Today we talk transit with insidetoronto.com’s Rahul Gupta. And it’s not all about the Scarborough subway!
— audibly submitted by Cityslikr
Metrolinx
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Category Archives: Metrolinx
The Art Of The Deal
This shouldn’t be considered some nyah, nyah, nyah, I-told-you-so. 
While I remain sceptical about the magical powers of public-private partnerships to heal our infrastructure deficit, pending a definitive study to prove/disprove their rationale beyond simply a case-by-case basis, I’ll keep my mind as open as I ideologically can toward the possibility that an argument can be made for the P3s’ merits. After all, the private sector blah, blah, blah, am I right?
But this, this, “First-of-its-kind condo deal…mired in financial troubles”, does little to engender much feeling of goodwill toward the concept. I know, I know. Why emphasize the one deal gone wrong when so many have gone right but the same thing might be said about those purely public projects that make so much noise when they go over budget and/or face significant delays. This one’s significant because Metrolinx, the provincial agency directed to get Ontario moving with a proposed massive public transit build over the next quarter century, has stressed the importance of P3s as an integral component of a successful implementation of that plan.
The lack of one being in place was cited as a reason for the recent and ongoing woes of the Yonge-Univesity-Spadina subway extension. The premier wagged her finger at the city. 
The TTC chair put forth a motion to ensure P3s were on the table going forward with future transit projects. No more opportunities would be lost in accruing the obvious benefits that come with bringing private sector expertise into building better public facilities.
Yet, it’s hard not to look at this particular deal, an attempt to integrate the concept of intensification with transit hubs, and not come away with the sense that the real expertise the private sector provides is assuring its own best outcomes. In a nutshell, a developer of some property near the Mimico GO station got official approval and rezoning for additional height of a condo project which would be directly connected to the GO station in return for building additional parking spaces specifically for the use of the GO station. Things went south, financially speaking, the development company had a little solvency problem, it seems, and Metrolinx had second thoughts.
“Some information had come to our attention that made this a less than desirable agreement to enter so we pulled out of that agreement,” a Metrolinx spokesperson told the CBC. This was back in 2012. No harm, no foul. Live and learn. Onward and upward. Metrolinx will renovate the GO station and build the extra parking spaces on its own.
But here’s the real kicker, in my opinion.
Despite the cancelling of the agreement, and no connection between the proposed condo development and the Mimico GO station, no additional GO parking provided, the developer still gets to keep the increased height for the project. Rebuffed by the city’s Committee of Adjustment after the deal went sour, the OMB swopped in to save the day, OKing the 7 extra stories. Private sector benefits 1, obligations nil.
This is where my dubious disposition toward P3s stems from. Private enterprise looks out for number one. That is the foundation it is built on, is it not? Self-interest. Emerging with a net gain is the key to survival.
How the public sector arrives at a win-win situation in a relationship with a private partner is therefore tricky at best. Is it possible to maximize profits at the same time as maximizing the public good? That’s the pounding sound of constantly trying to square a circle.
Governments just have to make sure contracts are signed tightly, all the eyes are dotted and tees crossed, risk fully and properly assessed, managed and allocated. Make the right deal and watch the magic happen. It all just makes such sound, intuitive, fiscal sense for everyone involved.
Except that there’s one fundamental disparity in this relationship that makes it ultimately unequal. The private sector can just walk away from any deal that becomes unworkable for them. 
Contract signed? So, sue me. To think that any P3 agreement doesn’t include that kind of assessment built into it is probably naïve, the definitive out clause.
Public projects are ultimately the responsibility of the public sector. Failure to deliver a transit stop, for example, is not an option for them. One way or another, over budget or not, on time or not, it must come to pass. It’s the key bargaining chip a private sector partner always has in its back pocket, moral hazard a friend.
It’s difficult to imagine any cost or efficiency savings enough to trump that advantage the private sector always brings to the negotiating table.
— side-eyely submitted by Cityslikr
Transit Treachery
Our list of municipally elected transit villains is well known. Why, just in the past 4+ years alone, names fly off the top of your head. 
Rob Ford, Karen Stintz, Glenn De Baeremaeker, and all the subway lovers who enabled them. We elected them. We re-elected them. They are our responsibility, our bad.
Yet, I am going to make a bold, perhaps controversial assertion here.
They are but bit players in this sad, sad drama we call transit planning here in Toronto. Supporting actors in our mad tragi-farce, farcedy. Wilfully self-unaware fall guys, the lot of them. Patsies. Patsies, not pasties. Mmmmmmm… pasties.
The real culprits here, the progenitors of this city’s — the region’s — diseased public transit, Ian McShane’s Teddy Bass to Ben Kingsley’s Don Logan, is undoubtedly the provincial government. Ultimately, Queen’s Park pulls all the strings, fiscally, jurisdictionally. Theirs is the final yea or no although they would demur, preferring to project an image of sage partnership with its municipalities. Who us? We’re just sitting here minding our business, happily signing the cheques. Are you sure you don’t want a subway with that?
Follow the timeline with me on our current misadventure.
In 2007, the city and province announced a grand plan, Transit City, as a step in the right direction to dealing with Toronto’s increasingly problematic congestion. We often forget that the project was more than just new LRT lines, 7 of those in total, running some 120 kilometres. New bus rapid transit routes were also in the mix along with increases to existing services. Looking at the original Transit City map, what is immediately apparent is the plan’s scope of bringing better transit into the long under-served inner suburban areas of the city.
Back then, the provincial government was picking up the tab for Transit City as part of their bigger regional transit vision, MoveOntario 2020. Unfortunately, the economic crisis and meltdown got in the way and, more attentive to politics than good governance, it scaled back Transit City to just 4 LRT lines. 
