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PART 2: BUILDING TRANSIT FOR THE FUTURE, NOW

Construction on the Hiawatha Line LRT in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

(Bobamnertiopsis, CC license 2005)

Part 2 of 3 of David Soknackis plan to fight Toronto gridlock July 23, 2014

This is the second of three policy papers on transit and gridlock from David Soknacki.

Part 1 Real Transit, Immediate Relief July 18, 2014.

Part 3 Transportation Choice September 8, 2014.

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THE TRANSIT PRIME DIRECTIVE

To understand my thinking on transit in the long-term, we need only look at a long-term trend

that should be a source of alarm to fiscal conservatives and social progressives alike.

In the 1990s, the Conservative government made a far-reaching mistake when it chose to fill in

the tunnel for the Eglinton subway rather that complete it. We are only just correcting that

mistake today. Shortly thereafter, the City of Toronto and the provincial government chose to

build the underused Sheppard subway, even though a so-called Downtown Relief Line was

the Citys subway priority given transit and traffic patterns.

In 2010, Mayor Ford arrived in office and tore up existing transit plans to expand light rail across

the City, without having any serious plan of his own to replace those plans. In turn, Councillor

Karen Stintz led the TTC to bypass existing plans to build an LRT line in Scarborough. Had

action been taken on the original decision instead, Scarborough would have new rapid transit

running as you read this. Now, like Mr. Tory, Councillor Stintz claims she is opposed to

changing transit plans, even though she was on-record as supporting LRT in Scarborough just

over a year ago.

Now, John Tory is proposing to repeat these mistakes. His own plan would postpone existing

LRT lines planned for several corridors indefinitely. They would, in turn, displace a Relief Line,

for his own surface subway scheme, despite a lack of clear details on financing, engineering or

other challenges.

Time and time again, Toronto politicians choose politically-engineered plans over engineered plans, wishful plans over assessed plans, and unfunded plans over funded plans.

Its time to stop wasting time and money on new transit plans to appease politicians ambitions.

Our ambition should be more rapid transit, faster, over as much of the City as possible.

My prime directive on transit: politicians should never interfere with the construction of new

transit routes that are already designed, engineered and funded. There may be cause as

there has been on Eglinton with the LRT route, and as there may be on Finch to work with

local businesses and residents to minimize impacts from rapid transit construction or expansion.

But the work must go on.

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To be specific, in my case, applying my transit prime directive to the current situation means

that my priorities for rapid transit expansion are identical to Torontos transit priorities as stated

and agreed to on September, 2013, before they were ripped up by Mayor Ford, Councillor Stintz

and Candidate Tory to add a pointless Scarborough Subway extension in search of political

advantage. I made my support for this approach clear and on the record throughout 2013 and

even in 2012, long before I was a candidate for public office. Running for office hasnt changed

my view, as it has for others.

My transit priorities are aligned with the planners transit priorities, since theyre the ones who

are studying your movements to and from work, school and home every day. My transit

priorities are aligned with the priorities already identified, engineered and advertised at great

public expense by Metrolinx, in cooperation with the provincial government and TTC planners.

If we act on those priorities NOW, as planned, we should have as many as five new, modern

rapid transit lines within a decade comparable to the best of whats operating in Frankfurt, Los

Angeles or Houston, Calgary and Denver, London or Paris. Well need to invest our property

taxes to pay for one of those lines (the Commuter Relief Line). And well have those results

without the slightest uncertainty posed by fantasy political plans for subways everywhere or

surface subways on rights of way we dont own.

If you want to modern rapid transit, built more quickly, based on engineering and assessment

work that youve already paid for, I need your support on October 27th. If you want more

indecision, more politics, and more plans developed by political staffers to win votes, you have

at least three other choices to represent your cause.

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THE COMMUTER RELIEF LINE

A Commuter Relief Line remains the top subway priority for TTC transit planners higher than a

Scarborough subway extension, a subway on Finch, surface subways through underpopulated

corridors, or any other proposals on the table from other candidates.

Its possible that my proposal for Early Bird transit fares released in July could delay the need

for the Commuter Relief Line. As Melbourne and Singapore have shown, use of fare incentives

and time-of-day pricing reduces the kind of transit congestion that the Commuter Relief Line is

meant to fight.

Even after shifting demand, the Commuter Relief Line will remain a short-term priority. As

Mayor, I will support ongoing plans for its construction. Further, to remove any uncertainty, I will

table a plan to finance Torontos share of Phase I construction costs with a conventional mix of

debt and property taxes. However, as the only candidate who is vocally honest about the need

for diverse and dedicated revenue sources, I am also open to working with Council and the

provincial government to find dedicated tax alternatives that are more progressive than property

taxation to support both transit expansion and roadway maintenance.

(CCC2012, CC Licence 2013)

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STATE OF GOOD REPAIR, ACCESS, AND THE TTC

The Province of Ontario has put the City of Toronto into a difficult position with respect to

implementation of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. The Act requires that the

City meet certain access standards by 2025. To meet that deadline, roughly $240 million in

unfunded expenditures must be completed, and this backlog is among the most urgent of the

extensive state of good repair challenges on the TTC overall.

Leaders on Council insist that we must lobby the provincial government to offer funding to

address this unfunded mandate. I agree. However, my view is that we also cannot wait any

longer for a decision. It is both sound and compassionate policy to attack this backlog as a

priority, with debt or diverted surplus funds if necessary, to ensure that we meet both the moral

and the legal deadline for improved access. We should be willing to explore alternatives

including increased use of ramps as an alternative to elevators in certain stations - wherever

they may improve the long-term reliability of the access aids were building.

