Transit expansion for a better Toronto! (Rally/Protest idea)

[Cranky Old Fart]

I'll repeat what's already been posted, things tend to cost money. If you're not willing to front the cash, you're going to end up not getting it.
Having the GTA secede from Ontario would do nothing. Do you think that the money recently taken out of transit was to go towards other projects in Ontario? No! It was a result of bailing out the auto companies which have industry in, what do you know, Oshawa and other parts of the GTA.

The GM Bailout for Oshawa is but a pin prick in the 40 year old Transit Infrastructure deficit in the GTA. I noticed that GM is adding a 3rd shift to the Oshawa Plant that should be great for the tax base of the local area & Ontario.

This discussion of the funding framework between the GTA & Ontario is 4 decades old (as far as I can remember) time to end the discussion & make the decision to pursue a divorce !

 

[kettal]

I'll repeat what's already been posted, things tend to cost money. If you're not willing to front the cash, you're going to end up not getting it.
Having the GTA secede from Ontario would do nothing. Do you think that the money recently taken out of transit was to go towards other projects in Ontario? No! It was a result of bailing out the auto companies which have industry in, what do you know, Oshawa and other parts of the GTA.

The problem is that none of the political parties care about Toronto. Liberas take us for granted, PC only cares about their rural base. It's not just this incident, Toronto has been ignored for 30 years now.

 

[gweed123]

Just for the record, I agree that the Province should be funding transit in full, but consider this:

When Transit City was approved by council and agreed to be funded by the Province, its pricetag was $8 billion. It is now $15 billion, before a single shovel even hit the ground. In otherwords, the City forced upon the Province an extra $7 billion in capital to pay for projects that were grossly under-costed on the part of the city. So in that sense, I can see why the Province cancelled a portion of that funding. If I agreed to buy a new car, and the dealer said it would cost $20,000, and then I come in a few days later and the cost of the same car is now $37,500, I would certainly be thinking twice about paying for it.

The City had a golden opportunity to get pretty much a blank cheque for transit expansion, but they cheapened out, low-balled an inferior system, and then nearly doubled the cost after it was approved.

 

[gweed123]

If the city had just gone to the province and said "we want $15 billion for subway expansion, phased in such a manner", the province would have said "sure thing". Instead, they went to the province and said "subways are too expensive, so we're going to propose this LRT system. It isn't as good as subways, but it's better than nothing, and it'll only cost $8 billion". They then turned around less than 3 years later and said "yeah we kinda screwed up on that one, the cost has nearly doubled. Sorry about that".

 

[GraphicMatt]

If the city had just gone to the province and said "we want $15 billion for subway expansion, phased in such a manner", the province would have said "sure thing". Instead, they went to the province and said "subways are too expensive, so we're going to propose this LRT system. It isn't as good as subways, but it's better than nothing, and it'll only cost $8 billion". They then turned around less than 3 years later and said "yeah we kinda screwed up on that one, the cost has nearly doubled. Sorry about that".

This narrative isn't true at all.

The premier did fund all existing transit proposals, but the sum total of MoveOntario was 17.5 billion and I doubt very much he would have let Toronto's share take up 15 billion of that. I suppose they could have upped MO2020 to ~25 billion but that's a big 'what if.'

But whatever. In either case we'd be in a similar situation right now, with funding being cut (or 'delayed') drastically in order to improve the Ontario government's budget numbers.

There's nothing editorial about this cut. It has nothing to do with the nature of the transit plans. We know this because other projects funded under MoveOntario are on the chopping block as well.

I'm honestly a little surprised to see you making this kind of post. It really is just a completely outlandish claim.

 

[kettal]

If the city had just gone to the province and said "we want $15 billion for subway expansion, phased in such a manner", the province would have said "sure thing". Instead, they went to the province and said "subways are too expensive, so we're going to propose this LRT system. It isn't as good as subways, but it's better than nothing, and it'll only cost $8 billion". They then turned around less than 3 years later and said "yeah we kinda screwed up on that one, the cost has nearly doubled. Sorry about that".

