As Election Nears, Group Warns Against Privatizing TTC
Posted September 20, 2010 12:59 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
With some mayoral candidates hinting they might fund the TTC with private money, a group has created a $500,000 ad campaign to show voters how that strategy has failed in other world cities.
On Monday, the Public Transit Coalition launched “Keep TTC Public,” a multimedia message which includes a website, YouTube video and TV, newspaper and TTC bus ads.
“The TTC has problems. We all know that,” said Dr. Franz Hartmann, Executive Director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance and PTC member.
“Privatization is clearly not the solution. We urge Torontonians to visit keepttcpublic.ca and see what’s happened in other cities that privatized their public transit systems. Then we hope they will tell candidates to avoid the mistakes other cities have made and keep the TTC public.”
Rob Ford, George Smitherman, Rocco Rossi and Sarah Thomson have all suggested some form of public-private initiatives.
But a 12-minute video narrated by actor Eric Peterson outlines problems with transit privatization in Melbourne; Auckland; London, England; and Vancouver.
The campaign was funded by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, which represents about 10,000 maintenance and transportation employees at the TTC.