(booledozer, CC license 2013)

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SUBWAY AUTOMATION

Automation can be a powerful tool in our efforts to get more productive use out of our transit

system. The primary resistance to greater automation is safety, and labour, in that order. Some

argue that automation creates new safety risks, as full trains or empty stations can pose

challenges for passengers in different situations without staff support.

This is shortsighted thinking, since most transit systems that are automating are shifting staff to

offer improved safety. Automated systems generally have better safety records than

conventional rapid transit systems. Automation (be it train control or fare collection) need not be

a threat to transit jobs, since automating one job frees that staffer to focus on other work, giving

us the capacity to improve customer service across a system that is often challenged in that

particular area.

However, at present, the TTCs automation strategy is a source of public confusion. Depending

on which source you take, the TTC is either holding off on full automation, or it is on a five-year

track to reach the same levels of automation that were seeing in other global cities.

With more access to TTC information, once elected, my office would call for a debate on

automation policy at the new Toronto Transportation Committee to firmly and publicly establish

targets for automation in consultation with the ATU before the end of 2015.

However, there is one commitment I can make to automation now without access to more

detailed information from city staff in order to set clear goals for the future. I believe that the

Commuter Relief Line should be designed from the very first stage to be capable of full

automation, at all levels of service (fare collection, train control and accessibility. Station

managers on the new relief line will be free to assist passengers, address bottlenecks and focus

on service improvement.

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UNIFIED TRANSPORTATION PLANNING BEYOND THE CZAR CONCEPT

In February, Councillor Karen Stintz announced a plan to hire a transportation czar. Despite

the lack of specifics, I applaud Ms. Stintzs initiative. However, greater specificity will answer the

questions we all had after her announcement.

In my own view, greater coordination is needed, and a central leader for transportation policy in

the public service can provide it. For example, my take on the so-called St. Clair disaster is

that while the impacts have been exaggerated by opponents of public transit, there was no end

of preventable problems in adapting that corridor, and much of the blame can be laid on the lack

of coordination between competing transit modes and various departments and advocates at

City Hall.

Ms. Stintzs proposal also did nothing to acknowledge how democratic government at City Hall

works (or doesnt work). It is pointless to blame the public service for indecision and silo

thinking, when political leaders have been taking the lead in both faults in the last four years and

beyond.

To address these issues, I will propose to Council the following changes to policy and

organization to seed the entire transportation policy process with a more holistic, complete

streets understanding of traffic, transit and active transportation challenges:

Appoint a Chief Transportation Officer, as the direct superior for all transportation-related

policy, working under the City Manager.

Unify Councils transportation policy and construction responsibilities into a single

transportation committee, with other responsibilities separated away, so that both the

political and public service sides of City Hall will have one unified perspective on how

projects and policies interact from the perspective of every commuter, in any mode.

For semantic, historical and legal reasons, the Toronto Transit Commission would

remain intact, and meetings held on any specific transit oversight decision would

reconvene as TTC meetings (a practice that isnt unusual in civic government elsewhere

for other agencies). However, this would end the experiment of placing unelected

officials on the Committee, making it clear that that elected officials and only elected

officials are ultimately accountable for successes and failures when it comes to transit

policy.

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I will have additional proposals to address construction management and mismanagement in

the third paper on gridlock in Toronto.

REVISITING HOW WE USE RIGHTS OF WAY

The City of Toronto has access or potential access to several rights of way scattered throughout

the municipality, ranging from hydro corridors to lands set-aside for freeway expansion.

Our policy toward these rights of way remains almost random, even though rights of way of any

length are arguably Torontos most valuable transportation asset in the long term. One of the

first responsibilities of the new Chief Transportation Officers will be to assist the new

Transportation Committee in a long-range review, in cooperation with City planners, to achieve

three goals:

1. Re-identify to the public and to Council every existing right-of-way opportunity,

and launch consultations with stakeholders on existing and best potential uses for

each by 2017.

2. Consideration in most cases should be given to a range of possible green

transportation uses, including pedestrian greenways, expanded bikeways and/or

rapid transit corridors, with long-term investment plans drafted for each. Rapid

transit corridors would only be appropriate where a nexus of development

potential, ridership potential, transit-oriented development and a clear right of

way already exist.

3. However, where opportunities for rapid transit (e.g. a one way, rush-hour BRT

corridor) exist, the City should work with Metrolinx to immediately incorporate

these rights of way into medium term transit expansion plans.

This process will be Council-led, as the Mayors Office will have several more immediate

priorities, and fully delegated to the leadership of the Committee Chair and Torontos new CTO

to report back to Council with their findings and recommendations.

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TRANSIT DEVELOPMENT

In closing, lets acknowledge that there is at least one criticism repeated by Ford Nation and

the Ford family caucus on Council that makes some sense. When it comes to financing transit

expansion, Toronto is behind the times and behind the opportunity when it comes to making

better use of Toronto Transit Commission lands, development rights and air rights (or, the right

to develop over a station). I have also argued in my Ourspace paper on parks policy that

several TTC sites have parks potential that is currently wasted due to institutional indifference).

The Fordist solution would be to award development rights portfolio of all City agencies to Build

Toronto, where Councillor Doug Ford has considerable influence through his role on the Board.

However, Build Toronto lost $2.1m last year an appalling outcome for an agency that exists

solely to make money for the taxpayer. Further, one reason the TTC and its supporters have

resisted this outcome is that general revenue rather than the TTC and transit expansion

would likely be the beneficiary of any developments.

With this in mind, I am declaring my support for transfer of selected TTC development rights to

Build Torontos portfolio, only once Council can be confident that the agency is operating more

effectively, and only on the condition that any revenue gained would be wholly dedicated toward

the State of Good Repair backlog at the TTC until that backlog is eliminated. Thereafter, funds

gained would be directed to help finance further transit expansion.