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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
Jul y 23, 2014

This is the second of three policy papers on transit and gridlock from David Soknacki.
Part 1 Real Transit, Immediate Relief J uly 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, J ohn 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 27
th
. 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 J uly 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.