Is Rob Ford a lame duck?

After several high profile defeats, it seems that 2012 will be a very bad year for Rob Ford. Since I voted for Miller twice, a lot of my friends (ok fine, almost all of my friends) have a hard time understanding my continued support. I voted for him because he was the only candidate with serious fiscally conservative policies. I was willing to overlook his numerous (and highly publicized) personal flaws. My preferred candidate (Rocco Rossi) didn’t gain any traction with the public, so the only other options were George Smitherman (Mr. e-Health and now ORNGE!) and Joe Pantalone (a good guy, but essentially Miller 2.0). That being said, here’s my review of Ford's accomplishments and failures.

Budget
The 2012 budget delivered layoffs, funding cuts, service cuts, a property tax increase, and a TTC fare hike.  Ford's budget was amended by Council to use $15 Million of the $154 Million surplus to undo some of the more controversial cuts.  I think this was a wise move, and Ford should thank Josh Colle for pulling it off.  He still delivered a smaller budget than last year, which is a huge feat, and he no longer has to deal with the fallout from Library and TTC cuts.  He should have negotiated this deal behind the scenes, which would have saved him from embarrassment.  This was one of many unnecessary self-inflicted wounds.

City Council
Councillors’ office budgets were cut from $50,000 to $30,000. Their free metropasses and free lunches are gone. He also promised to cut the size of council in half, but this is something determined by the province, not the city. I don’t see it happening.

Cycling
Ford's bike plan is an anathema to his 'war on the car' base, not good enough for for the TCU types, but great for people like me.  Bike lanes on Jarvis were removed; they will be replaced by new lanes on Sherbourne.  Toronto may even get its first separated bike lanes.  There are also several off-road routes in the works.

Homelessness
Ford promised he’d tackle this issue, but there’s been no action on this file yet.

Low Income Housing
After the Auditor General's shocking findings, Ford managed to replace the TCHC board.  He wants to sell off 675 standalone TCHC properties to generate $222 Million for multi-unit TCHC properties.  That still leaves a $528 million repair shortfall.  He was forced to compromise on the issue recently.  I'm optimistic about the new board, but I don't see much happening to address the repair backlog.

Police
Ford's stance on the G20 shenanigans is utterly depressing.  He also backed down from a cut to the most bloated city budget of all.  I didn't expect much from him in this area, but I'm still disappointed.
Side note: I have my issues with the Star, but their investigative reporting on the G20 was fantastic.

Taxes
The Vehicle Registration Tax is gone as promised, but the Land Transfer Tax still remains. I don’t see this one being repealed anytime soon, if ever. Property taxes were frozen for 2011 but were hiked 3% for 2012.

TTC
The province made the TTC an essential service, preventing any future strikes.  Ford scrapped Transit City as promised and made a new deal with the Premier.  Then everything went wrong, and Transit City was resurrected.  I'll give him points for negotiating a new deal with the Premier, but he should have ensured he had enough votes in Council to get it passed.  When it was clear his plan would be defeated, he should have accepted the compromise offered by Stintz and Matlow.  When his plan was defeated, he should have humbly accepted his fate instead of calling Council 'irrelevant.'  Finally, he shouldn't have fired Gary Webster now.  He should either have done it on day 1 to install a manager who would carry out his vision, or he should've waited until the political heat subsided.  Instead he's galvanized the left and pissed off the swing votes he needs on Council.  This is yet another crisis that could have been easily avoided.

Unions
This is one area where the mayor has delivered, although I give most of the credit to Doug Holyday's negotiation skills.  The Jobs for Life clause has been neutered, management has more control over scheduling, the wage hike is minimal, and Paramedics are now an essential service.  I hope to see more of the same results with the remaining union deals being negotiated now.

Waterfront
After decades of political wrangling, Waterfront Toronto has a full fledged plan, some amazing designs, is proceeding with environmental assessments, and has even completed some projects. Then Doug Ford decided he had a better plan, and proceeded to make a mess of things and embarrass the mayor. What an utter waste of time, effort, and most importantly, political capital.  I was under the impression that Doug would provide adult supervision to the more bombastic younger brother, but that's obviously not the case.


