There’s little question they talked….a lot. Over a hundred all-candidates debates, countless public events, press conferences, editorial board sessions, ads, Youtube videos, etc. They talked about positive visions and negative visions. They invoked phantom threats and then made some of their own. They talked about talking (the on-going sniping over George Smitherman’s challenge to take on Rob Ford in a manno-a-manno debate). And, of course, they debated the merits of less debate (i.e., cutting the size of council, recall, citizen appointees, etc.).
With all the verbiage, voters could be forgiven for concluding that we have had (endured? survived?) a full-body civic conversation about the issues facing the city. Here, for the record, is what we didn’t talk about:
Waste Diversion
Under Mayor David Miller, council made a series of bold moves – the purchase of a new landfill, the transformation of the waste collection system, the city-wide roll-out of the green bin program. But the reality is that the City of Toronto still falls well short of Miller’s 70% diversion target. The candidates had almost nothing to offer on the subject of closing that gap, so the city could live up to its conspicuous green branding. Remember that massive environmental assessment on how to deal with residual waste? No? Neither did the candidates, apparently.
Official Plan Review
One of the first tasks facing the new council is a statutory review of the city’s official plan. This is a big one, and the candidates had nothing to say about their views about where the OP is getting us to where we want to go. There are credible planners who question whether the city’s “avenues” strategy is working, at least partly because developers and their investors haven’t expressed much interest in the mid-rise European-style buildings envisioned in the OP.
Community Centre 2.0
Last year the Auditor-General tore a strip off parks, forestry and recreation (PFR) for dithering with its capital spending. Endless consultations have meant chronic and frustrating delays in re-investment in parks and recreation facilities. In contrast to the department’s leisurely approach, two facilities – Dufferin Grove and the Artscape Wychwood Barns – have demonstrated a radically different vision of what we mean by a community centre. Both have relied on extensive local partnerships instead of PFR’s institutional boilerplate. Can this bottom-up approach be exported to other parts of the city? George Smitherman flicked ever so briefly at this one earlier in the summer, but that was about it.
Pedestrian Friendly Streets
A lot more Torontonians walk than ride bikes, but you’d never know it from the campaign rhetoric, which focused on the bike lane fight to the exclusion of everything else. Apart from some occasional spleen venting about the very small number of side-streets that have been temporarily closed to vehicular traffic, the leading candidates had little to offer about improving pedestrian safety (a growing problem in an aging society, as accident/fatality statistics imply), experimenting with shared streets, expanding sidewalk breadth, and further pedestrian-minded enhancements at signalized intersections (e.g., increasing the number of pedestrian scrambles).
Will the next council emulate New York City and transform Yonge near Dundas into a pedestrian mall? I think we know what Rob Ford – who seems intent on banishing street-based public festivals and events altogether — would do (or not). George Smitherman, early on, made some positive noises about the idea, but I’m not holding my breath.
The Structural Deficit
The elephant in the room, right? Ford defined the entire election by telling voters the city has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Smitherman followed suit with his “war on waste.” If either are elected, they will realize soon enough that you have to cancel a lot of chicken suit orders to peck away at the city’s structural deficit. And it’s not just about spending, as no less than the Toronto Board of Trade acknowledged early on:
“Addressing this structural deficit will likely require a combination of decreasing expenditures and increasing revenues,” the board said in a tough-minded policy paper [PDF] released last spring [emphasis added]. “Increasing revenues requires measures like increasing property taxes and user fees or negotiating further ongoing grants from the federal or provincial governments. The problem will only get worse unless candidates are willing to `think big’ and consider new ideas for restraining spending or raising revenues.”
Enough said.
photo by Wylie Poon
17 comments
In a few hours now Transfer City will be dead and subways will rise again. This election was the first time transportation was an issue. (Apart from the Island Bridge of 8 yrs ago). Nobody ever ran on Transit City – it just appeared one day. According to the Toronto Star 69% of people AGREE with Ford’s Transportation Plan. That means virtually 7 out of 10 people agree with the Sheppard Subway being finished and The Bloor/Danforth extension to Scarborough Town Centre. Too bad the media never picked up on this.
JW: Um, obviously you didn’t read Miller’s platform in 2006. It clearly stated he wished to build an LRT network. It was the MAIN PLANK of his transit platform.
Hope you’re looking forward to the huge property tax increase for subways on routes that do not need them. They need LRT and rights-of-ways. Some places need subways — connnecting Sheppard line to Downsview station and the University line, for instance — but Don Mills, Jane, Finch West do not need heavy rail. They need a much more efficient and cost-effective technology and that is LRT. It is happening all over the US and Europe. We’d be putting our heads in the sand if anyone tried to cancel Transit City.
Re. walking – Pantalone did make a big announcement about creating a Yonge Street pedestrian mall – but it’s true it didn’t generate much discussion.
