Bad math: Toronto giveth, but Toronto taketh more away

Some recent events leave me more befuddled than ever at the state of affairs in our fair City of Toronto, and wondering more than ever if intelligent leadership may emerge in time for next year's municipal election. Heck, I may actually have to pay attention to local politics for a change.

A few weeks ago I arrived home to my Scarborough apartment to find a letter addressed to "current tenant" from the City of Toronto. Great news, the letter and accompanying brochures and backgrounder heralded: my rent is being reduced!

Yes, the city elders have seen fit to lower property taxes in Toronto the good. As an apartment renter, of course, I don't pay property taxes directly: they're part of my rent, and are paid by thge property owner. By law, though, when property taxes are decreased by 2.49% or more, I get an automatic rent decrease.

How much, you ask? Why starting December 31, 2009, I can reduce my rent by a whopping 0.55%! For me, that amounts to a reduction of $4.34/month. Or, for the year, $52.08. Not much but hey, better than nothing right?

Then a few days later I went to buy my January Metropass, because the TTC is how I commute between my office and my luxury pad in Scarberia. And, as reported earlier, the TTC has raised prices. A lot. So the Metropass that cost me $109 in December cost me $121 for January. An increase of $12/month. Or $144 for the year.

So when you net out my property-tax driven rent decrease with my Toronto's massive funding shortfall-driven TTC fair increase, I'm in the hole by $7.66/month, or $91.92 over the year. And since I don't have the pleasure of working for the city I don't get an automatic pay increase that will cover it. Actually, we all took pay cuts this year due to the economy.

So thanks for nothing, City of Toronto. And by the way, why would you cut property taxes AND jack-up TTC fares? Obviously the city has money troubles, that was your justification for the fare increases. But then why would you cut property taxes?

I thought David Miller was supposed to be some kind of socialist or something. I didn't major in poly sci, so perhaps the nuance escapes me. But the logic of cutting property taxes, which will disproportionately benefit wealthy property owners (who probably don't take the TTC, I'd bet) while jacking-up TTC fares, which disproportionately hurts the less wealthy that can't afford to drive (and probably aren't big property owners) escapes me. It seems more like Reganesque trickle-down economic theory than anything else.

Are there any adults left at city hall?

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The TTC is on crack

Most cities want people to take public transit. They see value in getting people to park their cars and take the bus or subway. They even encourage such behaviour. Not so in Toronto. In Toronto, transit users are an annoyance to the transit system, something to be barely tolerated, and even loathed.

Yes, the TTC is set to hike fares again, and I don’t mean by a little. They’re proposing major fare hikes that will, bizarrely and stupidly, hit Metropass holders the hardest.

The cash fare for a single trip is proposed to rise by a quarter, fro, $2.75 to $3. Token fares would also go up by a quarter, from $2.25 to $2.50. A weekly pass would rise from $32.25 to $36. And the big daddy, a monthly Metropass, would skyrocket from an already pricy $109 to a ridiculous $126.

The problem, according to the TTC? It seems too many people are taking transit. The horror!

I accept that riders do need to pay their fair share to fund the transit system but it’s worth noting that the TTC already gets 71 per cent of its revenue from riders, one of the highest percentages in North America.

The TTC needs to control costs internally, and the province and feds need to step in with stable operating funding. They’re quick to do flashy capital acquisition photo-ops, but operating funds keep the trains running.

There’s a reason we as a society subsidize transit: it gets cars off the road, reduces congestion, and is good for the environment. Maybe less money on highways and more money on transit would be an idea.

But back to the TTC. Even if you accept the need for fare hikes, the decision to disproportionately punish Metropass holders, your best and most loyal customers, is asinine. You want to be encouraging people to buy Metropasses, not discourage them.

Already a pretty shitty deal, under the new fare regime a Metropass holder needs 50 trips to break even over token fares. That’s a round-trip to work every weekday, and at least another roundtrip every weekend. And THEN you start to have a better deal over tokens. That’s an exceedingly shitty deal that is only made less shitty, ironically, by the Harper government’s transit pass tax credit, which lowers the break-even number to about 42 trips.

(Although, it’s worth noting that the credit is also part of the problem: it encouraged people to buy passes, yes, but with no more operating funds for the TTC it leads to congestion and the need to either lower service levels or hike fares, thereby driving some back to their cars.)

