Yesterday’s
emergency session of the transit commission was a flood of financial
figures, mostly in the millions of dollars, as the TTC tries to nail
down its 2005 budget. With so many numbers sloshing around among
city councillors, TTC staff, city finance bureaucrats and
journalists, it took great concentration -- or a calculator -- to
understand it all. Mayor David Miller was there too, announcing the
first installment of much-needed fuel tax funds from the federal
government.
In the decade
since the province cut transit funding, the City of Toronto has had
to make room in its already huge budget for the growing maintenance
needs of the TTC, like all those aging buses and streetcars,
tunnels, stations, tracks -- you know the list. These billions of
dollars have been eating at the city’s treasury, so much so that
around eight cents of every dollar paid by taxpayers is for debt.
This year, Toronto’s cost of borrowing is may surpass one tenth of
every tax dollar taken in, fuelled in large part by the TTC. This
may in turn drop Toronto’s credit rating.
You’ve heard
that the province is coming back into the equation, directing fuel
tax funds and other money towards urban transit -- but nowhere near
the levels it once provided. The federal government has also been
trumpeting that it will send money Toronto’s way, but it’s still not
clear how much Ottawa will give. In the meantime, the TTC backlog
has been building, and the financial uncertainty makes these budget
deliberations all the more confusing.
Riders don’t
think about those big costs for infrastructure maintenance and
vehicle replacement, until service is affected -- by which time it’s
too late. TTC officials have been going through their budgets,
suggesting ways to put off spending. This means old streetcar barns
may not get renovated, and garage space for new buses may not be
built. One proposal suspends construction on an elevator at York
Mills station, another cuts back on the already meagre budget for
bus shelters.
This can pit
councillors, TTC staff and everyone who cares about transit against
each other, trying to protect their favourite parts from being cut.
The transit commissioners, including the mayor, then have to balance
the real needs of the system with a huge host of other cash-strapped
city departments. Water pipes, sewers and roads are also backlogged.
The province is set to give new powers to Toronto, so it can raise
its own funds, but not soon enough to help the city this year.
The deadline
for balancing the books is looming, and another extraordinary TTC
session is set for today. It’s still tough to tell where the bottom
line will be drawn, but riders will likely feel it. In the long
term, system expansion will be harder to justify as basic everyday
needs are put off. More immediately, TTC chair Howard Moscoe said
Wednesday that a fair hike “is in the wind”. And then there’s the
labour agreement with TTC employees that comes up for renewal next
month -- more uncertainty.
The TTC seems
to hit a budget crisis every year, but this time the commission is
not expressing its frustration so emotionally. With outside money
starting to arrive, the upper levels of government are no longer
cast as uncaring misers. Yet both Ottawa and Queen’s Park have had a
close look at the TTC’s books, and can see the obvious. The
perennial “cash crunch” will persist, and next year does not look
much better. If these near-crises are to end, and we want to
actually expand the TTC, a new way of funding must be worked out.
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