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Rob Ford's Toronto

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dt_toronto_geek said:
Why charge Scarbough residents for a subway in that area of town? That makes no sense. Until we are rid of Ford he needs to leave the vehicle registration tax and land transfer tax the hell alone and impose tolls (yes, a tax) on the Gardiner/DVP, increase parking rates along with increasing development fees. Come the next Provincial election, money for transit and roads must be a top election promise to get Toronto's vote. Then there's the Feds., I wouldn't expect any money from them until Harper gets bounced in 2015 but this is all a start to raise money to get LRT and subway lines going.
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Can someone tell me how much money the federal government put into subways prior to 2006?
Could it be that this Harper government is the most municipal transit friendly federal government we have ever had?
 
urbandreamer said:
How to pay for the Scarborough subway line? If you live in Scarborough, a special $1000/person (making over $30,000 per year) tax for the duration of the construction--5 years? Then give each of them a 30% discount on a metropass for 3 years after it's finished.

And 2) Hire non-unionized employees to operate the line.

Btw, the same model should apply for all subway lines built.

Short term pain for long term gain = winner.
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Agreed - I will happily pay my share for the Scarborough subway, if it means I don't have to pay a single penny towards construction of the DRL, or the Yonge Extension, etc etc. :)
 
I agree with bobbob911 - it's silly to just demand residents of Scarborough to pay for that extension just because of the fact that they reside in an ex-borough of Metro. Since the project is identified as an important one by the city at-large, it should be funded through a city wide levy for transit expansion in general (though I do support the notion that a limited portion of the funding comes from development surcharge for any new projects in the area served by the new line).

AoD
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Are you two being sarcastic or no?
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Sarcastic no - facetious, yes. Of course I don't support with the concept of a borough tax. I'm simply pointing out that if such a thing were to be done for this line, then whats good for the goose is good for the gander, and scarberians should therefore not have to pay for the DRL. We would make out like bandits in that deal!
 
Why charge Scarbough residents for a subway in that area of town? That makes no sense. Until we are rid of Ford he needs to leave the vehicle registration tax and land transfer tax the hell alone and impose tolls (yes, a tax) on the Gardiner/DVP, increase parking rates along with increasing development fees.
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I couldn't agree more. The TTC is already the least subsidized transit system on the planet, so charging the users more makes no sense. We need to start encouraging people to use PT by taxing more heavily individual car use.

First thing would be to bring back the VRT...only triple or quadruple it.

Public parking in Toronto is either free or ridiculously cheap. There should be no parking at all on major arteries (especially when there is a surface transit route). Are our arteries for getting around or is it a parking lot????? 1/3 to 1/2 our streets are used as parking lots....that's insane. If we are going to use public property for parking cars, then we have to start charging for it. $17 a month for street parking is stupidly cheap (and free parking is just lunacy). Compare that to private parking...it's more like $17 a day.

Congestion fees for downtown make sense. If it works elsewhere, it will work here.

Public transit surface routes that are in mixed traffic need to be given priority, which will generally mean giving it its own ROW. This is especially true for streetcar routes, which carry huge ridership. The only way to increase capacity for moving people on these arteries is to increase capacity for PT...we can't increase car capacity by making the roads bigger. PT needs to win and the car needs to lose in the battle over road use...plain and simple. Right now...everybody loses.

Tolling entry points to the city's major arteries means 905'ers start paying for infrastructure they use that they pay nothing for at the moment.

Toronto needs to spend a minimum of $1billion/year on transit infrastructure. You can actually start building subways with that kind of funding.

Stop listening to Rob Ford and his imaginary free "subways, subways, subways". He campaigned on building a $4 billion completed Sheppard subway looping with the BD line and the YUS line. It was to be built and operating by the Pan Am games, and be paid for by existing provincial funding and private sector development fees along its route....no cost to Toronto taxpayers....FREE!!! Future subways?....well, perhaps when another "free" ones comes along.

A: it could not have been built for only $4billion
B: it could not have been completed and operating by 2015
C: it involved imaginary private funding
D: it doesn't exist
E: you're an idiot if you fell for it

So Rob Ford only likes subways when he doesn't have to pay for them. Which means, Rob Ford will never be responsible for any subways, let alone "subways, subways, subways" (which is like...mega subways or sumpthin). Rob Ford would like to simply ignore public transit all together....just like anything else he doesn't like.




