CAA surveys mayoral candidates in and around Toronto

Issues continue to be lost in this municipal election as Rob Ford's lead continues to dominate Toronto's mayoral race. To keep that lead Ford continues to say more of the same vague stuff with which he opened and his opponents look increasingly desperate.

But once you get past the surprise Ford juggernaut, transportation remains the top concern for many voters in the city and around the region.

So the CAA has put the question of transportation priorities to Toronto mayoral candidates and those in other municipalities, including Burlington, Mississauga and Vaughan. Clearly many candidates didn't respond but some might see that as interesting of itself.

You won't be surprised by the responses, many of which are formulaic out-takes from formulaic platforms but if you're just starting to pay attention to the specifics of the race have a look.

Streetcars the wrong way to grow, says Sheppard group

Rob Ford's lead may have eclipsed the talk about any actual issues in this year's city elections. But the Save Our Sheppard (SOS) community group still wants to discuss Toronto's transportation future.

The group wants the city and province to abandon plans for light rail, also known as streetcars, on a dedicated right-of-way along Sheppard Ave. That line is the first of the Transit City projects expected to be complete. SOS wants it scrapped in favour of a subway and the group is taking the issue to the thoroughfare in question.

It will host a Transit Awareness Blitz on Wednesday, September 8th from 07:15 to 08:45 a.m. along Sheppard at three intersections: Victoria Park, Warden and Kennedy. Some pro-subway mayoral candidates have been invited but so far only Rocco Rossi has confirmed he will be at Victoria Park during the blitz. Sarah Thomson's handlers were enthusiastic but haven't promised yet to deliver her to Warden that morning and, organizers are still awaiting word on Rob Ford's appearance at Kennedy which, after all, is a very long way from Etobicoke in rush hour.

Light rail could help you live longer

A U.S. study has showed that light rail transit in Charlotte, N.C., helped reduce obesity in commuters there by increasing their daily exercise because they had to walk to a transit stop and it improved people's perceptions of their neighbourhood.

"The results of this study suggest that improving neighborhood environments and increasing the public's use of LRT systems could provide improvements in health outcomes for millions of individuals," concludes the article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The link to highlights of the research comes from Marty Collier of Healthy Transport Consulting, who is responsible for organizing an annual road pricing summit in Toronto for the last three years that has attracted some of the world's foremost authorities on congestion solutions to speak here.

DRL gets its own homepage

It's the most popular subway line that Toronto never built -- excluding Eglinton that is.

Now a Toronto Masters student, Phil Orr has built a website devoted to the downtown relief line.

The site is the major project for Orr's degree in Environmental Studies, which has been focused on urban planning.

"The focus keeps coming back to the fact that the Yonge line is overcrowded," he said of his research.

The idea of a relief line from the east end of the city that would connect to Queen St. or Union Station on the Yonge line dates back decades.

"Now there are actually places along the line that it would serve," said Orr, who figures if the TTC is going to spend billions expanding the capacity of the Yonge subway, it might as well build a whole new subway.

While Orr says the mayoral candidates' transit platforms all lack good planning principals, he thinks the run-up to the fall election is the perfect time to launch his site, which won't be graded by his York professors for a couple of months yet.

Meantime, the only piece of his Masters Orr, 25, has still to complete is a work placement.

"You'd be surprised at how difficult that is. No one wants someone to work for free," said the Etobicoke native.

But even when he finds a paying job, Orr expects to keep the site going, citing his personal interest in the subject.

Growing transit first priority for MTO: Wynne

Ontario Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne restated her government's commitment to building all four of the approved Toronto Transit City streetcar lines to a business lunch crowd at the Canadian Economic Club on Tuesday.

Before Gerald Marois of Waubaushene was mauled by a black bear, the Ontario government's decision to build the lines over 10- to 12 years rather than eight, was feeding headlines almost daily.

"I really believe the additional time will allow for better construction planning and staging to minimize disruption to communities and avoid cost coverruns and delays," said Wynne's speaking notes. (The Star's transportation reporter was stuck in traffic chaos on Bay St. but has read the speaking notes and listened to the proceeding media scrum with the minister.)

Wynne followed up her speech by repeating her government's earlier non-position on road tolls or other taxes to help pay for the dotted lines that have been added to the Transit City map -- sections of track that have been pushed to a Phase II because the money isn't there.

But in her speaking notes, Wynne acknowledges the difficulty of politically supporting transit projects that very often transcend a single term of government.

"Envisioning and acting to reach a goal that is 20 to 40 years down the road is not easy for governments, given their life cycle. Even more difficult for business, where shareholders expect a return not just annually, but quarterly," she wrte in her speaking notes.

This is far removed from the quick win... the Band-Aid solution to population pressures... a changing economy... or political expedience. It requires patience and vision," she said.

"Public transit has become so important that the Ontario Ministry of Transportation's business plan states that our first priority is 'to increase transit ridership' and make it 'an attractive, affordable alternative to the automobile," according to Wynne.

Clean Train Coalition asks Prichard to come clean on air-rail plans

It seems that wherever Metrolinx CEO Rob Prichard goes these days, so go members of the Clean Train Coalition (CTC) pushing for electrification on the expanded Georgetown GO line that will also accomodate the air-rail link from Union station to Pearson.

This week the CTC's Rick Ciccarelli put Prichard on the record about the air-rail link and the electrification issue at both the Monday Board of Trade breakfast and the Metrolinx board meeting Wednesday.

The meeting was the one in which the delayed, scaled-down version of Transit City and York's Viva bus lanes were unanimously approved, although one board member admitted many people, possibly some of the board members themselves, are still fuzzy on the difference between the old downtown streetcar lines and the new Transit City LRT lines.