Ford has built up an impressive win list, but his most recent (and in my opinion, most impressive) win in the union deal is not getting any play in the media.  This is his fault, because he continues to shoot himself in the foot.  He should immediately make nice with council to ensure he doesn't actually become a lame duck.  Lefties may be celebrating too early though, since he will be mayor for another 3 years.  He's been consistently underestimated by his opponents.  He was laughed at when he criticized Council's expenses in his early days as a councillor, he was dismissed when he announced his candidacy for mayor, and it was assumed he'd get nothing done once he won the election.  He's always defied the odds, and may do so again.  

Ford vs Stintz in the next great Transit Battle of TO

Toronto's transit plans have a very long and complicated history.  Here's what happened recently:
-After taking office, Rob Ford cancelled David Miller's Transit City plan.
-In March 2011, the Mayor signed a 'Memorandum of Understanding' (MoU) with Metrolinx, with the agency agreeing to spend $8.4 billion on the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT.  Let's call it the Ford plan.  This plan has not been brought to a vote before City Council yet.  The Mayor was planning to hold the vote in April.
-Several councillors (including TTC Chair Karen Stintz) have been working to get this line built according to its Transit City specs. Let's call this the Transit City plan.  We are only talking about Eglinton here, not the rest of Transit City.
-On January 23, Karen Stintz publicly supported the Transit City plan, making the point that it will save money that can be diverted to other projects such as the Sheppard Subway.
-On January 31, Metrolinx sent a letter to the city asking Council to approve the Ford plan to ensure that the City is bound by it.
-On January 31 (same day as the letter), the TTC voted to shelve a staff report on the pros and cons of the Ford plan.  Stintz was outvoted by the Mayor's allies, and this was largely seen as punishment for her recent public support for the Transit City plan.
-On February 6, Karen Stintz submitted a signed petition from 24 Councillors (including herself) to the City Clerk calling a Special Meeting on February 8.
-On the same day, Stintz replied to Metrolinx's letter stating that the Special Meeting will "reaffirm the November, 2009, Memorandum of Agreement ("MoA") between Metrolinx, the Toronto Transit Commission, and the City of Toronto."  This 'MoA' would be the Transit City plan.

Considering the fact that 24/44 Councillors already sided with Stintz, Ford will probably lose this vote.  There will be a lot of hoopla over this, and a lot of lefties will probably jizz their pants.  Just kidding (not really).

Metrolinx has stated that it wants Council and the Mayor to agree on one plan, which will not happen.  It is ultimately their decision which line gets built.  There are four possibilities:
1 - Proceed with the Transit City plan, and use the $2 Billion savings as the City wants.
2 - Proceed with the Transit City plan, but withhold the $2 Billion in savings.
3 - Proceed with the Ford plan.
4 - Decide to build nothing since Council and the Mayor can't agree on a plan.

I have no idea what they're thinking, but the Province is in cost cutting mode so I think #2 is likely and #4 is possible.  Metrolinx has stated that sticking to the Transit City plan will save $2 Billion from the $8.4 Billion budget, but they have also stated that it's "too early" to say whether the money will be shifted to the Sheppard project.  Remember, the Province has broken its transit funding promises in the past.

Now, let's take a look at the two plans.  Both sides have misrepresented their opponent's plans (quite egregiously on some occasions).  Here's what I know:

Scope - There is only one line along Eglinton.  There is nothing else.  Transit City proponents keep talking about the Sheppard, Finch, and other LRT lines as if they are a part of this $8.4 Billion plan.  They are not.  Ford proponents keep talking about the Sheppard subway extension in the same manner, but there is no money for it.

Route - Both plans will follow the exact same route.  The Eglinton line will be built from Black Creek creek drive to Scarborough Town Centre.  The existing Scarborough RT will be replaced by this line, which will continue its run on the already-built RT line.  Therefore, both plans will have one continuous line along Eglinton Ave to Scarborough Town Centre to McCowan.