Sameer – what I am looking forward to is not having a council from south of bloor tell me that a rail up and down Jane Street will solve life’s problems. If you ever get the chance, please take a ride on St. Clair (currently $80 million over budget of initial $40 million allocated).
Then tell me what you think.
When I ask my wife what she wants to do today, I don’t ask her if she wants to see what’s on the other end of Jane Street. I want to enjoy the ROM, the AGO, the Zoo, the Science Centre and other beautiful things this city has to offer without 4 transfers and a 2 hour journey (one way).
I don’t like much about any of the candidates – but I do agree with Ford’s Transportation Plan.
JW: I”ve lived on St Clair pre-ROW and when I ride it now I LOVE IT. It looks great, new businesses are opening, etc.
But to compare streetcars on St Clair to LRT on Jane shows just how little you know about Transit City and the built form. LRT on these other routes will no disrupt businesses because hardly any businesses are on the street in those areas — they are tucked away in business parks or at major intersections. St Clair is a world apart from the other proposed Transit City routes.
Like I said, enjoy the property tax increase if you want subways every where. The city needs a certain amount of density to make a subway work. The cost to ride on Sheppard is not $3 fare: it’s about $6 with the subsidy the city kicks in to make it work. The amount of riders on that route, even with high rises at Don Mills, Bayview, and Sheppard-Yonge stations the subway line does not even come close to breaking even. I would love subways to every nook and cranny of the city but we cannot afford that and Ford’s plan is just the same except for one more subway stop to Sheridan Gardens.
Subways do not make sense to build up Jane Street. Or on Don Mills. Or Finch West. The only one that makes sense is a downtown relief line and some kind of express rail on the eats and west sides of the city. Transit City is just that. Its not like streetcar routes downtown; it has subway stop spacing with vehicles that will average about 5-8 m/hr slower than subway at 1/5th the price.
Know the facts before just speaking with your gut.
LRT on Jane St. would be a huge, huge improvement in the lives of thousands of people who live along Jane who must, at present time, take the crowded, endless, milk-run 35 bus. It takes a looooong time to get to the subway as the bus weaves in and out of traffic, belching seasick-making fumes.
JW, are you suggesting that Ford’s plan puts subway lines fron your dwelling straight to OSC, ROM, AGO?
Or does your wife want a quicker ride to an overcrowded Yonge line, where in the morning, you’re lucky to get a seat at Finch, and get to stand if you get on south of Finch? How Ford’s subway to Scarborough Town Centre helps your wife get to OSC is a mystery to me. On the other hand, the Eglinton LRT will take her there.
Sameer – I was waiting for that! You “LOVE” it – but at what cost? $140 million/3x the budget? LOL – “business reopening”…I guess it’s just easy to disregard the 40+ closed businesses during the construction period eh? It was FORCED on the people of the area despite voicing their opinion that they do not want it, but why should they have a say in how their neighbourhood should be?
And then please show me where I say that I said a subway should be “on every corner”. What a misrepresentation of truth. I think there is value in having a subway running a block north of the 401 from Downsview in the west to Scarb Town Centre in the east with two quick options downtown. Unlike yourself, I know it’s not everyone’s dream to take the 401 and sit bumper to bumper down the Don Valley Parking Lot. People up here do it for the same reason that your Hypocrite Hero TTC Commish Adam Giambronne takes a taxi (charged to the city of course) in order to get to his public transportation tv show which is just a few streetcar blocks away from his riding…. becuase it is “the fastest” way possible.
You say that Sheppard’s ridership doesn’t justify the subsidy, but the ridership is already on par with a few average New York City subway lines. And keep in mind this is a 3rd of a Line. Imagine if the whole line was completed as initially planned. Your argument is weak and your logic flawed. We can’t afford subways, but we can afford $140 million LRT’s? You’re as hopeless as Giambronne. And you still haven’t told me what a Jane line will do for me.
ED – I am saying that the subway line as outlined in Ford’s transportation plan will get us to places we want to visit quicker than Smitherman’s or Pantalone’s by using public transportation with the added bonus of less transfers. That’s not opinion, that is fact.
We are not against taking a bus. Just because streetcars are “cheaper” than subways, it does not mean they are “cheap”. From the TTC website it states that the average time saved on St. Clair will be between “2 and 8 minutes”. Are you kidding me? $140 million – one hundred and forty million – was spent to save 2 minutes?!?!? Or 8 minutes?!?! That is unacceptable.
Three more things that weren’t talked about. Redefining the mandate of the “Integrity” Commissioner away from the current narrow mandate to one that includes concepts like a “smell” test and a responsibility to answer to the electorate rather than council. Issues like the Beaches Contract, Heaps and Mammoliti and the missing community “consultation” for the narrowing of Lansdowne should have been prime candidates for censure from Commissioner. Instead I know from personal experience that she limited herself to the letter of her mandate. How about a requirement that the Integrity commissioner must perform due diligence on any sole source contract?
