$2-million transit office last thing City Hall needs

Torontosun.com
November 9, 2018
Sue-Ann Levy

So let me get this straight.

Did Mayor John Tory really tell reporters Thursday morning that City Hall needs a another layer of bureaucracy -- namely a new dedicated transit expansion office -- to “avoid bureaucratic delays” with getting transit built in Toronto?

Did he also say that the office will be headed by a transit czar at the executive director level ($200,000-plus) who will “kick butt” so that work happens as fast as it can?

That office, as I learned late in the day, will cost taxpayers $2-million a year and will have up to 15 employees!

“We need to have a laser-like focus on doing the work needed to get ahead,” Tory said.
“It’s (the office is) the clearinghouse … by reorganizing the city government so that we can have an office that focuses 100% on getting transit built ensures work happens as fast as it can.”

Tory said the transit expansion office was proposed by the city’s bureaucrats.

Of course it was. I’m told this team will come from within the bureaucracy, which begs the question -- what have they been doing up to now?

But here’s the thing.

I completely agree with Tory that there’s been far too much foot-dragging on transit expansion -- pretty much for the entire 20 years I’ve watched Toronto City Hall.

Part of it is due to the many bureaucratic fiefdoms -- often which don’t communicate with each other -- that are involved in any city construction project, not just transit.

I will also agree that the addition of the equally bloated and often useless provincially-funded Metrolinx to the management of transit in Ontario has helped contribute greatly to the dithering.

But another bureaucracy of 15 people (so much for Tory’s contentions it will be “lean”) is that last thing that’s needed at City Hall.

Monitoring transit expansion really doesn’t need to be complicated. Nor should it provide another excuse to hire more six-figure bureaucrats that trip over each other.

If this is truly a priority for Tory and the new council, all he needs to do is hire a point person or assign a competent point person (or persons) in his office to be dedicated to the job -- someone who can juggle competing bureaucratic and political interests, work alongside the new TTC chairman or chairwoman (whoever that may be) and the TTC board.

Besides, what Tory didn’t really address in any meaningful way (even when asked) during his photo opp Thursday is that the foot dragging on transit expansion has been as much, if not much more, due to political interference.

To put it bluntly it has always been and will always be a political hot potato.

Whether he chooses to admit it or not, I’ve seen council spend hours and hours reopening debate on subway plans when various phases of the project come to council for approval.

The Scarborough subway is the best example.

The two new Scarborough politicians elected on  Oct. 22 -- Cynthia Lai and Jennifer McKelvie -- told me in recent interviews that they intend to lobby hard for more than a one-stop subway to Scarborough.
And of course, despite Tory’s best efforts to prop up Joe Mihevc, the Scarborough subway’s biggest foe, Josh Matlow, will be back on council.

A bureaucrat -- no matter how tough -- will not be in any position to kick political butt or to twist arms.

That’s what a mayor and his political staff are entrusted (and have failed) to do up to now.

Besides if history repeats itself, I’m going to bet right now that this new office of “butt kickers” will be no different than the office of affordable/social housing advocates who were supposed to kick butt at Toronto Community Housing Corporation.

Yeah right.

It’s going on three years since Senator Art Eggleton and Phil Gillies presented their thorough Task Force report on community housing, having spent a year studying the dysfunctional organization.

The trouble social housing authority is as dysfunctional as ever with 3,628 units sitting vacant, drug dealers rampant in many buildings, foot-dragging on the seniors portfolio and a return to the days of less than full disclosure under CEO Kathy Milsom.