Wake up Toronto...we aren't progressive at all (we had our moments in the 60's and 70's)....we live in a blazingly ridiculous car culture city.
 
freshcutgrass said:
Congestion fees for downtown make sense. If it works elsewhere, it will work here.
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We need to be very careful about what we want to accomplish with a congestion tax. London's congestion tax was to discourage driving in the zone and to raise funds. Problem was that the $$ raised was below what they anticipated, so they raised the price. Everytime they raise the price the usage goes down which makes it difficult to use this as a predictable revenue stream.

Toronto and Durham experienced this problem with increasing water rates (there's a linkin a comment above to an article about Toronto's problem).

Other issues:
GO transit and TTC YUS line are at capacity, how will these people get to work if they stop driving?
401 east to west (Durham to Mississauga) no good public transit options.
Airport Corporate Centre West (Eglinton from Renforth to Tomken), just bad, bad, bad, buses are infrequent and get stuck in traffic.

London did implement a peak/off peak charge for transit use to smooth out peak ridership levels in the morning, would like to see Toronto have something like that, or a subway surcharge over bus rate (maybe with Presto implementation).
 
freshcutgrass said:
Congestion fees for downtown make sense.
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But is the problem really congestion in the downtown core, or congestion on the major arteries? That is, how much of the congestion actually goes into "downtown", at least as traditionally defined?

I also worry that charging for downtown access would just feed further into the downtown/suburbs divide narrative. Tolls for road use in general are, it seems to me, more democratic.
 
Tulse said:
But is the problem really congestion in the downtown core, or congestion on the major arteries? That is, how much of the congestion actually goes into "downtown", at least as traditionally defined?

I also worry that charging for downtown access would just feed further into the downtown/suburbs divide narrative. Tolls for road use in general are, it seems to me, more democratic.
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Well, we could charge people for access to the suburbs too. :)
 
We need to be very careful about what we want to accomplish with a congestion tax.
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It's very clear that a congestion fee serves one purpose...to reduce congestion. Congestion clearly has a financial burden on the city/economy/quality of life, and the fees simply help offset those costs. Reduce the congestion and you reduce the need for the fees. It isn't really a "revenue stream" in the general sense.

Everytime they raise the price the usage goes down
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So in other words....it WORKS!!!

Like any product, you simply dial in the user fee until you reach the desired consumption level. Right now, the user fee for public roads is ...free. Free doesn't have much discouraging power. Even a nominal fee can have a substantial effect (not saying it necessarily will for traffic)....look at the consumption drop that 5cent fee had on plastic bags...phenomenally successful idea that was. It's no wonder Rob Ford spent a lot of time and energy fighting against something so win-win.


GO transit and TTC YUS line are at capacity, how will these people get to work if they stop driving?
401 east to west (Durham to Mississauga) no good public transit options.
Airport Corporate Centre West (Eglinton from Renforth to Tomken), just bad, bad, bad, buses are infrequent and get stuck in traffic.
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Well obviously transit planning has to go hand in hand with any plan. Little point in trying to convince drivers out of their cars if transit service is incapable of accommodating them.



London did implement a peak/off peak charge for transit use to smooth out peak ridership levels in the morning, would like to see Toronto have something like that, or a subway surcharge over bus rate (maybe with Presto implementation).
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Pricing people out of using transit is a losing proposition. We are try to encourage people to use transit...not the opposite. The way to handle transit capacity is to improve capacity...not discourage public transit use.

What the TTC is successful at, is accommodating large amounts of choice riders and not penalizing the captive riders in the system. The TTC's highly integrated system is served well by its single fare ride.

As an aside, Toronto should consider something more radical.....switch how public roads and public transit is funded. Have roads with user fees and public transit fully tax subsidized. With no fares for transit use, the capacity would need to be greatly increased, and that kind of infrastructure is far, far away.

But is the problem really congestion in the downtown core, or congestion on the major arteries? That is, how much of the congestion actually goes into "downtown", at least as traditionally defined?
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Well fine, that's easy....change that to congestion fees....wherever they make sense.
 
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