Surface vs Underground - The main difference between the lines is Transit City's surface component and lower cost. Transit City's line will run underground from Black Creek to Laird, then above ground until Kennedy.  Ford's line will run be fully underground.

Cost - The Transit City line will cost $2 Billion less due to the surface component.  Stintz and co. want to divert that money to other projects, but that will not necessarily happen.

Speed and Reliability - The Ford line will cut travel time by 25% since it will not encounter traffic lights. It will also be more reliable for the same reason.

Ridership and Capacity - The Ford line will have double the peak ridership and a higher capacity.

Automation - The Ford line will be driverless, the Transit City line will require drivers.

LRT vs Subway - Both plans will use LRT.  A proper subway is categorized as Rapid Transit (RT), which we are not getting under any plan.  Light Rapid Transit (LRT) is simply the 'lighter' version of Subways.  Ford supporters are misleading you when they present this as a Streetcar vs Subway debate, because it is not.  According to the Toronto Environmental Alliance, LRTs run at an average of 27 km/h and Subways run at an average of 32 km/h.  But, when an LRT is underground, it runs at subway-like speeds.  So, the Transit City plan gets us LRT that is both underground (faster) and above ground (slower).  The Ford plan gets us LRT underground (faster) only.  You could get away with calling this a Subway since it runs underground at similar speeds, even though it does not have the higher capacity and higher speed.

Now, for politics.  I wanted to see a map mashup with the city's Wards and the LRT but I couldn't find one.  So I decided to make one myself.  The Star published a handy article tracking support for both plans.



The LRT line cuts through 11 wards.  I've marked the Ford supporters in Blue, the Stintz supporters in Red, and the Undecided/Unknowns in White.  The Underground portion of the new line is in Blue, and the surface portion is in Red.

12 - Frank Di Giorgio - Ford
17 - Cesar Palacio - Unknown
15 - Josh Colle - Stintz
16 - Karen Stintz - Stintz
21 - Joe Mihevc - Stintz
22 - Josh Matlow - Stintz
25 - Jaye Robinson - Undecided
26 - John Parker - Stintz
34 - Denzil Minnan-Wong - Undecided
35 - Michelle Berardinetti - Undecided
37 - Michael Thompson - Undecided

Underground - Giorgio, Palacio, Colle, Stintz, Mihevc, and Matlow's constituents will get the underground LRT one way or another.  From this group, Giorgio is the only confirmed supporter of the Ford plan.  Colle/Stintz/Mihevc/Matlow are willing to screw over the wards to their East by sticking them with surface LRT (while their own constituents are guaranteed underground LRT).  Palacio is undecided, but he tends to vote with Ford.

Surface - Robinson, Parker, Minnan-Wong, Berardinetti, and Thompson's wards are all in the potential surface LRT zone.  All but Parker are undecided.   I don't see how they vote for the Stintz plan, since all of them vote with Ford more than 70% of the time and their constituents will probably want the faster underground LRT.  John Parker's case is interesting, since he votes with Ford very often, and his ward is in the surface zone.  Yet he is on record having called the Ford plan 'goofy.'  I wonder if his constituents agree.

To sum it up: The Transit City line will cost less, but will also be slower, with lower ridership, lower capacity, lower reliability.  It will also require unionized TTC Drivers.  But, it may get us an extra $2 Billion for the Sheppard subway extension.  The Ford line will cost $2 Billion more, but that money will get us faster trains, higher ridership, higher capacity, higher reliability, and automation.  These are facts, not opinions.

UofT PhD grad rejects a diploma and the Varsity decides to write a shit article to report the news!

Well, it took UofT's student-run Varsity newspaper to bring me out of blogging hibernation.


Last week, the Varsity published an article about a PhD student who rejected his diploma to protest Peter Munk's recent donation to the Munk School of Global Affairs at UofT. 


I would've dismissed this as typical lefty whinging but the article was just so, so, horrible.  


It seems Mr. Zoghi is upset with this recent statement from the school: “The Munk School positions U of T as a leading player in a broad range of subjects from water to cyber security.”  He alleges that the school's academic direction is being determined by the donation, but can only offer that one line as proof.  


