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TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

The 5% figure was a stat I heard on heard on Here and Now yesterday, but I wasn't paying full attention so I could have missed some context -- seems close enough to accurate, anyway.

Regardless, the point is that with The City collecting a small share of total tax revenues, it's insane to expect Toronto to pay its own way on everything. Particularly because Toronto is forbidden to ever run a deficit.
 
RedRocket191 said:
All capital budgets are from borrowed money - but they have to pay down the loan in the operating budget.
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"All general statements are false", etc. I doubt that every single capital dollar in Toronto or anywhere else would be borrowed.
 
DavidH said:
"All general statements are false", etc. I doubt that every single capital dollar in Toronto or anywhere else would be borrowed.
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Fine:

Most capital budgets are borrowed money. Happy? :p
 
Hume has the right idea:

Toronto needs 'powers of a province'

May 02, 2009
CHRISTOPHER HUME
The first thing to remember is nations don't create wealth, cities do.

Specifically, city regions are the great engines of economic activity. The countries within which these regional powerhouses are located benefit enormously, but often have little grasp of the role they play. Although "senior" governments can help cities, more often they get in the way.

There's no better example than the region made up of the GTA and Hamilton. It generates about 20 per cent of Canada's GDP but is struggling to realize its potential.

"We have created all these political barriers," argues Eric Miller, director of the University of Toronto's newly formed Cities Centre. "We compete with one another for taxes and jobs. But these political barriers are artificial and get in the way. ... If you look at where wealth, expertise and innovation occur, it's in cities. In Canada, we're at a disadvantage because politically we don't recognize cities and urban regions."

Indeed, Ottawa builds surpluses and spends billions of tax dollars raised in major urban centres, with little regard for the health of these growing but increasingly troubled conurbations. Under our system, the care and feeding of cities falls to the provinces, most of which don't appear to have a clue.

According to Toronto transportation consultant Ed Levy, "the biggest mistake was made in the 1970s when the municipal regions – Halton, Durham, Peel and York – were formed. We have always needed to think regionally, but the stumbling block has been politics."

Levy feels the province's fear of creating a political rival has led to a divide-and-conquer strategy. The four regions' mandates go beyond those of individual towns and cities but aren't large enough to threaten Queen's Park.

Such concerns are becoming increasingly irrelevant in a world that's urbanizing faster than ever.

As author Richard Florida points out, "To compete in this rapidly changing global economy, communities have to think/act regionally and increase their connectivity to their respective mega-region; it is crucial for long-term success. ... economic activity is concentrated in a select group of mega-regions. Worldwide there are just 40 significant mega-regions, which are home to one-fifth of the world's population, two-thirds of the global economic output and 85 per cent of all worldwide innovation. Successful economic development has always been a regional endeavour, but even more so today."

Still, we remain mired in old ideas about the primacy of nation states. In her 1984 book, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, Jane Jacobs wrote: "The failure of national governments and blocs of nations to force economic life to do their bidding suggests some sort of essential irrelevance. It also affronts common sense ... to think of units as disparate as, say, Singapore and the United States, or Ecuador and the Soviet Union, or the Netherlands and Canada, as economic common denominators. All they really have in common is the political fact of sovereignty."

Little wonder then that the Toronto region has little to show for itself so far, beyond Metrolinx, the provincially mandated transit authority that encompasses Hamilton and the GTA.

"Metrolinx is a great first step," the U of T's Miller says, "but we are territorial animals. And it's hard to get beyond the zero-sum game, a product of our political system and chronic underfunding."

Miller also insists we need not give in to fears of losing local identity. He points to Leaside and Swansea, which have retained their neighbourhood character long after they ceased to exist legally.

It's also worth noting that several weeks ago Premier Dalton McGuinty kicked politicians, most of them municipal, off the Metrolinx board. His act confirmed everything Levy and other critics say; namely, local governments aren't up to the task of regional planning.

This has led some observers, including author Alan Broadbent, to explore the idea of remaking the GTA as the Province of Toronto.

"There is an argument to be made for a whole new definition of these (large urban) regions," he writes in Urban Nation. "In effect, the Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal regions should have the powers of a province."

Broadbent notes, for example, Toronto receives nearly half the newcomers who arrive in Canada annually, but it has no control over services that affect them most, including education and health care.

As well, many of the province's governments, most recently the Harris/Eves regime, were supported mostly outside Toronto. Policies that make sense in the hinterland can be unhelpful, even destructive, to large urban regions.