Argue as we might about if the move made any economic sense but what we can say with a fair degree of certainty is that this change of plans instilled in Transit City a sense impermanence, assailability. Just more lines drawn on a map.
December 10th, 2010. Newly elected mayor, Rob Ford, unilaterally declares Transit City dead. That noise you heard coming from Queen’s Park? **Crickets**
Again, we can debate in hindsight whether or not city council should’ve stepped in and demanded the mayor bring the matter to a vote. Ford was as popular as he would ever be at this point. Had city council pushed, he may well have received the go-ahead to rip up the master agreement with Metrolinx and officially bury Transit City. Whether through wisdom or pure shocked inertia, city council stood pat, allowing the mayor enough time and rope to leave himself dangling.
The inaction on Queen’s Park in defense of Transit City is equally opaque and open to question. Remember though, they are the big bosses, the final arbiters, the holders of transit plans in their hands. They could’ve stepped in and stopped the insanity in its tracks. That power was theirs.
Instead, they blinked. Deeply unpopular in the polls and facing almost certain defeat in the general election to be held the following year and not looking to have to face down the self-proclaimed Ford Nation flank in Toronto, the Liberal government shrugged and told the mayor and city council, Whatever you want to do. (It probably also didn’t hurt that any delays to the transit plan formerly known as Transit City would save the deeply indebted Liberals from immediately having to spend any money.)
Unsurprisingly, Rob Ford stumbled and fell flat on his face. City council seized control of the transit file from him. With only a 2 year delay to show for it, some semblance of order seemed to be on the horizon. Of course, it wasn’t. City council, led by a TTC commissioner eyeing the mayor’s office in a couple years, began dialogue on another transit plan, mostly pie-in-the-sky, unfunded schemes called One City. More lines on a map including – what the hell was that? – another Scarborough subway, this one a replacement for the proposed Transit City LRT extension of the Bloor-Danforth line.
It bears repeating at this point that, once more, the Liberal government could’ve put their foot down and put an end to the discussion. 
They have the power to do that, rule by fiat pretty much. That is the nature of our municipal-provincial relationship. They didn’t, thereby perpetuating the farcical shitshow.
They’d been reduced to a minority status and their grip on power was tenuous. No false moves that might embolden the opposition to trigger an election. So just more of the, Whatevs.
But this is where the provincial government’s motives get really, really murky. During a by-election in Scarborough-Guildwood, the Liberals dubbed their candidate, Mitzi Hunter, the ‘subway champion’. Sorry, what?! Increasingly, Scarborough MPPs (many of whom were former Toronto city councillors) went public with their preference for extending the Bloor-Danforth line with a subway rather than LRT. Everybody now had picked up the Rob Ford chant of Subways! Subways! Subways! Scarborough deserves a subway!
It’s like the boss, when you ask if you can cut out early to take your kid to soccer practice, tells you ‘no’ while winking and nodding his head ‘yes’. 
No. *wink, wink, wink, wink* Quitting time is 5pm. *wink, wink, wink, wink* You cannot take your kid to soccer practice. *Nodding ‘yes’*
So it went. City council took the bait, cancelled plans for the fully funded by the province Scarborough LRT, taking upon itself all the risks and liabilities of building a subway instead, beginning with about $75 million it was on the hook for for cancelling the LRT plan, the plan the province covertly encouraged them to cancel. The Liberals scored a majority government last June and then pretty openly expressed its preference for who Toronto should elect as its next mayor, John Tory, a candidate with transit plans of his own, SmartTrack which, just so coincidentally, meshed nicely with the province’s own regional rail plans, and a candidate with no plans to reopen the Scarborough subway debate if elected.
Why do I feel the need to revisit this recent, sordid history now?
On Monday at the Executive Committee’s budget meeting, buried oddly near the bottom of the 2015 Water and Waste Water Rate Supported Budget, a budget that doesn’t usually get the same spotlight its operating and capital budget brethren receive, a report surfaced revealing that the city and Metrolinx (the provincial transit body) had been negotiating a $95 million bill Toronto was expected to pay for infrastructure upgrades that were happening along the Union-Pearson-Georgetown rail link. Hey! You want out-of-town visitors and commuters moving smoothly around your city? Pay up. That shit don’t come for free.
So, a city struggling to balance its operating budget (which it is provincially mandated to do) and with limited access to revenue to do that (and an even more limited propensity to access the tools it does have, admittedly) 
is being told to come up with nearly $100 million to help pay for infrastructure improvements that will ultimately more directly benefit another level of government with increased taxation through economic growth. Oh, and the cost overruns on the main terminal of that rail link? You’re on your own, Toronto.
It is clearly evident that this city is more than capable of fucking itself. What’s becoming less apparent is why we have to continue putting up with a second fucking from a senior level of government more concerned about its own well-being than the municipalities it is purportedly looking out for. As my good friend MookieG77 said on the Twitter yesterday, this is just another form of provincial downloading onto cities.
While the idea of pushing for provincial status for the GTA remains quixotically out on the fringes of political discourse, it’s just not seeming that crazy an idea currently. For 20 years now, Queen’s Park has not acted much like a partner, albeit a senior partner in its relationship with Toronto. The dynamic is more like an occupier. 
Happy to take our money but less interested in providing sound oversight or reasonable leadership unless it provides some tangible gain for them in return.
If we’re going to go down in some sort of ignominious flame out, let it at least be one of our own making and not imposed by a government who views us as little more than a liability, a vote rich and money laden liability.
— rebelliously submitted by Cityslikr