Transit Transformation

Does good governance equal good business?

An expanded, revitalized Union Station was one of the “Big Moves” in Metrolinx’s regional transportation plan, released in November 2008.

Canada is the only country in the G8 without a national transit strategy. Some Canadian provinces have transit plans, but few have a comprehensive strategy that includes a cost and a plan to cover that cost.

In 2007, the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA) estimated Canada needs to invest $2 billion a year in transit in addition to existing funding-$21 billion for transit infrastructure between 2007 and 2010.

The desire for spending to bring stimulus has helped. Federal gas tax transfers to the provinces and territories doubled in April 2009 and now provide $2 billion per year—or about five cents per litre of gasoline—for municipal transit infrastructure.

But CUTA has upped its estimate since 2007. A new report puts the number closer to $40 billion (between 2008 and 2012) for maintenance, system upgrades and expansion.

Ontario’s 2009 budget took a step toward meeting that demand this April by pouring an additional $9 billion into transit for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).

New funding announcements in Ontario coincided with the introduction of new legislation: the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area Transit Implementation Act merges Metrolinx (the organization that brought together politicians and transit leaders to develop a transit plan for the GTHA) with GO Transit, the provincial transportation agency.

The relevance and future of Metrolinx has been in question for some time. The province has twice circumvented the organization, in 2007 by announcing its own list of transit projects totalling $11.5 billion, and last year by removing a key component-road pricing-from Metrolinx’s final plan.

That plan was passed last November by the board of Metrolinx-an assemblage of mayors and regional chairs from the GTHA. They voted unanimously to accept the new $50-billion regional transportation plan. The Big Move aims to create 1,200 kilometres of new rapid transit, resulting in a 50 per cent reduction in passenger transportation emissions.

When the plan was released in November 2008, Metrolinx chair Rob MacIssac said, “The municipal leaders on the Metrolinx board have come together, with a single voice, to create a common vision for transportation in the region.”

But just a few months later, some GTHA mayors and regional chairs are feeling pushed out of the process.

The current Metrolinx board will be replaced by experts in planning, finance and development; former TorStar CEO Robert Prichard has been appointed as the transition advisor for the merger. Many municipal leaders-Toronto’s Mayor David Miller among them-have expressed fears that this board won’t understand the unique transit needs of their towns, cities and regions. Miller says, “It’s not something I would have done. The board was working extremely well-efficient, effective and on time. It’s a very significant mistake. Transit isn’t just about transit; it’s not like building a car. It’s about social integration and social justice.”

TTC chair Adam Giambrone blogged on the ReNew Canada website that, while new funding announcements are “welcome,” this new board is a bad idea. “What’s lost in the new model is all of the experience and consensus-building that has gone into Metrolinx up until now, as well as the public accountability of elected representatives,” he wrote.

In response, Richard Joy with the Toronto Board of Trade said, “Interesting that he avoids the key point that he raises: funding. For all the good work the old board did in planning where money should be spent, they punted the question as to where to get the money, beyond the provincial start-up funds.”

Still, Miller argues that an organization that already relies heavily on consultants shouldn’t replace the institutional wisdom and knowledge of municipal politicians with policy people and planning experts. He says Metrolinx is a young organization with a staff of “very smart policy people who are not very experienced in transit.”

Politicians, he says, are better able to negotiate with each other when interests conflict. “There is a different interest between the region and the cities-think Spadina Expressway. It’s in the region’s interest to go through Toronto; it’s in the city’s interest to get people to go around Toronto.”

Leslie Woo, general manager of policy and planning at Metrolinx, says the change won’t affect the organization’s goals or the work it’s been doing. She says the goal remains “clearing the way for projects to get delivered more quickly” and that the provincial announcement of the expansion of the rapid transit network echoes their number-one priority.

Woo says, “There are many examples [of this structure] around the world that function, grow and flourish.”

Closer to home, the best example is British Columbia’s TransLink, the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority. While its board went from politicos to private-sector planners in 2007, major decisions are still passed through the Mayor’s Council on Regional Transportation. This council, composed of the 21 mayors within Metro Vancouver, is also charged with appointing TransLink’s board of directors and the Regional Transportation Commissioner. B.C.’s 2009 budget includes $14 billion in infrastructure spending, $2.3 billion of which is aimed at transportation projects and, as pointed out by Woo, administered through TransLink.

Across the country, transit and road spending was announced as part of provincial budgets and regional plans, all generated and administered by different types of agencies.

In Quebec, regional planning is left up to the Agence Métropolitaine de Transport (AMT), formed in 1994. Its goal is similar to that of Metrolinx: to increase the use of public transit in order to make travelling around the Greater Montreal area more efficient for citizens. But the AMT is a government agency accountable to the Transport Minister-and its board is made up of elected officials.

Alberta has a provincial transit plan. The province announced $520 million through to 2011-2012, including $10 million in 2009, as part of its Green Transit Initiatives Program (GreenTRIP), administered by Alberta Transportation. The goal is to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by getting cars off the roads. Yet, $5.8 million of that will be spent on improving road infrastructure.

CUTA president Michael Roschlau said at Americana in March that smaller provinces in the Prairies and Atlantic Canada simply don’t have the resources to create their own plan and that’s why a national plan is needed.

Beyond B.C., Quebec and Ontario, it gets pretty bleak for transit planning. Manitoba doesn’t have a province-wide transit plan, though it has increased transfer payments to municipalities to a total of $213 million-in part to be dedicated to transit expenditures. Nova Scotia has yet to announce its budget for 2009-2010, but in the past has leaned heavily on federal funding for transit.

Miller says the fact that transit funding and expansion is on politicians’ and the public’s radars is a good sign-and a big improvement over years past. “I was first elected to office in 1994. In 1995 I voted for a subway extension to York University and the shovel will get in the ground this year or next; that’s 20 years from first idea to first construction. By comparison, it’s less than ten years from first idea to completion for Light Rail Transit lines.” 

Tanya Gulliver is a freelance writer, grad student, community development consultant and university instructor in Toronto, Ontario.

This article appears in our May-June 2009 Issue