It’s stupid for the TTC to be discouraging pass holders like this. They should want to incent people to buy passes. It’s better for them. They get the money in one hit at the beginning of the month, instead of having to collect it over the course of the month in cash and tokens, that cost them money to process. Pass holders generate steady, predictable revenue and are loyal customers. Most transit systems price cash, token and pass fares to encourage pass buying over tokens, and tokens over cash. Not the TTC.

These hikes will undoubtedly encourage many to just go back to their cars, as the TTC is making the transit value proposition less and less attractive. Which may be their goal; those pesky transit users only clutter up the subway cars.

But for many, such as me, there’s no choice but to take the TTC. Buying a car isn’t really an option right now. So we’re held hostage to the TTC and its ridiculous fare hikes. And it’s hard to see any sanity on the horizon.

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Conservatives wrong on transit

More evidence today that when it comes to public transit, the Conservatives have the wrong approach that puts getting electoral credit above good, sound public policy that will get people out of their cars and into an efficient, well-run transit system:

The TTC is looking to end a major incentive for Metropass holders, charging them up to $6 a day to park in its jammed commuter lots.

A staff recommendation to be voted on at tomorrow's Toronto Transit Commission meeting calls for eliminating free parking for Metropass holders, who make up 80 per cent of the drivers using the lots.

The move, which could be implemented in about six months, would hit more than 10,000 drivers who use the TTC's 16 parking lots. They'd have to pay the same daily rates other drivers do – from $6 at the huge Finch Ave. subway station lot, to $2 at the Lawrence Ave. E. RT station.

There's not one single silver bullet when it comes to building an effective transit system, and encouraging people to make the move from car to transit. It takes a lot of different elements, and free parking for Metropass holders is definitely one of them. It makes a lot of sense. Rather than drive downtown clogging the roads and then pay to park, park for free at the end of the subway line and take the subway in. Start charging to park, and many will decide to just drive instead. They may have been on the edge about transit already; this will flip many back onto the car commuter side.

What does this have to do with the Conservatives? A lot, actually. The TTC is considering this move because they're starved for operating funds. They want to divert the money they're spending subsidizing parking to improving, and really just maintaining, service levels. If they had more operating funds they wouldn't have to consider this move.

Rather than pump new, long-term, stable operating funds into public transit across the country, Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty made a conscious decision to give a tax cut on monthly transit passes, like the TTC Metropass. It made sense politically. Every year when you do your taxes, you remember that Conservative tax cut. It's not good policy though, if it's not coupled with more operating funding, and indeed its counterproductive to the goal of getting people on transit.

How so? Well, sure, a tax cut on transit passes will get more people to give transit a chance. But when they get on board, what do they find?

They find a system that is straining to meet the demands of increased ridership without increased operating funding. More crowded buses and trains, longer waits as full ones pass by. The system becomes strained and begins to buckle and the new riders don't like what they see, so they go back to their cars. And you wind up with the TTC considering cutting parking to ease that operating strain, but that just makes it an even easier decision for people to ditch transit.

Politicians like capital spending too: they love to cut ribbons. But again, without operating funding, we end up with the scenario where the TTC nearly shuttered the Shepard line to make ends meet.

Operating funds aren't sexy for politicians. There's no ribbon to cut. People aren't reminded of it when they file their taxes. But if the goal is a greener Canada, if the goal is less cars on the road, if the goal is really an effective, efficient public transit system, then we absolutely must increase, in cooperation with the provinces, direct operating funding assistance to transit systems across Canada.

Too bad the Conservatives are more concerned about political credit and building unneeded lines through Conservative-friendly ridings than actually making transit work.

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I left my heart in San Francisco...

...or so it seemed when I read the news once I got back from the left coast last week about the TTC's fare hikes.

I took transit, called MUNI, a few times while in San Francisco to get around the city and the fare was pretty reasonable. Indeed, compared to the TTC it was crazy cheap. Cash fare is US$1.50, and that's good for 90 minutes in any direction unlike the TTC, where transfers are one-way. I checked their Web site, and a monthly pass can be had for US$45.

Then I get back to Toronto, and I read this:

In November, 15 cents will be added to the cost of tickets and tokens, bringing the price to $2.25.