"Zoghi said he feels that the company is “crushing academic freedom” and “making it difficult for academics to question the actions of the company involved,"..."  Surely there are some academics at the school complaining that their work is being restricted or influenced?  The Varsity doesn't mention that.  Surely Mr. Zoghi can offer something more than speculation and insinuation?  Can he elaborate on what exactly the company actually is doing to crush academic freedom?  The Varsity doesn't ask him that.  


"The graduate also took issue with conditions on Munk's donation."  Ah, now we're getting somewhere, it seems that the evil rich mining guy had some conditions (egad) attached to his donation, and the Varsity "anonymously" obtained a copy of the donation agreement!  What juicy details of skulduggery await us?


"...reveals that Munk's donation comes in yearly increments. Although the agreement clearly states that academic freedom is to be unhealed, the university must report to Munk every year."  Oh.  That's it?   The agreement clearly states that academic freedom is to be unheeded?  Isn't that the exact opposite of what Mr. Zoghi is alleging?  The rich guy wants yearly reports on what the university does with his donation?  That's it?  Really?

"Zoghi is adamant that he will only take back his degree if university administration starts consulting with the wider community.  “I don't want to be associated with a university whose integrity is compromised this much,” he said. “I will make every effort not to use this degree for a job.”"


Zoghi has it backwards, he shouldn't be ashamed of being associated with UofT, it should be the other way around. Based on his statement, I assume he'll never put "PhD from the University of Toronto" on his resume.


I hope the university keeps accepting donations from rich guys who want to help out.  It should be noted that the same rich guy gave a lot of money to Toronto General Hospital for a new Cardiac Centre.  I wonder what Mr. Zoghi's theory is on that donation?  Surely there's a sinister ulterior motive?  Who knows, maybe the rich guy is wants the hospital to breed a race of mutant super soldiers to help out at his mines. 


All kidding aside, it's disappointing to see the Varsity uncritically publish a bunch of innuendo and speculation.

Streetcars are the problem (TTC Sucks continued...)

Streetcars are a problem.  Why?  Let me count the ways:

 

A - Congestion

When a streetcar stops to let people on/off, both lanes of traffic are blocked.  This creates cascading delays on all major routes that have no dedicated streetcar right of way.  Congestion on College, Dundas, Queen/Lakeshore, and King can be vastly improved if traffic keeps flowing while the streetcar is at a stop.  If we had buses instead of streetcars, they would pull into the right lane, and traffic would keep flowing on the left lane.  If you've ever driven behind a streetcar, you know how much of a problem this is.

 

Also, if one breaks down, the one behind it has nowhere to go (unless it's far back enough to make a short turn).  You know what a bus can do?  Change lanes (!), pass the malfunctioning bus, and continue on route.

 

B - Passenger Safety

The streetcar's limitation to the left lane is also a passenger safety issue.  Cars often try to pass the streetcar before it stops, putting them on a direct collision course with passengers crossing the right lane to board the streetcar.  If it's a bus  stopping right by the curb, this is no longer an issue.

 

C - Cost

Streetcars cost more to purchase and maintain.

1 - Laying down streetcar tracks costs money.  Maintaining roads that break down faster due to streetcars also costs money.  Building right of way systems is expensive (see St. Clair).  Buses travel on the roads that you've already built, not requiring special tracks.

2 - Maintaining the streetcars themselves costs money.  The TTC has a special team of mechanics whose only job is to look after streetcars.  Buses can be maintained by ordinary mechanics, which would cost a lot less.

 

D - Pollution

Oh but the streetcars are electric and so green!  Not if you think about it logically. The extra gridlock created by streetcars (see above) means more cars are idling on our roads for a longer time.  This creates more pollution.  Also, Buses with electric or hybrid engines are no longer that expensive (the TTC has already bought some) and would make a fine replacement.

 

I know what the typical streetcar loving Toronto leftie will argue:

 

"Congestion is created by cars, not streetcars."  True, but streetcars make that congestion a lot worse, and they do it on major roads that a lot of cars like to use.

 

"Streetcars give our city character and personality!"  The TTC's job is to transport people efficiently and ease gridlock, not give our city personality.