Tony Coombes, executive director of the Neptis Foundation, is more optimistic. "There is a void at the regional level," he admits. "But Metrolinx is now becoming an operating authority with the ability to influence land-use decisions and policies so that they support the province's Growth Plan."

It's an important step toward achieving regional solutions, if not a regional government. As he observes, "You have to deal with big problems – the environment, congestion, immigration, land use – at the appropriate level. They can't be tackled by all these different municipalities."
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http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/627909
 
Conflict of interest

There is now a conflict of interest with the Province of Ontario and the Canadian governments. They now own 2% of Chrysler. Maybe in the soon future, they may own part of GM.

By owning an automobile manufacturer, they have a vested interest in selling more automobiles. They will want more sprawl to sell Chrysler automobiles. They will want more highways to sell Chrysler automobiles.

They do not want streetcars or any transit vehicles, since that may reduce people's dependence on the automobile. The government has an ownership in manufacturing automobiles.

That is why Ontario doesn't want to help pay for the streetcars. They are against transit oriented development by having a small ownership in Chrysler.
 
W. K. Lis said:
There is now a conflict of interest with the Province of Ontario and the Canadian governments. They now own 2% of Chrysler. Maybe in the soon future, they may own part of GM.

By owning an automobile manufacturer, they have a vested interest in selling more automobiles. They will want more sprawl to sell Chrysler automobiles. They will want more highways to sell Chrysler automobiles.

They do not want streetcars or any transit vehicles, since that may reduce people's dependence on the automobile. The government has an ownership in manufacturing automobiles.

That is why Ontario doesn't want to help pay for the streetcars. They are against transit oriented development by having a small ownership in Chrysler.
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What.. no cars on the road, for public transit, i dont think that will ever happen.
Thats a small precentage of government ownership to be worrying about our polticians not supporting public transit, its all nonsense.
 
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Bombardier preferred bidder for Blackpool trams

tn_bombardier-tram-flexity2-impression.jpg

Bombardier Flexity 2 artist's impression.

From Railway Gazette:

UK: Preferred bidders for three contracts to revitalise Britain's only surviving traditional tramway were selected by Blackpool council on May 6.

Bombardier Transportation has been chosen to supply 16 low-floor trams to the seaside resort, where they will operate alongside the existing vintage vehicles. Track upgrades and missing certain stops will provide a faster service with the aim of growing traffic.

Blackpool council Project Manager Paul Grocott said the emphasis has been on obtaining a standard European product requiring minimal adaptation to meet UK regulations. 'We don't want a bespoke vehicle', he told Railway Gazette International. The aim was to make the contract attractive to potential bidders, increasing competition and thus keeping costs down. 'This has been successful' said Grocott, although the contract value is not being released.

Part of Bombardier's Flexity 2 family, the trams will be 32·5 m long and 2·65 m wide, with five sections and three bogies. They will be built at the Bautzen plant in Germany, with the first due to arrive in Blackpool in May 2011 and enter passenger service by Easter 2012. Further details of the trams will be revealed at the UITP World Congress & Exhibition in Wien next month, for which Railway Gazette International is official media partner.

BAM Nuttall is preferred bidder for the replacement of 8 km of track by Easter 2012, while Volker Fitzpatrick has been chosen to build a £20m tram depot at Starr Gate.

The majority of the funding for the £100m revitalisation project is coming from the Department for Transport, which now has to approve the choice of preferred bidders and the business case. Contract signature is expected in June.
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Interesting both Toronto and Blackpool have a June contract cut-off date to get signatures.

A current Blackpool tram:
627-2.jpg

 
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In the above article of the Blackpool, Great Britain, tram bid was this little tidbit:
The majority of the funding for the £100m revitalisation project is coming from the Department for Transport
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As I read it, in England, the federal government (ie. parliament, the Queen) will be paying the majority (ie. > 50%) of the cost of Blackpool's trams. We are still waiting for our federal government (ie. Harper) to make an announcemnt of when they will be paying for our streetcars. Canada is the only western country that does not support the operation of public transit at the federal level.
 
Not to nitpick...but Britain doesn't have anything but the 'federal' level, at least as far as England is concerned. It's cities (and counties--kind of like Ontario's regional municipalities), and then Westminster. Efforts to introduce 'regional assemblies' and the like have basically come to nothing.
 
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