meant to be, and they add a few hundred grand onto the buses. I think the TTC even has a few Priuses for fleet cars, which is ridiculous. A Yaris or Corolla would do just fine. The point of the TTC is to move people from Point A to Point B, nothing more.

4.)Peel back some busroutes. Nobody likes to say "cut services", but some are totally ridiculous. The 162 runs every half hour now and I swear to god you will never see more than two people on it. That's actually worse for the environment than just having them drive, and it's not like the Bridle Path is some kind of "priority neighborhood" that can't afford to drive either. I'm not sure what exactly the cut off mark should be, but I think there are more than a few routes that simply cost more than they deliver by any possible metric.

5.)Assuming bus route cuts are impossible, the TTC should look at serving these low demand routes differently. It makes no sense to serve these super-low volume routes with million dollar 40ft buses. At all. Contract the routes out to Taxi company or something to run with Dodge Sprinters. If they classified as "cabs" as opposed to "buses", we would save a lot on wages.

6.)My casual observations of Civic Unions suggest they are, in fact, far to large. I believe it was the case in the last TTC strike that most TTC personal were opposed to striking, but vehicle maintenance was more militant. If we broke them up, that would let us deal with each group individually and let us best address each one's concerns. It wouldn't be that hard, just create a bunch of crown corps for the various sectors (eg. white collar, drivers, maintanence...) which bill their services to some kind of central management crown corp.

7.)Developing station areas has already been mentioned. I'm not opposed to this, but I seriously wonder how competent the TTC is to get into real estate management. It's a really cost-competitive sector and I'm skeptical it could seriously compete with dedicated builder/operators like Cad Fairview or Tridel. I know the archetype here is the MTR, but that is actually a real company whose shareholders want it to make money. With the TTC, I imagine Councilors would just vie to have it spend money in their Wards as opposed to trying to maximize return on its assets.

8.)What about in-tunnel advertising? Not sure if there is demand for such advertising space, but if there is the TTC might as well cash in if there is.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Even more ridiculous is that I am pretty sure most (all?) TTC vehicles already have GPS installed.

 

[wyliepoon]

4.)Peel back some busroutes. Nobody likes to say "cut services", but some are totally ridiculous. The 162 runs every half hour now and I swear to god you will never see more than two people on it. That's actually worse for the environment than just having them drive, and it's not like the Bridle Path is some kind of "priority neighborhood" that can't afford to drive either. I'm not sure what exactly the cut off mark should be, but I think there are more than a few routes that simply cost more than they deliver by any possible metric.

5.)Assuming bus route cuts are impossible, the TTC should look at serving these low demand routes differently. It makes no sense to serve these super-low volume routes with million dollar 40ft buses. At all. Contract the routes out to Taxi company or something to run with Dodge Sprinters. If they classified as "cabs" as opposed to "buses", we would save a lot on wages.

Agree. I think many routes not serving main thoroughfares would be better if they were run with minibuses that are faster and with request stops only (as opposed to fixed stops).

For point #5, I wonder if TTC can contract YRT/Viva to serve the north part of Toronto, just like the TTC is contracted by them to serve York Region. It just seems so strange that more often than not buses across the top of Toronto are full to the brim with passengers, but just north of Steeles YRT buses are mostly running empty.

An alternative to this reverse-contracting is to simply end the YRT contract for TTC buses running in York Region, and keep all TTC buses within city limits at all times. Then set up YRT bus terminals like the one at Finch Station for Downsview, Don Mills and Scarborough Centre stations so YRT can run its own services to the subway.

 

[Second_in_pie]

^^ I most certainly wouldn't like option #2. Contracting out YRT to serve TTC routes would be a great start. Just look at the York U route and how many rockets were going jam-packed from Downsview, while Viva Orange busses that ran the exact same route were totally empty.

The only problem is whether Toronto politicians will have the nerve to ask YRT provide service inside Toronto. Oh the horror!

 

[GenerationW]

The only problem is whether Toronto politicians will have the nerve to ask YRT provide service inside Toronto. Oh the horror!

There's no problem -- they wouldn't ask.

 

[Darwinkgo]

^^ I most certainly wouldn't like option #2. Contracting out YRT to serve TTC routes would be a great start. Just look at the York U route and how many rockets were going jam-packed from Downsview, while Viva Orange busses that ran the exact same route were totally empty.

The only problem is whether Toronto politicians will have the nerve to ask YRT provide service inside Toronto. Oh the horror!

This is being done on Viva Orange I believe ... might have been delayed by the Union ...
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/660276

 

[doady]

Same thing can be done with MT. I think routes 49 and 50 can be cut back or cancelled and taken over by MT routes 3, 20, 26, and 76.

 

[golodhendil]

2.)Get rid of most escalators. If all they do is breakdown and need maintenance, what is the point of them? Most stations are shallow enough that nobody with legs should have difficulty taking the stairs. We got rid of the accelerated walkway at Spadina, might was well get rid of some escalators and cut down on maintenance. Paint it as the TTC's contribution to fitness, put those piano stairs they have in Copenhagen.

Apparently TTC has this problem with their escalators breaking down frequently, but I think it's probably a better idea to look into why that's the case and fix that, rather than getting rid of them. Fitness sounds like a good excuse, but it doesn't work for those people who truly need them the most (like handicapped people or older people who suffer from arthritis and such). I have been on crutches / walking boot for the past couple of months for a broken foot, and I'm sure glad that Boston has been in the process of adding more escalators and elevators to its stations.

3.)Move back to high-floor conventional diesel buses. I think Low-Floor buses were required by some kind of Provincial legislation, but I remain unconvinced as to their usefulness. On my local busroute, I've noticed no major change in usage between the older HF buses or LF buses. Now we pay premium for less capacity and less reliability.

Do you have the numbers for this? It's very possible, but since LF buses are becoming so widespread around the world it's hard to imagine it would be that much more of a premium.