OPINION: TTC – Forced to Do Too Much with Too Little
Posted April 7, 2010 12:41 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Courtesy TheMarkNews.com
As someone who has advocated for better public transit for the past two decades, the rhetoric around the upcoming municipal election has been discouraging. Most of the candidates seem to want to run against Mayor David Miller even though he isn’t on the ballot. They’ve been denigrating the achievements of the past seven years simply because it was Miller who achieved them.
This attitude will doom Torontonians to a decade of inaction as our roads get more congested and our subways, buses, and streetcars get more crowded.
Transit in Toronto faces a number of challenges, and Torontonians have a right to complain about the quality of services they’ve received from the TTC. Unfortunately, candidates like George Smitherman, Rocco Rossi, and Rob Ford insist on calling the TTC inefficient when that isn’t the problem at all. In fact, the opposite is true.
Ask Torontonians what is wrong with the TTC and most people would say that the vehicles are too crowded, the stations are dirty, and the employees need to be more courteous. But how do you fix that? The only feasible way is to put more buses and streetcars on the road and hire more janitors and maintenance workers to clean up the mess.
The real problem with the TTC is that it’s one of the most efficient transit agencies in North America. Last year, it carried a record number of passengers – 471 million – using 300 fewer buses and streetcars than it had back in 1988 when it carried only 463 million passengers. It did this by packing more of us into vehicles that come less frequently, and by cutting back on cleanups and repairs. This was necessary because the TTC relies on fares for three quarters of its operating costs. Even the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City receives more government support per rider than the TTC does.
Fixing this costs money. Yet the same candidates who seek to score political points off of frustrations with the TTC also want to cut its budget. They claim that the system can be improved for less money through privatization, union bashing, and the application of fairy dust.
Don’t think you can save money by forcing drivers to accept a massive pay cut. Driver wages are not out of line compared to those received by drivers in Mississauga or those offered by the private operators heading to Fallsview Casino or Casino Rama.
If we want a better TTC, we have to pay for it. For all his faults, Miller tried to do this. Buses and streetcars come more frequently now than they did in 2003, and they operate whenever the subway is open. The mayoralty candidates would be fools to ignore these achievements, but with the exception of Joe Pantalone, they do. And only Sarah Thompson has a credible plan to pay for subway expansion (through tolls on the DVP and the Gardiner).
Most of the candidates have not thought through their positions on public transportation. They don’t seem very interested in improving our ability to get around unless it’s to get us to the voting booth.
It’s sad to think that Toronto had a comprehensive plan to improve transit in the early 1980s, only to have it fall through because of political wrangling and ignorance. Even though we’ve made some real achievements over the past seven years, we seem set to slip back into those dark ages unless the candidates start taking the issue of public transit seriously. And it’s our job as voters to make them do it.
The Mark is Canada’s online forum for opinion and analysis.