Do you seriously believe what you said here? The cost estimate hasn't changed since the province announced it's funding 1 year ago.

 

[gweed123]

Do you seriously believe what you said here? The cost estimate hasn't changed since the province announced it's funding 1 year ago.

Ok, the narrative part may be a bit outlandish, but you can't honestly believe that having the cost of a multi-billion dollar transit plan nearly double in the span of 2 years isn't going to have some kind of negative budgetary effect, especially considering the province is footing the majority of the bill. That's just the point I'm trying to make here.

 

[kettal]

Ok, the narrative part may be a bit outlandish, but you can't honestly believe that having the cost of a multi-billion dollar transit plan nearly double in the span of 2 years isn't going to have some kind of negative budgetary effect, especially considering the province is footing the majority of the bill. That's just the point I'm trying to make here.

The likeliness of this being the reason is extremely low. As I said, not that much has changed since 1 year ago when the funding was announced. That happened after the budget adjustments, remember?

 

[Dan416]

An article in the Globe said that a majority of CEOs support raising taxes to get over the current deficit. They also suggested raising the GST. But they also acknowledged the feds would be very unlikely to do so. And if they aren't willing, why don't we? The GTA should be able to implement it's own sales tax. The GST is 5% now. It used to be 7%. I see no reason we couldn't add our own GTA Sales Tax (GST) of 1-2% and we're still no worse off than when the GST was 7%.

 

[nfitz]

If the city had just gone to the province and said "we want $15 billion for subway expansion, phased in such a manner", the province would have said "sure thing".

What?? Where on earth do you get that? The province can't afford $8-billion for LRT, but they have $15-billion for subway?

Can you reference that?

 

[GraphicMatt]

An article in the Globe said that a majority of CEOs support raising taxes to get over the current deficit. They also suggested raising the GST. But they also acknowledged the feds would be very unlikely to do so. And if they aren't willing, why don't we? The GTA should be able to implement it's own sales tax. The GST is 5% now. It used to be 7%. I see no reason we couldn't add our own GTA Sales Tax (GST) of 1-2% and we're still no worse off than when the GST was 7%.

I don't believe municipal governments have the legal ability to levy a sales tax. The province would have to mandate the sales tax. And if they did most of the 905 would turn blue in 2011.

 

[Dan416]

I don't believe municipal governments have the legal ability to levy a sales tax. The province would have to mandate the sales tax. And if they did most of the 905 would turn blue in 2011.

The province could GIVE the municipal governments the ABILITY to levy a sales tax. No reason they couldn't.

 

[gweed123]

What?? Where on earth do you get that? The province can't afford $8-billion for LRT, but they have $15-billion for subway?

Can you reference that?

At the time that Transit City was being formulated, the province was very open to funding transit expansion. It's very likely that a subway-based plan with LRT included would have gotten funding as well. It was the City of Toronto that wanted the cheaper LRT option. Metrolinx was even heavily in favour of doing Eglinton as a subway, but accepted the TTC wanting it to be LRT.

My point is that it's not the initial capital that caused it to be cancelled, it was the change in capital cost AFTER it was initially approved, when the Province was already on the hook for it, that caused some of that funding to be removed. The initial estimates for TC would have fit well into this year's provincial budget, but the updated estimates did not.

And just because it was 're-approved' in essence last year does not mean that the Province did so wantingly, rather they did it because they had to. Better to fork over the extra dough than have the whole plan (or significant parts of it), die on the drawing board. But the circumstances of the past year (I think the multi-billion dollar auto bailout had something to do with it), forced the government to remove the funding that was put there last year to cover the "cost overruns" from the initial TC projections.

 

[GraphicMatt]

I am trying to find a sentence within that post that's factually correct but it's a challenge.

 

[gweed123]

I am trying to find a sentence within that post that's factually correct but it's a challenge.

You're trying to debate the fact that the cost estimates for TC nearly doubled since it was approved in 2007?