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Morning Brew: Ford opposes transit expansion tax, Don Bosco needs a morale boost, meet Doug Ford's basketball team, talking holiday shopping, and our rising skyline

Posted by Chris Bateman / October 10, 2012

16 Comments

toronto queen westRob Ford says he's totally against any taxes, fees, tolls, duties, tariffs, levies, charges, dues, imposts, or user fees to help pay for transit expansion in the city. That said, he did OK a public consultation on the topic at yesterday's meeting of his executive committee. Sure, no-one wants to pay more taxes, but isn't this getting just a little bit ridiculous?

By the way, Rob Ford doesn't give out pizza money either.

Speaking of Rob Ford, turns out the kids at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary are having a bit of an image crisis. The school is holding a morale-boosting event later today to help combat its negative image, exacerbated recently by the increased scrutiny around Ford's coaching activities. Elsewhere, Doug Ford now has his own basketball team.

Want to buy something on Victoria Day, Canada Day, Labour Day, or Thanksgiving Day? Well possibly some time in the future there's a chance it maybe could happen!

It doesn't take an eagle eye to notice how much Toronto's skyline has changed over the last decade. To illustrate the transformation, the CBC has a neat little tool that lets you compare current photos with ones taken between 1998 and 2012. Click on the picture to move the slider and watch the Royal York hotel disappear.

Move over Toronto Batman - someone's on an anti-communication (or anti-clutter) crusade all over Ossington Avenue and Little Portugal. According to The Grid, a mystery man is taking down posters - sometimes minutes after they go up - across the area. Strange.

Finally, here's local hip-hop artist Church Chizzle with City On My Fitted 2.0. featuring the TTC and a trip along the Bloor-Danforth line.

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Photo: "R0027852" by Trevor_Hughes in the blogTO Flickr pool.

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Les / October 10, 2012 at 09:27 am
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church chizzle?

the end is nigh.
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Rob / October 10, 2012 at 09:29 am
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The Mayor can oppose anything all he wants, but if 'taxpayers' determine they are willing to pay more in user fees and taxes, this puts him in an awkward situation. This reminds me of the service review from a few years back where 'taxpayers' told City Hall they use all the services City Hall would like to cut back on.
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rob / October 10, 2012 at 09:44 am
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it looks like that cbc tool is between 1998 and 2012, not 2002.
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Chris Bateman replying to a comment from rob / October 10, 2012 at 09:56 am
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@Rob: You're right, it is.
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iSkyscraper / October 10, 2012 at 09:57 am
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Well, there is always the option of paying tribute to fund transit expansion. He didn't rule that out.

You know, two teenaged children (one boy, one girl) are selected from each Ward and feted by City Hall before being sent into High Park for a televised game of survival, the ratings for which will attract such attention that advertisers and sponsors will happily fork over enough money to pay for that Sheppard subway extension that is supposed to solve all transit woes. I'm sure that will work. They could even give it a catchy title, say, The Transit Games....
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MER1978 / October 10, 2012 at 10:14 am
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Ok so let me get this straight... Rob Ford believes that somehow Toronto can get the $2 BILLION per year in transit it needs from imaginary gravy or higher levels of government who have have had zero problem saying no in the past even when they weren't dealing with huge deficits?

How is it this man still has the support of a significant chunk of the population (26% in the most recent poll)?
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MER1978 / October 10, 2012 at 10:15 am
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Oh and who can forget those private company saviours who all said NO to Ford when he was trying to push his Sheppard subway "plan" using them... also another winner of an idea.
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Ratpick replying to a comment from MER1978 / October 10, 2012 at 11:14 am
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"How is it this man still has the support of a significant chunk of the population (26% in the most recent poll)?"

