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Palma said:
So what has happened since for the city and TTC to continually say there is no money to build subways
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I think the biggest problem has to do with the political boundaries in the commutershed. If there had one GTA regional government then all the regional services like transit, economic development and long-term planning could be handled (and paid for) by that level of government; but since the urban area is broken up into a number of different "regional" governments that don't reflect the actual urban form the Province is the only government that can effectively build regional transit lines (at the expense of all Ontarians).
 
It was raised in another thread, but I think it makes more sense to point it out here, as it's relevant to the discussion a couple pages back: Perhaps the design of the Western Eglinton extension will be determined by ridership volumes coming from the west after the opening of the Mt. Dennis-Kennedy section. If bus routes are reconfigured properly, it could increase the ridership on bus routes using Eglinton West, bumping the projected ridership up to or beyond the point where at-grade LRT would be wise.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Wow. If I'm understanding correctly, it looks like most of Toronto's subways were paid for by the City and partly paid for by transit taxes. I would not have expected that based on the conjecture at City Hall
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Not quite.

The City was involved in some, it's true. Most were paid at least in part by Metro, which was a much more powerful level of government, with more taxation power.

TheTigerMaster said:
Do you know how much funding the province chipped in for phase two and three of the Bloor-Danforth?
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I want to say that it was between a quarter and a third of the total costs of the final 3 phases of the line, but I would have to research it to be certain.

TheTigerMaster said:
If Chow and Tory do push additional transit taxes they really need to drill this into the head of Torontoninas: The entire Yonge-University-Spadina and most of the Bloor-Danforth was paid for and built by the City of Toronto using transit taxes (with a small amount of TTC surplus and donations). Transit expansion in Toronto stopped once we started depending on the province.
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The TTC paid for the majority of the original Yonge Line, and a very healthy portion of the University Line. To say that the lines were "paid for and built by the City of Toronto using transit taxes" is very misleading, both because the City's portion was less than the TTC's and because there were no additional taxes involved in the construction of the lines.

As for transit expansion having stopped, well sure. Think about what kind of additional services are being offered now that weren't 50 years ago. The City is a very different place.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
From Wikipedia (this section focuses on operating costs though). What they don't mention is that the province used to fund 75% of capital expansions until the Harris government in 1995:

Historically, the TTC recovered its operating costs from the fare box. This was especially true during the Great Depression and the Second World War, when it accumulated the considerable wealth which allowed it to expand widely after the war. It was not until the late 1950s that the newly formed Metro government was forced to provide operational subsidies, required primarily due to the TTC's requirement to provide bus service to the low-density suburbs in Metro Toronto.[citation needed]

Until the mid-1990s, the TTC received operational subsidies from both the municipal level and the provincial level of government. When the Harris Conservatives in Ontario ended those subsidies, the TTC was forced to cut back service with a significant curtailment put into effect on February 18, 1996, and an increased financial burden was placed on the municipal government. Since then, the TTC has consistently been in financial difficulties. Service cuts were averted in 2007, though, when the Toronto City Council voted to introduce new taxes to help pay for city services, including the TTC. As a result, the TTC became the largest transit operator in Anglo-America not to receive provincial/state funding.[7] The TTC has received federal funding from as early as 2009.[8] The TTC is also considered one of the most costly transit systems in North America.[9] For the 2011 operating year, the TTC had a projected operating budget of $1.45 billion. Revenue from fares covered approximately 70% of the budget, whereas the remaining 30% originated from the city. In 2009 through 2011, provincial and federal subsidies amounted to 0% of the budget.[10] In contrast to this, STM Montreal receives approximately 10% of its operating budget from the provincial (Quebec) government,[11] and Ottawa Transpo receives 9% of its funding from the province.[12] The fairness of preferentially subsidizing transit in specific Canadian cities has been questioned by citizens.[13]
 
smallspy said:
Not quite.

The City was involved in some, it's true. Most were paid at least in part by Metro, which was a much more powerful level of government, with more taxation power.