The concept of one taxpayer. As an example if residential property tax must be increased to ease commercial and multi-residential burdens why doesn’t the city engage the Federal government in an effort to obtain a mortgage interest rate deduction.
Ideas to increase revenue beyond raising taxes and fees. Why haven’t any of the candidates examined Paul Graham’s Y-Combinator to see if there is a low cost high reward method to increase business in Toronto?
Three more things that weren’t talked about. Redefining the mandate of the “Integrity” Commissioner away from the current narrow mandate to one that includes concepts like a “smell” test and a responsibility to answer to the electorate rather than council. Issues like the Beaches Contract, Heaps and Mammoliti and the missing community “consultation” for the narrowing of Lansdowne should have been prime candidates for censure from Commissioner. Instead I know from personal experience that she limited herself to the letter of her mandate. How about a requirement that the Integrity commissioner must perform due diligence on any sole source contract?
The concept of one taxpayer. As an example if residential property tax must be increased to ease commercial and multi-residential burdens why doesn’t the city engage the Federal government in an effort to obtain a mortgage interest rate deduction.
Ideas to increase revenue beyond raising taxes and fees. Why haven’t any of the candidates examined Paul Graham’s Y-Combinator to see if there is a low cost high reward method to increase business in Toronto?
“Your argument is weak and your logic flawed. We can’t afford subways, but we can afford $140 million LRT’s?”
Wow.
Right on about pedestrian safety. I live where there are no bike lanes and our sidewalks are a bicycle highway. I can’t walk 5 minutes without some cyclist brushing by me within inches.
I’ve also in my day used a bike and there is no way I would divert into a park to ride where I’m going. And the long time dedicated “bike routes” are a joke, because they don’t go from point a to point b, they weave back and forrth along side streets.
The bike union never admits to the number of pedestrians serously hurt or killed by bikes operated on the sidewalks while they’re decrying cars. And the police chief likes to villify pedestrians as nothing but jaywalkers, but I really feel my safety threatened by these VEHICLES that legally are supposed to be on the road.
My personal safety just sunk even further thanks to the election of Rob Ford.
The carping about the St Clair ROW is a bit much to take. Absolutely, the construction was botched and overly long. But the streetscape now looks fantastic, and that is a promising place for growth.
For everyone bitching about the cost overruns of St Clair, remember that this was $100M for *7 km* – even with all the cost overruns. That is less than the cost of 1. Single. Subway. Station. Cost overruns are not to be countenanced in any event, but why do people think that subways – which cost exponentially more than LRTs – are somehow immune from cost overruns?
Agree about the structural deficit being sadly neglected…and to Toronto’s detriment.
To the extent that Toronto is scrambling yearly to meet its budget, it is almost entirely because of the high cost of downloaded programs (which hit Toronto even harder during recession). Yet you have the clownshow Rob Ford, and Ford-lite Smitherman going around saying that Toronto spending is out of control and needs to get its house in order…entirely *missing* the point that Toronto’s budget problems are structurally induced from downloading. But now that Ford has his “mandate”, he has precisely zero leverage to extract more (ie. fair) funding from the province for downloaded programs because he was the one saying Toronto’s budget was Toronto’s fault. Why should McGuinty look to spend any extra money on Toronto when the mayor-elect thinks Toronto has a spending problem, as opposed to a structural deficit?
Back on topic…
John Lorinc says many things weren’t talked about – but whose fault is that? We have surely never had so many debates in an election cycle, and every group with a grievance seemed to think it had the right to have the candidates appear before them. While doing so they picked and chose the “right” candidates to have (and an occasional pander to the also-rans although it didn’t seem to help Achempong or di Fiore much).
Do we blame the candidates for not enumerating every one of their campaign points or the media for not forcing them off their talking points onto the parts that don’t poll well? It is definitely odd that given the explosion of rage engendered by the new garbage bins that waste didn’t feature in this campaign.
I’d like to see fewer people on the ballot next time with higher entry qualifications (such as the nominating signatures of a percentage of the electorate), and any community debate organizers obliged to provide a seat on the podium to anyone who makes it on.
If certain things weren’t talked about that some people on this site wanted to be talked about, my guess is that the frontrunners clearly saw that there was little possibility of adding to their voter base by discussing these issues… which means that many of these issues not talked about weren’t deemed to be as important as others that were talked about by a significant portion of the electorate. Was it the job of the candidates to make these issues more important? Not if it wasn’t important to their platform! And if these issues were important to a particular candidate’s platform and that candidate failed to make them important to a significant enough number of people, well, that’s a failure of that particular candidate’s campaign. Supposedly, candidates are in it to win, and harping on about issues that too few people seem to care about isn’t likely to get anyone elected. As for the talk about the St. Clair ROW, even though a few people on this site like the “streetscape”, for many more residents, that project has a symbolic value well beyond the scope of the project (much like the proposed “island bridge” had value 7 years ago).