Toronto Wakes Up, Smells The Starbucks
July 19, 2007 · By Matthew
I have to admit that I didn’t see this bit of pleasant news coming, especially so quickly! After his plan for massive tax increases got shelved on Monday, Toronto Mayor David Miller announced today that “massive” cuts are coming to the city’s services. Among these will be the closure of the TTC’s third subway line, a black hole for tax cash ever since it opened a few years back. Also, city bus routes that aren’t being used so much will be canned later in the winter. In other words, the city’s little-used services will be phased out because they’re not profitable. What a marvelous idea! I bet Toronto can even put a little Powerpoint presentation together to explain this new and foreign concept to its peers when the Association of Municipalities of Ontario has their next AGM next month!
A question to those who tried to defend Toronto’s wasteful habits and spendthrift giddiness here and elsewhere earlier this week though: why, if these cutbacks are so easy and obvious, didn’t Toronto consider them before robbing their own residents…or worse, their neighbours’?
If you think Torontonians are “robbing their neighbours” our neighbours had better hope we never stop. Each year, $11 billion worth of taxes (mostly provincial and federal) leave the City of Toronto never to return.
If Toronto is a thief, we’re the kind of thief that breaks into your house and leaves piles of money lying around.
I wish someone would rob me that way. I get robbed in a more traditional sense, as the City I live in falls apart, and my tax dollars are sent away to help less fortunate citizens in Quebec and the East. It’s not so bad though. At least I get the disdain and loathing of my fellow citizens whose bills I’m subsidizing.
Oh, and for the record, I can’t afford Starbucks. I live in Toronto, and actually use the TTC, and since it is the least government-subsidized transit system in North America all my coffe money goes to them.
Toronto may be losing money on the federal level (which I can easily appreciate), but if the feds ever do spend money on Ontario, it more times than not goes to Toronto. On the provincial level though, please understand that Toronto IS Quebec/The Maritimes; money from the rest of the province gets dumped into Toronto because of the excuses I stated above. Why is it that the province paid a huge chunk for the Sky Dome, where are the benefits for the rest of the province there? How about Ontario Place or the ROM, a new Toronto-centric transit system? Sad to say, but David Peterson was the closest we’ve ever had to a Premier who ever understood the resentment that the rest of the province has to paying for Toronto’s perks and even then, political reasons demanded that he spend lavishly on whatever new fantasy Toronto City Council wanted.
As for the TTC, I don’t know where you’re getting the stats that say it’s the least-subsidized system but I do know that it’s a pretty sweet deal to ride it compared to the other systems in southern Ontario. Take a trip out of the Big Smoke one day and go to a city an hour away; the bus fare averages over $2.50 a ride now…much higher than a TTC ride costs.
Much higher than a TTC ride costs???? You can’t be serious.
I take the TTC everyday, and it’s $2.75 a ride, and all transfers are one way only, so I don’t know how you see an average of $2.50 outside of the Big Smoke as “higher”.
If the fare hike actually happens (I doubt it will, but we’ll see) it’ll be $3 to ride the TTC. I don’t know anywhere else in Canada where the bus is $3 (of course, you can save a bit with a TTC MetroPass, but that’s $99.75 a month - again, MUCH higher than most cities, though the only example I have at my figertips is Montreal, where a monthly STM Metro Pass is $65).
As for how much less subsidized the TTC is than any other systemn in North America, check out the chart a little bit down this page .
Th highlights (these are 200/2001 numbers,so it’s actually worse than this now…):
The TTC’s subsidy was $148 million which is an overall subsidy of 35 CENTS per rider.
Montreal’s system got $254 million for a system of 70 million less riders (but still, just 73 CENTS per rider).
Vancouver - $1.97 per rider.
Chicago $2.31 per rider
New York - $1.05 per rider (a $1.7 BILLION dollar subsidy).
Atlanta - $4.34 per rider
Philadelphia has HALF the ridership of the TTC, but while the TTC got $148 million in 01/02, Philadelphia’s system got $597 million.
It’s pretty well established that the TTC is more dependent on fares (and less dependent on government spending) than any other major transit system in North America. It’s also pretty well established that this is part of the reason the system is breaking down.
Meanwhile, the idea that Toronto is sucking money from the rest of the province is so ludicrous as to hardly be worthy of comment. If you think the flow of money in Ontario is from the rest of the province into Toronto then I encourage you to get your MP to fight that trend. If you can get him or her to stop laughing long enough, have them explain which way the revenues in Ontario ACTUALLY flow.
Lord Kitchener’s Own, you are ignoring the outrageously high salaries of TTC employees. Given that I chose to live close enough to work so I don’t have to take the TTC, I hope my tax dollars stop subsidizing this waste.
Matthew, Miller is not going to cut a thing. He is just trying to set the agenda for the provincial election hoping parties will have a bidding war to see who will give the most to Toronto.