TTC Capital Budget: Where Will The Money Come From?
In between many screenings at the Film Festival, I took the opportunity to write up the TTC’s Capital Budget presentation from August 30. The information here is a combination of the TTC staff presentation, remarks by Ted Tyndorf, Chief Planner for Toronto, and my own opinions. This is intended mainly as a view of the most recent TTC thoughts on the subject.
Expenditures on transit have been deferred over and over again, with most big-ticket attention going to a handful of subway lines. This is not sustainable.
Population and ridership growth is happening faster than predicted, and significant investment in new and improved service is essential.
The goals of the Official Plan and Building a Transit City are not worth a penny if we are not going to invest in transit.
The TTC budget projections push some projects further into the future than is reasonable if we are going to lead population growth with transit, for example, the Transit First policy for the eastern waterfront.
There is no provision for many new lines including the proposed LRT/BRT network in Scarborough or anything in the Don Mills corridor.