Is the City of Toronto lowering its contribution to the TTC,
despite an agreement with the province that says gas tax money
cannot be used for anything but transit? At next week’s city council
meeting, local politicians will be presented with a budget that
apparently allows for an increase in TTC cash fares and tokens, but
an overall decrease of the local commitment to transit.
Ontario once
provided 33% of the TTC day-to-day operating needs, called the
“fair funding formula”, as well as 75% of its capital needs - things
like tracks, tunnels and vehicles. Over several decades, the 33%
fare box subsidy gradually dwindled to the point where riders cover
more than 80% of daily operations. Municipal taxes paid the rest,
until the province started contributing again in recent years.
The province’s
redirection of money from its gas tax will eventually peak at 2
cents per litre of fuel sold. The federal government is also getting
credit for its plans to kick in fuel funds, but by even the most
generous estimates, the numbers won’t come close to the big,
postponed costs of Toronto area transit. It’s a relief that there is
at least a limited amount of reliable funds coming in -- after years
of fiscal uncertainty that made it tough to plan for simple things
like replacements for the 31% of TTC buses that are over 20 years
old.
Now it’s time
to nail down the rest of the money, over and above the fuel taxes,
and get the TTC on a fully stable track. Queen’s Park did attach
strings to its gas money, says Danna O’Brien, spokesperson for
provincial transport minister Harinder Takhar. She says there is
some flexibility on what part of the transit budget gets the funds,
but it must be used to boost the number of patrons and be in
addition to the municipal contribution to transit -- not a
replacement. She says, “The gas money is supposed to be on top, it’s
not so that cities can spend less on transit and more elsewhere.
It’s all about spending more on transit and increasing ridership.”
I asked Patchen
Barss, spokesperson for Toronto mayor David Miller, about the
apparent drop in the city’s contribution to the TTC -- from $149
million a year for operations in 2004 to $123 this year. He says
that the smaller amount does not include a new $21 million
contribution to GO Transit, and more importantly, a whopping $116
million in debt charges to pay for past TTC expenditures.
I have not
before heard of including these debt charges in the TTC’s operating
budget -- they throw into question the way I and others have long
accounted for the city’s subsidy to the TTC. Such is the state of
Toronto’s 2005 budget, as it concerns one of its biggest
expenditures: transit. The city’s desperate attempts to reconcile
its $7 billion overall budget have created a tornado of accounting
figures, and reduced the number of people who understand the
situation to a tiny minority.
If you thought
this year’s process was tough, wait until 2006. According to Mr.
Barss, the city’s tight situation will lead to a further reduction
of how much it gives to the TTC, versus other departments. He says,
“It is indeed our intention as the gas tax ramps up, that that will
give us some breathing room to allocate resources to other parts of
the budget, and we’re not aware of a restriction that would prevent
us from doing that.” It looks like City Hall and Queen’s Park have a
lot more talking to do.
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