Josh Matlow speaking about going back to the LRT plan and being grilled by reporters about revenue tools.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM4dXYMIBww
The guy is starting to look pretty foolish.
He's not wrong; despite looking poor in this interview.
If Scarborough extension goes through Toronto has enough money in the immediate future to either 1) maintain the Yonge/Bloor subway lines (non-funded SOGR work), or 2) rebuild Gardiner. We can't do both at today's tax rate and maintain our AA rating.
The federal funding which could have been used for those 2 projects was also redirected to Scarborough. It is from a general purpose infrastructure fund; so Toronto needs to back-fill the $500M gap created by that in additional to a direct $1B contribution and a promise to pay any project cost increases.
Ford only taxed for the $1B, leaving $500M and cost overruns unfunded.
The last time we opted to pursue expansion (Downsview/Sheppard) instead of funding maintenance, riders died and we had a ton of patch-work rebuilding to do.
We're relying on a $1.5B gift from the province in our near-term future while at the same time our mayor and council are arguing against Metrolinx transit taxes which might give us that gift.
This is one of the least business like councils I've seen in a long time. The backlog for maintenance has increased across the board. I'm almost certain Ford's company doesn't skimp on printing press maintenance because when those stop they go out of business; Toronto infrastructure maintenance is similar. #1 rule of big business is to ensure you can continue doing business in the future (it's defensive; protect assets, resources, equipment, and customer base). Governments require a similar strategy to prosper over hundreds of years; growth will happen by default provided you don't cheap out on necessary components.
All that said, I'd like to see council bump property taxes by an additional 5% to 10% to cover the true cost of their promises (including the subway extension) rather than backing out at a later date.