Crowded buses, long commutes --why transit is top of mind for Toronto voters

Thestar.com
September 26, 2018
Ben Spurr

As the Oct. 22 municipal election draws nearer, we take a look at some of the most pressing challenges facing Toronto, what voters think, and how mayoral candidates propose to tackle them.

The Issue: Public transit hasn’t kept up with population growth, and residents face a daily challenge on overcrowded bus lines and an inadequate subway network that some believe is too expensive to ride.

Riley Peterson wants to go back to school, and has her sights set on the city studies program at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

There’s only one thing stopping her: she’s not sure she could endure what she predicts would be a four-hour round-trip commute on the TTC every day.

Peterson, 19, lives near Keele St. and Eglinton Ave. in York South—Weston, and U of T Scarborough, the only school that offers the program she wants, is on the other side of town.

“The commute’s the only thing that’s really actually holding me back,” said Peterson, a youth worker who doesn’t have a driver’s licence and relies on transit to get around.

Peterson already commutes about 90 minutes to a job downtown at a progressive think tank, often waking up before 6 a.m. to take a bus, subway and then streetcar, a daily journey she calls “exhausting.”

She says local TTC service isn’t much better. “I have a terrible experience with the Jane bus,” she said, describing regular wait times of up to 20 minutes. “The 89 Weston bus is always crowded, and I wait a long time for that, too.”

The Eglinton Crosstown LRT is set to open in 2021, and a stop that’s part of Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack plan could be built at St. Clair—Old Weston by 2025.

But Peterson, who has volunteered for local council candidate Chiara Padovani, said even those improvements will only go so far to help transit riders in her community, which has a median income of $53,292, more than $12,000 below the city as a whole.

She says the city needs a multi-pronged approach to improving transit. “It would be increased bus service, lower TTC fares, and build rapid transit in the suburbs,” she said.

Peterson isn’t alone in thinking transit could be improved. A new poll of 944 Toronto residents conducted by Forum Research found 70 per cent of respondents have concerns about public transit.

About one-third, or 31 per cent, said not enough subway lines is the biggest problem, while roughly the same portion cited overcrowding as the main issue. Thirteen per cent said unreliable service was their biggest concern, while one in 10 cited the high cost of fares.

Three mayoral candidates --Jennifer Keesmaat, Sarah Climenhaga, and Saron Gebresellassi --will outline their plans to address those concerns Wednesday evening at a transit-focused debate at U of T Scarborough.

Mayor Tory will skip the event to attend a campaign fundraiser at the Lambton Golf and Country Club in Etobicoke. His campaign says organizers were aware he had a conflict weeks ago but didn’t reschedule. The organizers dispute that account.

When it comes to building new lines, Tory and Keesmaat, considered the two main challengers in the Oct. 22 vote, don’t plan to deviate significantly from the city’s council-endorsed transit plan.

Both Tory and Keesmaat, who is Toronto’s former chief planner, support building a network of light-rail transit on the waterfront, and extending the Eglinton LRT west to Pearson airport, and east to U of T Scarborough.

Both back the relief line, the proposed $6.8-billion subway that would link the eastern end of Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) to downtown, although Keesmaat has accused Tory of allowing the project to stall, a charge the mayor denies.

Tory wants to go ahead with building six new “SmartTrack” stations on GO lines within Toronto, at a cost of up to $1.46 billion. Keesmaat has slammed Tory’s SmartTrack plan as a “mirage,” but would still build four of the six stops. She also proposes to build an LRT on Jane St.

Neither oppose the controversial Scarborough subway extension, although Keesmaat says she would withdraw $910 million in city funding for the project if Premier Doug Ford follows through on his plan to add two stops to the line. The extra stops could add more than $1 billion to the cost.

Keesmaat would reallocate the city’s contribution to build the Eglinton East LRT, a move Tory says would jeopardize the subway.

Cameron MacLeod, executive director of non-partisan transit advocacy group CodeRedTO, said it’s a good thing there’s so much overlap between Keesmaat’s and Tory’s platforms because it makes it more likely the proposed lines will get built.

“The fact that the two major candidates are each working from a fairly similar set of goals, and a fairly similar set of priorities, that’s positive in terms of creating more pressure towards (completing) those projects,” he said.

Anna Kramer, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s department of planning and geography, says what’s missing from the pair’s platforms are firm targets for improving transit service.

“The political focus is often on capital funding for rail projects, and not on the operational budgets to improve service levels,” she said.

Kramer said she’d like to see more emphasis on less expensive, but still effective, measures to alleviate problems such as “bunching” on busy bus routes. She suggests the candidates should take up ideas such as introducing all-door boarding on crowded bus lines, and creating dedicated bus lanes.

Keesmaat has promised “enhanced bus service where appropriate” but offered few specifics.

Tory has also not set any improved service targets, but has cited his administration’s investment in the TTC; the city subsidy to the transit agency grew from $430 million in 2014 to $578 million in 2018. However, only a portion of the increase went toward improving service.

Tory has also emphasized policies his administration has enacted to make transit more affordable, like the introduction of the rule that lets kids younger than 13 ride free, the new two-hour timed transfer policy, and the Fair Pass discount for low-income riders.

Those initiatives have reduced the cost of transit for some, but regular TTC fares have increased in three of Tory’s four years as mayor. Since 2014, the price of a token has increased by 11 per cent, and the price of a Metropass has jumped 9 per cent.

Gebresellassi’s transit platform centres on an ambitious promise to “set Toronto on a path towards” making transit free for everyone, a policy that would likely require the city to increase its net TTC spending by over $1.2 billion.

Climenhaga has promised to freeze TTC fares for four years, and also to look into making transit free “to all who wish to ride.”

The Forum poll was conducted by interactive voice response telephone survey between Sept. 20 and 24. It’s considered accurate to plus or minus three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.