Public transit is not a "perk" as some have recently suggested -- it is a core governmental function in a modern city akin to police, fire and roads. Ignoring or restricting it will cost everyone and have the effect of making a city intolerable:
TTC scrambles to salvage service with $5 million plan for Finch, Dufferin, Don Mills
http://www.thestar.com/mobile/news/transportation/article/1101532--ttc-scrambles-to-salvage-service-with-5-million-plan-for-finch-dufferin-don-mills?bn=1
TTC chair Karen Stintz and TTC staff have come up with an 11th hour plan to save some of the city's busiest bus routes from service cuts in the new year and delay the remaining service reductions until at least February.
The nine city councillors on the Toronto Transit Commission were expected to approve reduced service on 56 bus and six streetcar routes and introduce a 10-cent fare increase on Wednesday — all to take effect in January.
Although the fare hike would still go ahead, Stintz says higher ridership projections mean the TTC will have the $3.3 million it needs next year to save at least the packed Dufferin, Don Mills and Finch buses.
Other bus and streetcar routes would, however, return to pre-2004 service levels in February.
3 comments:
For those of us who take the TTC everyday, Toronto has unfortunately already become intolerable.
" Public transit is a core government function"
True enough; but how do you pay for it?
We see eroding health care across the country as well. It too is a core government function (at least most think so anyways).
two points.
1. Salaries within the TTC are too high. You can blame unions, politicians or management but the fact is the salaries and benifits are unsustainable.
2. Some of the best transit systems in the world were started well over a century ago. They were built by labor that was paid virtually nothing. Many were immigrants and some were even children. Another example is Canada's rail system.
Today, building new infrastructure could be derailed by the cost (and time)of the environmental assessments alone.I wonder today if even there is enough money to build a good transit system .
It would require abundant cheap energy as well but that is another thread I suppose.
Ah, paying is the rub!!!
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