What Ciccarelli managed to extract from Prichard was already pretty well known. The public can expect to hear this June or July that the province, through Infrastructure Ontario, has negotiated a deal with SNC Lavalin to run the premium air-rail train for a period of about 40 years. Although any disclosure of the details will be up to the province, Prichard said that one condition is that Lavalin would have to comply with electrification if and when the province decided to go that route.

But even if the study currently underway to assess the cost of electrifying the GO system -- which could come in anywhere from $4 to $7 billion -- recommends the move, it won't happen immediately, he said.

"For every element of infrastructure, we're building in electrification capacity," said Prichard. "Every bridge will have enough height so that if it's to be electrified there's room to put the catenary underneath. But we are not expecting that the line will be electric on opening day. Instead, we expect it will be Tier 4 diesel, convertible to electric if and when a decision is taken to electrify the Georgetown line."

The same day Prichard was pitching his "Five in 10" plan to the board, the Board of Trade was trying to help Metrolinx move the discussion forward on how to pay for all the needed regional transit improvements. It released one of the best available outlines yet of possible revenue tools that could see Mayor David Miller's beloved Transit City lines built to completion.

But Prichard was clear that Toronto isn't the only municipality lining up to spend the tolls or taxes that politicians barely discuss, much less implement.

Electrification, said Prichard, is "another claim for the resources of the Investment Strategy as we go forward and it will take its place alongside the next phases of Transit City, the next phases of York Viva, the lines of Mississauga, the lines in Hamilton."

More details on new Metrolinx plan

Love him or hate him -- and in Toronto's political transit world Steve Munro probably evokes both reactions -- he frequently has information and details that mainstream journalists don't.

The consummate transit groupie, who prefers the term fan, Munro's blog today contains a few details that weren't in Friday's reports about the province's revised plan to build the Metrolinx Big 5 transit projects.

He doesn't offer a source for the following information:

The construction start dates will be adjusted:

• Sheppard and VIVA are already underway and will continue.
• Eglinton will not start until 2012 rather than the originally planned 2010
• Finch West will not start until 2013 rather than 2010
• The SRT will continue operating until after the Pan Am Games in 2015 at which point it will close for reconstruction.  Second-hand Mark I ICTS cars will be purchased from Vancouver to supplement the existing fleet in the interim.

Also rumoured is a Metrolinx announcement regarding purchase of cars for these lines from Bombardier.

Taking a toll on Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion

Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion is in the news again musing about the need to, at least, discuss the idea of toll roads across the region that will provide funding for a robust GTA-wide public transit system.

She hasn’t, however, come out in support of the idea.

The veteran politician is hedging her bets, saying tolls need to be looked at, because she well knows how unpopular such an idea would be to those that commute to and from her beloved city.

"I think we have to face the music, and that is that people are not going to be happy with tolling roads, but it's one way to pay for the needs in the Greater Toronto Area," the mayor was quoted in a Toronto paper today. “The property tax cannot handle it.”

How much of McCallion’s views are just words?

Consider the headline grabbing comments from a few years ago when she announced her Cities Now! campaign, meant to highlight the lack of infrastructure funding from Ottawa for Mississauga and other cash-strapped cities.

Back then, the headlines were about her dramatic idea for a 5 per cent infrastructure levy on top of a 3.9 per cent tax.

There was a need for long-term thinking, McCallion said.

Council, however, quickly retreated from the unpopular 5 per cent infrastructure levy that would have brought in at least $12.5 million a year, opting instead for a 1 per cent levy that brought in $2.5 million.

That 1 per cent levy hardly took care of the $75 million a year needed over the next 20 years to tackle an estimated "infrastructure deficit" of $1.5 billion.

But this year, citing tough economic times, even that 1 per cent levy quickly vanished, with McCallion leading the charge.

"I don't think it's the year" to impose the levy, McCallion told council."

She added that next year might not be appropriate, either.

What was important was the need to demonstrate council’s concern about helping people keep their homes.

Some believe the infrastructure levy that was supposed to be levied over a 20 period, a long-term plan to help secure the financial future of the city, is unlikely to come back.

It died a quiet death during the recession.

Despite all the talk about the need for a new long-term funding scheme, McCallion is only musing about the need for tolls for today.

The infrastructure levy, she believed in.

Look at where that is today.

Oakville mayor puts some poetry in the toll road problem

There appears to be a growing consensus that it’s time to talk turkey on the subject of tolls.

With provincial coffers depleted and transit expansion slowing as a result, Toronto Mayor David Miller and Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion have indicated that the time has come to at least have the conversation.

Oakville Mayor Rob Burton sounded decidedly less decided on Friday, fearing that tolled roads could suffer the same fate as Highway 407, which was sold off by the province to private enterprise. The result for users is higher tolls and no access to the profits.

Conceding, however, the political problem of voters who want service but not taxes, Burton invoked the lyrics to an old song called, “Everybody wants to go to heaven.”

Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.
Everybody wants to go first class but nobody wants to pay.
Everybody likes living tomorrow but nobody wants to live today.

A quick online search suggests there are various versions of the song, but Mayor Burton’s favourite is by Ellen McIlwaine, a 1960s slide guitar player and singer who opened for Jimmi Hendrix at the Café Au Go Go in Greenwich Village.

McIlwaine’s version is “knock-you-over fabulous – it’s that good. She was a brilliant guitarist and singer,” he gushed, before wondering aloud if his idol is still living.

Well Mayor Burton, you will be pleased to know that the American-born McIlwaine, who was raised in Japan, moved to Canada in 1987 and settled in Toronto.

The Toronto Star archives suggest she was performing here as recently as 2006. Happily there's no sign anywhere of an obituary.