Miller, CUPE, and Toronto

In the end, our mayor caved, just as we knew he would.

The union gets:
-6% raise over 3 years (as opposed to the 4% over 3 years offered by the city)
-To keep their flabbergasting sick day plan (henceforth known as FSDP) for current employees (that's a lot of employees, about 18,000).

Toronto gets:
-Another strike in 3 years.
-To continue paying about $25 per hour for CUPE to do a job that a private contractor would do for $17 per hour.

What will happen?
-Miller will probably get re-elected. Don't get me wrong, I really hope this doesn't happen, but this city keeps getting f*cked and somehow keeps asking for more.

What I hope happens:
-A few decent candidates running against Miller in 2010. He really, really, needs to go. If we get another Pitfield running against him, it's over.

FIFA Incident Followup

I haven't heard much about this lately, until the Star's editorial today. I'm actually quite (pleasantly) surprised at the position they took.

After the diplomatic incident and accusations of police brutality, we're left with this:

"...at least two have now admitted seeing a female police officer punched in the face by a member of the soccer team."

"An investigation by Toronto police revealed Chilean players threw batteries, coat-hangers, and arm and footrests from the team bus at police and that officers were punched, spat upon and kicked in the groin."

The tasers and pepper spray were used in response to these actions.

Anyone still think the police over-reacted?

Toronto's Fiscal Crisis

So we all know this story now. Our mayor tried to get some new taxes passed, failed, and threw a hissy fit threatening to shut down the Sheppard subway line and several TTC bus lines.

Let's review:

1 - Our city council gives themselves hefty pay raises a little while ago, even though we're facing this great budget crisis.

2 - The day after Miller tells us about the great budget crisis, the city "spends $1 million to hire bylaw officers to oversee dogs in off-leash parks."

3 - City councilors not only got a nice raise, but they also have huge expense accounts that they abuse regularly!

4 - And finally, today I read that the number of TTC employees making over $100,000 is now 277!

I know that even if the city corrected a lot of these mistakes, we'd still face a huge budget shortfall. But I think our mayor's approach of complaining + raising taxes is the wrong one. The steps should be taken in this order: A) Get spending under control and do a top to bottom full audit of the city's expenses, B) Pressure the province to upload the costs downloaded by the PCs, and then, only then, consider option C) Raising taxes if we're still short.

I believe that most Torontonians will not stand for a tax hike as long as we continue to see the taxes we already pay wasted so egregiously.

An Apology

So my buddy Crescent Canuck pointed out that the comment I attributed to Mayor Miller in the previous post was in fact, from Alfons Rubbens, the publisher of InsideSoccer Magazine.

I apoloize to the mayor (I doubt he either knows or cares, but still), and to the few readers that I do have. It was a misread of the Globe and Mail article on my part, and it was quite boneheaded in hindsight.

Here's the Mayor's actual quote: "The incident is obviously regrettable...The duty inspector who was there last night showed tremendous good sense and defused the incident and sent the players back in the care of their coach. Which was the appropriate conduct. He was a real credit to the (Toronto Police Service)."

Way to go Mr. Mayor. I can't remember the last time I was so pleased with something this guy did.

Miller's last straw

I'm sure everyone has heard of the FIFA soccer incident in Toronto. If not, check out the Globe, Post, and Star.

What really threw me was this quote in the Globe article from our dear Mayor Miller: ""First it was (private) security and then there were more and more police - there were way too many police there. If they would have disappeared there would have been no fracas at all."

Really? So the fans that were attacking the refs would have shown restraint if there were NO police? Is this guy off his rocker? A foreign team stirs up trouble in our city, and his response is to slam our cops?

After the last couple of months, I just can't believe I voted for him, I seriously should've abstained. First the ridiculous taxes, now this. I really need to find a centrist candidate to support for the next mayoral run.

I seriously hope Harper doesn't p***y out under pressure and apologize. Then again, if he did, it would be so Canadian, wouldn't it?

Edited to add strikethrough.

Back at it

So it's been a while and I have several things on my mind...


