Toronto Digs in for Election

It’s an election that only Torontonians get to vote in, but it will have reverberations beyond these city boundaries.
Toronto Digs in for Election
Matthew Little
9/22/2010
Updated:
9/23/2010
[xtypo_dropcap]T[/xtypo_dropcap]oronto is steaming down a light rail transit line toward its next mayor.

Well, the metaphor depends on the candidate. It could be diving into a much quicker subway, but that subway might not be paid for, or could take 15 years to build, so people might just be getting into their cars and sitting in traffic with their new mayor instead.

It’s an election that only the people of Toronto get to vote in, but it will have reverberations beyond these congested city boundaries. Toronto, like it or not, is the concrete and steel economic gladiator of Canada and the billions of dollars that pour out of here can change the fortunes of the entire country.

Problem is, Toronto is getting old.

Busted sewer lines and water pouring out of mysterious holes in the ground is a common sight. Entire neighbourhoods have had temporary water lines running through them, thick blue pipe snaking along the curb, tying into fire hydrants with patches of asphalt protecting it where people drive over it to get in their driveway.

Every city gets old. Normally though they can be renewed, re-invented, improved, and elevated. But that takes foresight and money, none of which Toronto seems to have. As the city ages, services deteriorate and people get angry—especially when it comes to traffic. People here are quicker to honk at a car idle at a green light than anywhere else in Canada.

Toronto is, as every press release from the city reminds reporters, “Canada’s largest city and sixth largest government, and home to a diverse population of about 2.6 million people.”

It is also home to some of the most disgruntled drivers in the country, and with good reason. The city has a daily shuffle on its major highways where people sit in their cars and watch time disappear. With around 100,000 people moving here every year, the problem just keeps getting worse.

Highway 401 which crosses the city east to west to east is widely acknowledged as the busiest highway in North America. Average speeds during rush hour crawl at a hair-pulling 38 km an hour in some sections, down from 71 km in 2006, according to a study commissioned by the city earlier this year. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates the time spent in traffic is costing the economy $3.3 billion a year.

All that waiting wears on people, which is why some might say the successful campaigns in Toronto’s election are those based on criticizing the status quo.

The people here want subways because they know they are fast and reliable. But subways take decades to build, according to Jim Mars, a professor emeritus at the Ryerson School of Urban and Regional Planning.

[xtypo_dropcap]T[/xtypo_dropcap]o go from idea to assessment, buying land, bidding, and building takes at least 10 years, likely 15—which is why Mars came down on some of the incumbents for offering transit plans built around subway expansions. Not because subways are inadequate, but because Toronto needs a transit solution now and anything too different from Transit City, a plan developed by outgoing Mayor David Miller, and the previous council, is basically unfeasible, says Mars.

“We got stuck with Transit City because for 25 years we didn’t do anything significant,” he says.
Transit City is a network of eight new Light Rail Transit (LRT) lines to areas not served by existing rapid transit. Leading candidate Rob Ford describes them as trolley cars, making them sound like the charming cabooses that shuffle around downtown under 20 km an hour.

Former deputy mayor and current third-place candidate Joe Pantalone is the only candidate 100 percent behind Transit City and describes it as a European-style rapid transit line. The lines are already under construction with much of the funding in place. While they may not be as quick as subways, they can reach 60 km an hour and can give Toronto some of the relief it needs.

“If I had to vote for someone on basis of their transporting system, I would reluctantly have to say I would vote for Joe Pantalone,” Mars says.

Former Ontario Minister of Health George Smitherman is also in the running. Much of Smitherman’s plan is built around Transit City as well, especially the portions he hopes to complete before the 2015 Pan American Games come to Toronto. But unlike Pantalone, he is not campaigning on it under the name Transit City, which might be helping his numbers. He would fund much of his transit plan using private-public partnerships, something he has a lot of experience with from his previous role in provincial politics.

Rocco Rossi, a businessman and former CEO of the Ontario Heart and Stroke Foundation, has talked about selling Ontario Hydro to pay off the city’s debt so money can go to building transit rather than interest payments. Among his transit proposals is building an underground highway, a tunnel presented as a plan on his website. But when asked over the telephone, he said it is an idea that needs further study.

Sarah Thomson, a businesswoman turned publisher of the Women’s Post magazine, also calls for more subways in her plan and would pay for them by tolling city roads, an idea that has earned her some praise from political pundits because of its pragmatism, though it isn’t likely to help her in the polls.

While Transit City sounds like an adequate solution, it is far from the ideal combination subways, bike lanes, and road improvements Ford costs out in a very reasonable-sounding online video.

And even though that video has been seriously challenged by experts and critics, the most recent Nanos Research poll conducted for the Globe and Mail, CTV, and CP24 gave Ford a commanding lead, double that of Smitherman, his closest competitor.

While Ford barrels toward the mayor’s seat with 45.8 percent of decided voters, Smitherman pulled in 21.3 percent and Pantelone 16.8 percent. Rossi is hanging in with 9.7 percent, but Thomson is looking unlikely to win with a relatively small 6.4 percent of decided voters.