$80M TTC budget hike not quite at ‘record’ level

In fact, 2009 saw the biggest boost when council added $125.4 million to conventional system.

Thestar.com
Feb. 16, 2017
By Ben Spurr

Mayor John Tory has hailed this year’s TTC budget as a “record investment” in the public transit system.

But does the 2017 spending plan really represent a historic achievement for the TTC?

In a speech to council midway through Wednesday’s marathon meeting to finalize the 2017 city budget, Tory noted that the operating subsidy that the city gives to the transit agency was set to increase by $80 million this year. It will rise to about $690 million, compared to the $610 million budgeted for in 2016.

“Eighty million dollars is maybe not the all-time record increase, but it’s maybe the second biggest in all the recent years, and maybe ever,” he said.

However, it appears that despite Tory’s statement, this year’s funding increase may not even be the largest of his term.

Of the $80 million subsidy increase this year, only about $54 million will go to the TTC’s conventional system. The remainder will go to Wheel-Trans, which is expected to carry 1 million more passengers this year as demand surges to unprecedented levels.

According to the TTC’s 2015 annual report, in that year, which was the first of Tory’s administration, funding for the conventional system alone increased by $84.6 million, which is $30 million larger than this year’s increase. The total 2015 subsidy was even higher with Wheel-Trans factored in.

Asked Thursday whether Tory stood by his claim that the 2017 increase was a recent record, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said Tory “is proud that the 2017 budget includes an $80 million investment in the TTC.”

“He’s also proud that in 2015 - his first full year in office - the TTC budget increased by more than $90 million,” wrote Keerthana Kamalavasan in an email. “We need to keep making smart investments in transit in Toronto to make our transit system faster, stronger, safer and more accessible for everyone in every part of the city.”

By Wednesday, Tory had already been forced to walk back a claim he made two days earlier in a Toronto Sun op-ed and again at a news conference when he asserted this year’s subsidy boost represented the largest funding increase in the TTC’s history.

Although transit agency staff had initially supported the claim, they later confirmed that 2009 saw the biggest boost. That year, council added $125.4 million to conventional system.

Although this year’s $690 million subsidy is a new high, and the TTC’s gross expenditures will rise to $1.95 billion, a 5-per-cent increase over the year before, critics point out that none of the new money is earmarked for increasing service levels on existing routes.

Instead, it will help offset the transit agency’s rising costs, which include inflationary wage increases, energy costs, and escalating accident claims.

“People don’t really care how much money you can claim to be spending, they care whether the service is getting better or not, and the service is not getting better,” said Gord Perks, councillor for Ward 14, Parkdale – High Park and a frequent critic of the mayor’s spending priorities.

Tory argues that the transit system is improving under his watch. Headed into Wednesday’s vote, he released a list of 10 highlights in the transit budget, which included maintaining his signature policy of free transit for kids 12 and under, opening the subway earlier on Sundays, buying hundreds of new buses, completing the rollout of the Presto fare card system, continuing work on the Scarborough subway extension, and installing automatic train control on Line 1 in order to run trains more reliably.

Tory also highlighted the Spadina Subway Extension, which will be the first new rapid transit project to open in Toronto in more than a decade when it comes online at the end of the year.

Kamalavasan, the mayor’s spokesperson, said all of these expenditures will benefit transit riders. “Every dollar invested in the TTC goes to better service,” she wrote.

Although councillors increased the TTC’s budget at Wednesday’s meeting, they declined to fund more than $4 million in new programs for the agency, including a track safety plan, a subway reliability program, and retraining subway station employees to transition to the Presto system.

Councillor Mary Fragedakis moved a motion to find the $1.2 million for the subway reliability program, which TTC CEO Andy Byford told council would help cut down on track-related subway delays by up to 30 per cent.

“I think we owe it to subway users. I know they’ve put up with a lot of subway closures, they’ve put up with no air conditioning on subway cars, they’ve put up with trains too full to get on in the morning and other delays,” said Fragedakis, who is the newest addition to the TTC board.

Her motion was defeated in a vote of 18 to 26. Tory was opposed.

Asked why he voted against the subway reliability plan, Kamalavasan said Tory “is confident that, under the leadership of Andy Byford, the TTC will continue to provide reliable subway service within their $2 billion operating budget.”