NEVER underestimate the appeal of someone who has simple answers to complicated questions.
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MER1978 replying to a comment from Ratpick / October 10, 2012 at 11:29 am
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"NEVER underestimate the appeal of someone who has simple answers to complicated questions." ... oh I get that people bought it initially... what I don't get is how his simple answers have been debunked over and over and over and over again and yet he still has 26% support.
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Matt replying to a comment from MER1978 / October 10, 2012 at 12:21 pm
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B/C people would rather convince themselves they're right than admit they're wrong.
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vampchick21 replying to a comment from MER1978 / October 10, 2012 at 01:53 pm
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Politicians like Ford are experts (or someone on their staff is) at the catchy sound bite. And unfortunatly a portion of the voting population of any city/province/state/nation either don't care enough or don't have enough time to really dig past the sound bite. So they buy into the sound bite and let it dictate their vote and here we are. With a mayor that thinks transit money will fall from the sky and who doesn't seem to understand that a) taz dollars are meant to be spent on city services and b) hording tax dollars and cutting services to do so is not respecting the tax payer.
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Jacob replying to a comment from MER1978 / October 10, 2012 at 02:04 pm
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Explain Creationists, "Birthers", etc, and you explain Ford Nation.
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realityCheck / October 10, 2012 at 03:21 pm
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We do need to raise more money for transit. But more money for transit will not solve our problems if the money is used to fund projects that do not provide a level of service that is several notches above what we already have. Rapid transit (whether it be in the form of subway, LRT or buses) will get people out of their cars. But making huge capital investments in projects that don't result in significant improvements, particularly in speed, is a waste. Unfortunately, the LRT lines approved by Toronto (with the exception of the Eglinton LRT) despite their significant capital and operational costs simply don't provide a level of speed that is likely to entice anyone out of their vehicles, other than those already using the buses on those routes.
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iSkyscraper replying to a comment from realityCheck / October 10, 2012 at 05:25 pm
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RealityCheck, I appreciate your entirely reasonable argument -- so many people just spout off nonsense -- but there is precedent for what Transit City is doing. Yes, it would be nice for speed if everything off-road (buried, elevated or off to the side in a hydro corridor) and certainly one hopes that the insular TTC will be open to modifications like reducing the number of stops, but if you study the Paris Metro (T lines) or London Underground (Croydon Tramlink) or NYC for that matter (Jersey City HBLRT) you will see excellent models for using LRT as a feeder line. The LRT on Finch need not speed you downtown -- it just has to get you to the subway reliabliy, smoothly and quickly in a way that buses do only half-assed. That will get some people to switch from their cars. Surface LRT will also generate development, creating further ridership.

My point is that it's not perfect but it does have its advantages and is a perfectly reasonable use of the quite small amount of money that was available. Go and get funding for $15, $20 billion -- hey, that's a whole subway line. But LRT is reasonable value for its cost and even better value once you extend it.

Let's let Transit City be and focus on new subway lines running into the Core and London Overground-like GO Trains.
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realityCheck / October 10, 2012 at 06:26 pm
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@ Skyscraper.. and my point is that many people and many experts have pointed out that the Transit City plan was poor value given its costs. Speed is critical... and most parts of Transit City did not deliver that. As I've said, I'm not pro-subway... but I think there were other ways of spending that money that would have gotten us further ahead.
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realityCheck / October 11, 2012 at 02:06 pm
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also at Skyscraper (unable to add points last night because I had an appointment), the new development that you say the LRT will be focused along Finch will be brought by the Finch West subway station that will be built, rather than the LRT. Also, while you may be ok for spending considerable transit dollars on an LRT that is basically providing the same level of speed as a bus, other people might say that this is a foolish expenditure given all the other ways this money could be used to improve Transit in Toronto or throughout the GTA. One might also ask why this area of the city is getting both a new subway extension (which I think will make a tremendous) and an LRT line (which I think will not) given the other needs in the City. We need to make significant investments in public transit... and the public support for that investment will not be there if it is focused on costly projects that don't improve service in the way that most passengers want (ie speed) and hence will do little to address our congestion issues. I was not supportive of Ford's subway plan, but at the very least he highlighted the need for rapid transit, whereas the folks advocating for the LRT lines seem to miss the point that it is investment in "rapid transit", rather than simply investment in "transit" that makes the difference.
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