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Morning Brew: Transit City funding yanked, public sector salary freezes, 1300 on police force "Sunshine List," hate crimes spike in Mississauga and Brampton, Jordan Manners trial jury can't reach verdict
Mayor Miller's Transit City plan took a serious blow yesterday, when the provincial government's budget was released and half of the funding for the ambitious and costly Light Rail Transit projects was yanked. Projects likely to see funding retained include the Union-Pearson-Georgetown GO Transit link, the Sheppard LRT line and the York University line... but the rest are not likely to proceed at this time, and Miller is super pissed off.
Also revealed in the budget is a proposed salary freeze for over a million public sector workers. Two-year freezes will start with elected politicians, and with then extend to non-unionized workers, followed by freezes for unionized workers (to kick in once current contracts expire). More detail on the budget and its implications are summarized nicely in the CityNews video (embedded below).
More than 1300 workers in Toronto's police force are making six figure incomes - a number that rises year after year. Making a good wage should definitely come with the territory, it being a really dangerous line of work. But apparently you can make a killer salary without being face-to-face with much danger. Become a "breathalyzer technician" (one earned $168,928 in 2009) or get hurt while operating telephones in an office and settle for $173,543.
A report on hate crimes suggests that they are spiking in Mississauga and Brampton, although specifics have not yet been made clear (but some clarity is expected after the report goes before the Police Services Board today). Vandalism and graffiti make up a large chunk of the reported crimes.
After three days of deliberation, the jury in the Jordan Manners trial are still deadlocked and can't come up with consensus on a verdict. It probably doesn't help that a bunch of thugs wearing gang colours have been hanging out in the lobby of the court.
Photo: "Rollerblades, bicycle" by andyscamera, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
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If the PC's would make a effort to focus on transit in Toronto, while saving money, maybe 2011 will be worth looking forward to.
How do you get from "4 billion dollars less" to a subway line Rob? Inquiring minds want to know.
It was never about LRT always being preferable to subway. It was about getting many LRT lines for the price of a single subway line.
Toronto is racing to the 80's yet again.
"If the PC's would make a effort to focus on transit in Toronto, while saving money, maybe 2011 will be worth looking forward to."
I don't see the provincial conservatives focusing much attention on Toronto's transit woes, does anyone else?
We're $20 billion in the hole this year and it's going to stay this bad for a while. The cuts suck, but what did you expect? Things are going to suck for the next decade, regardless of who's in power.
It's apparent that everybody who demands subways has no idea how much they cost. A good perspective on subway costs is this, I think Steve Munro mentioned it:
The St. Clair right-of-way...for all its faults cost about $100 million in total for a 7km line.
$100 million is what a single subway STATION costs.
The Eglinton LRT was a lot like a subway anyway, with a huge underground portion stretching from Keele to Leslie Streets. The new LRTs would be attached together in trains of 2 or 3 cars a lot like a subway...except much more affordable.
That's all gone now though. There is no money for LRT and certainly no money for a subway.
If the Ontario government had any sense they'd cancel the idiotic subway extension to Vaughan and focus on more important matters.
While you choose to laugh at my comment and make fun of it, I'm actually for LRT's. I like Transit City. The rest of the lines make sense. I just thought Eglinton would be best served as a subway. I hope the opportunity to do this still exists and can happen.
To laugh and talk down at me for making a sensible comment is not constructive to the conversation. We can certainly disagree, and I'm sure we do, but at least have a bit of respect for other people's comments and don't talk down to me like I'm 5.
It's no surprise by the province regardless of the party in charge this would have been the result given the budget following the past year's economy.
Let's not forget there are many places doing far worse.
I do agree with taking a breather to review the plan for Transit City and perhaps seize the opportunity to do much better than the current plan. Subways, DRL, No repeat of St. Clair, etc. are worth consideration. And with our green with envy Miller out of the way perhaps we can do much better for the money.
I certainly think we can.
Ah, politics at its finest.
This is quite wrong. Policing is very, very safe. There are literally dozens of job classifications in Ontario that are exponentially more dangerous than policing.