Category Archives for "Urban Transit"

Aug 16

“Are We There Yet? The state of transit investment in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area”

By Transport Action Ontario | Latest News , Major Reports , Urban Transit

The Move the GTHA collaborative, of which Transport Action Ontario is a key core member, has released its long-awaited report “Are We There Yet?  The state of transit investment in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA)”.   The report  details the progress to date in funding and building The Big Move 25 year rapid transit plan, and quantifies the large capital and operating/maintenance/lifecycle rehabilitation  costs that still need to be funded.   There are over 20 signatories to the report.
We are calling for a Transit Summit by early 2017 among all stakeholders to discuss funding.  The timing is good because (1) Metrolinx has just released their discussion paper on The Big Move  (2) the federal government is planning for Phase 2 of their infrastructure investment plan,    (3) some municipalities, including Toronto and York, want to have an “adult discussion” on new revenue tools.
 The report received broad media coverage, and a positive response from Queens Park.  These will be covered in subsequent posts.
Jul 25

Toronto Debate on Scarborough Subway Extension is Over

By Transport Action Ontario | Latest News , Urban Transit

 
After years of public and political debate, Toronto Council has voted to extend the Bloor-Danforth subway in Scarborough by 1 stop (6 kilometers) at a staggering capital cost of $3.2B.  The extension is part of a proposed network in Scarborough including improved GO transit and the Eglinton East LRT line.  As readers know, Transport Action Ontario has been very active in this debate, including meetings with staff, councillors and public deputations.  Although we support the rest of the network, we have strongly opposed the SSE as too expensive and leading to capacity pressures on the balance of the subway network.
Instead of SSE, we have advocated vigorously for Scarborough Express Rail, a new  GO line branching from the existing GO Stouffville corridor, as providing subway-like service at much lower cost.  But strong political pressure lead to this alternative being dropped from detailed consideration.
Toronto remains on the hook for the $900M SSE capital funding increment over and beyond provincial and federal funding, and is responsible for all of the substantial operations, maintenance and lifecycle costs of the SSE.  The Eglinton East LRT is unfunded, and there is scepticism that it will ever be built, due to funding constraints exacerbated by the SSE decision.
Jul 06

Intruiging Agreement between CN and Province of Ontario

By Transport Action Ontario | Intercity Rail and Bus , Latest News , Urban Transit

 

 

The busy CN mainline between Bramalea (Halwest) and Georgetown (Silver) has long been a bottleneck for increasing GO and VIA service to Kitchener and points further west like Stratford and London.  On June 14, Ontario announced that the province has secured an agreement-in-principle with CN that will allow GO Regional Express Rail to be built along the Kitchener GO corridor.  The agreement-in-principle also begins the planning and technical analysis to build a new freight corridor that will allow CN to shift most of its freight traffic from the section of the Kitchener corridor it owns – namely between Bramalea and Georgetown – to the new corridor.  This will free up capacity for more GO and VIA service.  The province also announced funding to help build a multimodal transportation hub in downtown Kitchener and the extension of two morning and two afternoon peak train trips that currently run between Union Station and Georgetown to also serve Kitchener, Guelph and Acton.
The Ontario-CN agreement is very interesting.  It comes on the heels of the “Missing Link” study prepared by 4 municipalities in 2015 to allow increased GO service on both the Kitchener and Milton lines.   (See Ontario Report, November-December, 2015.) This agreement appears to be different, but time will tell.
Jun 25

State of Transit Investment in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA)

By Transport Action Ontario | Latest News , Urban Transit

 

 

Transport Action Ontario is a core member of the Move the GTHA (MTGTHA) collaborative, a diverse group of organizations from health, labour, business, policy, environmental and citizen advocacy working together to build awareness, engagement and education in support of investment in the GTHA’s transportation system.

 

The collaborative intends to release a report in July on the state of transit investment in the GTHA.  The report was previewed at a meeting on local and regional transit investment organized by Environment Hamilton.  The Hamilton Spectator published a good summary of the meeting, as pasted below:

 

ARTICLE FROM HAMILTON SPECTATOR, JUNE 23, 2016

Funding Hamilton transportation operations will be pricey

By Joel OpHardt

Hamilton will have to worry about more than just project funding for the LRT. Maintenance and operation are costly too.

Peter Miasek, president of Transport Action Canada, highlighted key features of a report from the group Move the GTHA on the province’s Big Move transit plan.

The Big Move is a provincial transport plan that calls for the construction of a roughly 1,300-kilometre rapid transit network by 2033. Rapid transit would include public transit options such as bus rapid transit, light rail transit, heavy rail and subways.

“Municipalities are already struggling to pick up the year-to-year operational costs” for transit, Miasek told a crowd of about 40 people at the West Harbour Hub Thursday evening.

While transportation projects get funding from all three levels of government, municipalities are often forced to foot the bill themselves when it comes to maintenance and operation, said Miasek.

At current expansion rates, Move the GTHA estimates operation costs of the rapid transit network would cost municipalities $1.6 billion per year by 2022. By 2032 that number would balloon to $3.8 billion per year.

By 2042, municipalities will need to source $78 billion cumulatively to foot the bill.

“We’re going to need a revenue source that starts small but grows rapidly,” he said. “The sad news is no governments have made commitments.”

To add to the concern, Don McLean of Environment Hamilton pointed to Hamilton’s unique property tax policy that employs a varied transit levy according to location. Because communities like Ancaster and Stoney Creek pay about a third of what central Hamilton pays, the city doesn’t have the money to spend on effective city-wide transit investments.

As it stands, the news on the project funding is much better. Between the province, the federal government and municipalities, about $38.2 billion of the necessary $69 billion to complete the rapid transit network has been sourced.

That level of funding would supply the GTHA with about five more years of construction before the funding would need to be revamped.

Despite the operational cost conundrum, Miasek doesn’t shy of away from supporting rapid transit. The business case is there, he said. Congestion cost the GTHA $6 billion in 2013 and will cost it $15 billion per year by 2033, “simply from wasted time.”

If the Big Move succeeds, the number of people living within two kilometres of rapid transit in the GTHA would double to about 80 per cent.

But “everything starts and stops with money,” says Miasek.

The newly introduced HOT lanes would be a good starting point for funding, said Miasek, but “heavy hitter tools” like increasing HST and the gas tax would be necessary.

Miasek says case studies in the U.S. states and local polling show that the public will support new revenue tools if they’re transparent, if they cover all sectors, and if they’re used to fund projects with solid business cases.

Move the GTHA’s report on The Big Move will be published in July.

Jun 23

Ontario’s Climate Change Action Plan – Transport Action Ontario comments

By Transport Action Ontario | Intercity Rail and Bus , Latest News , Urban Transit

 

Ontario’s Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) was released in June, 2016.   TAO has been actively involved, both through the Move the GTHA collaborative and as an individual organization.

 

TAO supports much of the CCAP.  However, we have identified two significant concern areas related to transportation:

  • No consideration was given for increased role of freight intermodal in carbon emission reduction
  • No consideration was given to enhance public transportation outside the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area

 

Letters have been written to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change on both topics, and can be viewed below:

TAO-CCAP-intermodal2016-06-21

TAO-CCAP-PublicTransp2016-06-23

 

TAO will continue to track the CCAP closely.

 

 

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