Religion
I was at a wedding this past weekend and a friend of the groom's family was asked to say a short prayer to bless the wedding. He did that, then went into a diatribe against gay marriage and how countries like the Netherlands and Canada are ruining the world, or something like that. I could easily demolish someone like him in a real debate, but this (not very well educated) man (with really bad grammar) chose my friend's wedding to spout his political views, which made him the world's biggest assshole. And if open minded countries like Canada are really that bad, take a hike buddy.


Environment
I am a bit of an environmentalist myself, and I've noticed two trends recently. The first is disconcerting, the second is annoying.

With all of the focus currently on global warming, are we in danger of ignoring good old fashioned pollution? Whatever happened to all the worry about smog days, clean water, landfills, etc? I'm not knocking the attention that global warming is getting, but let's not forget that there are other environmental issues out there.

With global warming having become the cause du jour, the usual bandwagon jumpers have begun doing things that annoy people like me. You have the retail store customer who'll refuse to take a bag while saying "It'll save a tree." No, you well intentioned moron, it won't. Plastic bags are not made from trees, they're made from oil, natural gas, and coal. Plastic bags are not evil, they are reusable, and recyclable. It's our own city's fault for letting them end up in landfills instead of having found a way to recycle them like other Canadian cities already have.


City Council
Speaking of our city, our gutsy councilors recently decided to put off a vote to burden Torontonians with new taxes. Toronto faces a cash crunch, everyone knows that. Yet the councilors gave themselves and the mayor a raise a few months ago, refused to give up their perks, and are now looking at cutting back on services (wait for it...) that involve non-union jobs! Thus our fun cycle of using taxpayer dollars to give underperforming politicians raises and unionized workers inflated salaries while hitting the taxpayer up for more cash continues.

Toronto's City Council

So the city passed its $7.8 Billion operating budget on Monday. It includes a 3.8% tax hike for single family homes, and a 1.3% tax hike on multi-residential (apartments/condos), business, and industrial properties.

Here's a concise version of the budget process: As usual, our councillors ran out of money, raided the reserves, still didn't have enough money. Then they begged the province for money as usual, the province said no. So now we're suing the province for money.

Then our esteemed councillors sat down and debated the budget, knowing full well that they're already short on cash, decided not to give up on ludicrous perks like free coffee, free TTC passes, and best of all, free golf! They passed a budget without any significant cuts, and now we're sitting around, waiting for provincial money yet again.

All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.

Yes, I know that the Mike Harris team downloaded some programs onto the City, and they will be uploaded again in due time. But what about ludicrous spending everywhere?
-In 2006, we paid city grass cutters $17.45 per hour.
-In 2004, we paid the City Administrative Officer (Shirley Hoy) $282,173, which is more than what the Prime Minister of Canada gets paid.
-The crappy service providers at the TTC have tons of people getting paid over $100,000 per year, including bus drivers! (I'll have a bigger post on the TTC later)

These are only a few examples, there are hundreds more. Why should you care? If you live in a house, you pay more property tax. If you rent an apartment/condo, your rent will go up. If you run a business, your costs will go up as well. All of this to support a budget that is always rubber stamped.

This is YOUR money people (and mine too). Unless you start caring, they'll keep riding the gravy train.

Toronto's Street Furniture

There's been some press over today's announcement that Astral Media won the contract to supply and maintain Toronto's new street furniture for the next 20 years.

Public space advocates are up in arms because of the amount of advertising being allowed on the street furniture. But the deal made ensures that in exchange for the ad space, the firm has to supply and maintain the furniture.

"In all cases, the problem begins with the designs themselves: They are inappropriate, disconcertingly trendy, overdone and overpowering. They would only increase the rampant commercialization of the public realm." That's from Christopher Hume of the Toronto Star.

Spacing (a public space advocacy group that I side with most of the time) is complaining, so is the Toronto Public Space Committee.

I really don't see what all the whining is about. Check out the winning designs from Astral Media. I personally preferred the Clear Channel designs. The third participant was CBS Outdoor.

Recap: Slick new street furniture, for free, for a cash strapped city. Hm.