I want to say that it was between a quarter and a third of the total costs of the final 3 phases of the line, but I would have to research it to be certain.



The TTC paid for the majority of the original Yonge Line, and a very healthy portion of the University Line. To say that the lines were "paid for and built by the City of Toronto using transit taxes" is very misleading, both because the City's portion was less than the TTC's and because there were no additional taxes involved in the construction of the lines.

As for transit expansion having stopped, well sure. Think about what kind of additional services are being offered now that weren't 50 years ago. The City is a very different place.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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To be clear, I'm using Metro Toronto, "City" and Toronto interchangeably, since the City of Toronto replaced Metro in the amalgamation. I should have probably been more careful.
 
howl said:
I think the biggest problem has to do with the political boundaries in the commutershed. If there had one GTA regional government then all the regional services like transit, economic development and long-term planning could be handled (and paid for) by that level of government; but since the urban area is broken up into a number of different "regional" governments that don't reflect the actual urban form the Province is the only government that can effectively build regional transit lines (at the expense of all Ontarians).
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Ironically Amalgamation was supposed to take care of this. Unfortunately the rate of growth and expansion of the city surpassed Metro Toronto. When Finch station was completed there were still fields just north of Steeles Ave. Now one struggles to find a greenfield anywhere south of Major Mackenzie Dr. Of course the answer isn't to simply keep annexing and amalgamating the regions into one Mega Toronto, but amalgamating transit into one system could alleviate at least the transit dilemma that the region faces. Maybe some other services could also be amalgamated, but Transit is probably the most viable right now. At least with Places to Grow we can rest a little easy that the boundaries are somewhat firm as they are and we shouldn't see the same rate of physical expansion as we've historically seen over the past 20 years.
 
BMO said:
Ironically Amalgamation was supposed to take care of this. Unfortunately the rate of growth and expansion of the city surpassed Metro Toronto. When Finch station was completed there were still fields just north of Steeles Ave. Now one struggles to find a greenfield anywhere south of Major Mackenzie Dr. Of course the answer isn't to simply keep annexing and amalgamating the regions into one Mega Toronto, but amalgamating transit into one system could alleviate at least the transit dilemma that the region faces. Maybe some other services could also be amalgamated, but Transit is probably the most viable right now. At least with Places to Grow we can rest a little easy that the boundaries are somewhat firm as they are and we shouldn't see the same rate of physical expansion as we've historically seen over the past 20 years.
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I know you're talking about the 1954 amalgamation, but the current situation goes back to Harris's anti-Toronto agenda. In the 1990's the Golden commission was created to look into this issue. They recommended keeping all the smaller local governments and getting rid of the Regional (county-level) governments in favour of one GTA wide regional government. The Golden report showed that the existing regional governments were the worst possible size - too big for local issues and too small for regional issues. Mike Harris took that report and purposefully ignored it, and instead got rid of all the small local governments in Toronto, but kept the Metro government. He also amalgamated Hamilton and Ottawa in the same way, other hotbeds of anti-conserative thinking. He chose NOT to amalgamate any of the conservative voting Regions. So amalgamation as Harris did it was not intended to help the urban structure. It was suppose to weaken Toronto so the Province and particularly the Conservative party could hold more of the power.
 
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CityPlaceN1 said:
The last thing we need is another level of government.
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This^ The province should just upload regional transit to Metrolinx and make it a crown agency. We don't need another level of government. In fact we should have LESS government involved in the decision making process of transit lines.
 
Why is the second TBM so far back? It seems to be going really slow. Is that so it maintains a certain amount of distance from the 1st?

Can they not start building stations once the TBM hits the Allen and remerges up and then goes back down the shaft on the other side? But I guess if its due to money it needs to wait till all the tunnelling work is done. It just seems so long doing it that way.
 
BMO said:
This^ The province should just upload regional transit to Metrolinx and make it a crown agency. We don't need another level of government. In fact we should have LESS government involved in the decision making process of transit lines.
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We could create the province of Toronto, that way there wouldn't be an extra level :). Of course this has been discussed on another thread.
 
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