Riders will also pay much more – $109, up from $99.75 – for the Metropass, which was exempted from last year's fare increase. TTC chair Adam Giambrone resisted a recommendation from staff to increase it to $111. The $2.75 cash fare will remain the same.

I already find TTC fares incredibly high, and now they're jacking them up even higher? I've only been here a little over two years and this is at least the second, if not the third, fare hike in that time. I'm a regular transit user, I buy a Metropass each month, and now that's going to cost me $109? That's inane! The break-even point on tokens vs. Metropass is already too high.

And what do I get for that $109? I get to squeeze onto an overcrowded bus that comes far too infrequently. My bus in the morning doubles as a school bus, which means if I try to catch it between 8:05am and 8:40am, if I'm lucky enough to get on board (they often fly by full) I'm hanging onto a railing for dear life. So I either get to work very early, or late. It's the same in the peak going home, and yet frequency is still extremely low.

The idea with public transit, and the public subsidization thereof, is supposed to be to get people out of their cars and onto transit, to reduce gridlock and reduce emissions. When you have an overburdened system though, for which you keep jacking-up fares to crazy levels, you make it very hard for people to want to leave their cars.

Now, I'm sure this all has to do with the ongoing Mayor Miller vs. The World battle at city hall, and us poor plebes are just caught in the middle. Although, the fact the TTC chair says even if the mayor gets his tax hikes these fare increases are here to stay hurts that case a tad. Still, clearly the city, province and the feds need to put more money into the system. They're asking riders to pay too great a share.

By the way, this serves to expose the uselessness of the Harper government's tax credit on transit passes. That's not what the system needs, and it's of absolutely no help. What it needs is more base funding to lower fares and increase capacity, which will encourage people to ditch their cars.

And finally, they increased Metropass and token/ticket prices, but they left cash fares unchanged. Why? Why punish your most loyal customers, the ones that give you a steady revenue stream each month? Is it because you know they're less likely/less able to stop taking the TTC because of the increase than the casual, cash fare customer?

Probably. It's basically the TTC giving the finger to its most loyal customers. They may not lose many current customers, but people thinking of switching to transit will be thinking twice. More cars on the road, more gridlock, more emissions.

I should have stayed in San Francisco.

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Bite me David Miller

I've never really cared much about Toronto municipal politics or really paid much attention to then but I'm going to have to start, because this news on transit cuts coming-out of city hall yesterday is total BS, and completely irresponsible political posturing by Miller and company.

Near as I can tell there’s a pissing match going on between the right wing and left wing factions at city hill, most recently over balancing the budget. When the right wingers embarrassed Miller and won a rare motion the other day to defer a vote on tax increases, Miller decided all of a sudden massive budget cuts were needed, primarily to the TTC. For some reason, he never mentioned this before the vote…

In addition to reducing hours for libraries and community centres, the biggest cuts are to the TTC including a major one, the mothballing of the Sheppard Subway line, plus the cancellation of 21 bus routes. And on top of that, a 25 cent fare increase.

Don’t remember Miller and his cronies campaigning last year on slashing transit service either…

This is though, this is all politics. One the one hand, it’s designed to turn public opinion against the right wing councilors that voted against Miller’s $350 million tax increase. Never mind the fact Miller’s side refused to even consider a symbolic pay cut for councilors, calling it a stupid stunt.

But more than that, this is about the upcoming provincial election, and it’s about the fallout of the downloading of the Mike Harris era. Miller wants more money from the province (and feds) to address systemic structural funding shortfalls and help him balance the budget.

This splashy scare mongering is really aimed at Dalton McGuinty and John Tory. Miller wants to make this a provincial election issue, hoping with the pressure of the campaign trail one or both of them will promise to pony-up big cash, saving the city from its manufactured fiscal crisis and letting the subway trains keep rolling.

I’m not unsympathetic to the arguments around downloading, I think it’s a real issue that needs to be seriously addressed. But recklessly playing games with the transit system at a time ridership numbers are finally starting to rise is not the way to do it. Just the news today alone is going to be sending many people back to their cars, clogging the highways and belching exhaust.

David Miller needs to grow-up and approach this responsibly. Is there any adult supervision down at city hall?

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