TTC Financial Planning expects 250 to 500 million every year from the provincial and federal governments - starting in 2005 to 2014 and beyond - to fund it's capital needs plus subways. :nuts: :hahaha: :laugh:

They fail to face reality so they don't have to make hard decisions. But they can't hide any longer from SOGRS.

Link: http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/legdocs/2005/agendas/committees/pof/pof050119/it008.pdf

TTC Financial Planning expects 250 to 500 million every year from the provincial and federal governments - starting in 2005 to 2014 and beyond - to fund it's capital needs plus subways. :nuts: :hahaha: :laugh:

They fail to face reality so they don't have to make hard decisions. But they can't hide any longer from SOGRS.
Well, I agree that having the feds help Toronto is well, OK, not likely to happen, :lol: :hahaha: :laugh:!
But, if we take the TTC to 905, the numbers begin to work in our favour! Do we have the guts to be so screwball European and take transit out to the burbs?

How the hell does the TTC NOT make money? They have millions of customers that use their services daily.. It is really hard to believe they need any money at all from the government to help fund their services. Are they really that badly managed? Or what am I missing here...??

^ The TTC badly managed? The TTC has one of the highest cost-recovery ratios in Canada and possible in North America. You can't expect any good transit system to make a profit, because it is impossible, unless the sytem is all rail, and the TTC is not all rail.

Subway construction and maintenance is 'blow your brains out' expensive.

How the hell does the TTC NOT make money? They have millions of customers that use their services daily.. It is really hard to believe they need any money at all from the government to help fund their services. Are they really that badly managed? Or what am I missing here...??

:crazy2: :crazy2: :crazy2:

lol

The TTC is not poorly managed. If they were, they'd be building LRT along hydro corridors into the 905s. A bandaid solution to attract a ridership that wouldn't even support a taxi fleet.

The TTC is very well managed, it's those long term Financial Planners at the TTC I worry about it. I wonder if what they're doing is even considered legal by the CASB (Canadian Accounting Standards Board

TTC wants more of gas tax
$122 million needed to replace old buses, plus other costs
Capital expenses expected to keep growing in coming years

PAUL MOLONEY
CITY HALL BUREAU

Members of the Toronto Transit Commission are urging federal and provincial governments to increase and speed up the flow of gas tax funds to keep the cash-strapped transit system rolling.

TTC staff have requested $444 million in 2005 for capital needs, including replacing worn-out rolling stock and track. But that means the city must borrow $295 million, and that's too much, says the city's treasurer.

Joe Pennachetti said the city's budget committee wants to limit borrowing for transit to $200 million in 2005 to preserve the city's AA credit rating and keep total net debt below $2 billion. At the end of 2004, net debt stood at $1.6 billion.

The commission's call for more gas tax help was supported by the Toronto Environmental Alliance, Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, Toronto and York Region Labour Council, and the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto.

The city expects to receive $91 million from Queen's Park and $33 million from Ottawa this year in gas tax revenues.

"The gas tax doesn't add up to enough money," said Gord Perks of the environmental alliance. "It's clear that at the root of this, despite all the announcements over the last year, provincial and federal governments continue to offer baby steps and Band-Aids."

Toronto is getting slightly more than half of the provincial gas tax that's being doled out to municipalities, said Ontario Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar.

And the payout to Toronto will grow to $163 million in 2007 from $91 million this year, Takhar said. "It's new money which is flexible, which is stable and they will be able to do long-term planning," he said.

A spokesperson for federal Infrastructure Minister John Godfrey said Godfrey remains committed to fighting for more money for cities. But at the moment, there is no change in the federal gas tax funding plans, to be detailed in the upcoming federal budget.

The biggest single item in the TTC's 2005 capital budget is $122 million to replace 242 buses that are worn out and can't be overhauled any more, the commission was told.

Buses due to be replaced include 52 1981 models, 43 1982 models, 127 buses built in 1985, and 20 buses acquired from Montreal and rebuilt.

Other items in the capital program include $44 million to replace track; $42 million in repairs to buildings and structures; $23 million for bridges and tunnels; $19 million to overhaul buses; $12 million to overhaul subway cars and $14 million to fix signals.

Capital budgets get even bigger in future years, with a looming expense of $571 million over the next five years to replace 232 subway cars.

According to the long-range plan for capital spending, the TTC will need $634 million in 2006; $711 million in 2007 and $608 million in 2008.

So putting off work now will only lead to a bigger financial problem later, said TTC chief general manager Rick Ducharme.

"Whenever anybody talks about deferring things, you can't defer things," Ducharme said. "You have to bite the bullet."

Councillor Howard Moscoe, the TTC's chair, said if the city is serious about limiting borrowing, council may have to hike property taxes higher than the 3 per cent already assumed in the proposed city budget to ensure the money is there for transit.

"Certainly, the City of Toronto will have a tax increase this year just to keep treading water, but we may have to crank that up a little."

Pennachetti said to reduce borrowing by $95 million would require a 9 per cent tax hike on top of the expected 3 per cent hike, or a total of 12 per cent. That works out to about $240 on the average home assessed at $330,700.

"I wouldn't recommend that," he said.

With the high priority council has given to public transit, Moscoe said he was confident a way will be found to properly fund the system in 2005.

"It's the annual budget dance that everyone sort of flits and bows and scrapes and dances around each other until they come to a solution," said the veteran transit commissioner.

"So I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over this."

TTC tail wags a dogged city, Soknacki says
But commissioners predict collapse of transit system if budget slashed

By JEFF GRAY
Tuesday, January 18, 2005 - Page A11


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The Toronto Transit Commission's capital budget has become to city hall what health care is to Queen's Park: a money-eating sacred cow that is plunging Toronto into the red and crowding out other priorities, officials and politicians warn.

Yesterday, TTC commissioners refused a city request to trim their $444-million 2005 capital budget -- which pays for things such as new vehicles and track repairs -- saying any cuts would cripple the service, increase waiting times and lose riders.

But city council budget chief David Soknacki said he believes there are spending cuts that have to be made, blaming the TTC for already causing the doubling of the city's debt -- now at $1.3-billion -- since amalgamation.

"The TTC tail is now wagging the entire City of Toronto," Mr. Soknacki said, adding that "astronomical" increases in the TTC's projected capital budget in the next few years could make it almost impossible for the city to borrow to build anything else, even threatening the city's credit rating and making future borrowing more expensive.

The transit agency's "capital requirements are such that it is squeezing out not just one recreation centre, but has the potential of squeezing out all recreation centres; not one library but all libraries," Mr. Soknacki said.

In 2005, the TTC's capital budget, which is now partly funded by the province and the federal government after years of neglect, would require the city to borrow $296-million. The city's budget advisory committee has asked the TTC to trim this to at least $200-million, perhaps deferring some projects.

After 2006, amounts the city is expected to cover begin to decrease, as provincial and expected federal contributions (including the city's share of gas taxes) increase. But over five years, if no other funding is found, the plans would see the city's debt load double to $2.6-billion, just to fund the TTC.

City treasurer Joe Pennachetti said this is unsustainable: "That is not possible. If that happens, I can virtually assure a credit-rating impact."

But the TTC insists its capital budget is non-negotiable, and that it is already cut to the bone, and includes new buses that will replace 24-year-old ones now on the road.

"I keep telling them, you show me something that's not needed," TTC chief general manager Rick Ducharme said, adding that he has been warning city, provincial and federal officials -- who have gone over his budgets already, he said -- that this capital budget crunch was coming. "If that's the number they want to support, then the TTC's in big trouble," he said.

TTC chairman Howard Moscoe warned that the proposed cut would doom the TTC: "The fact of the matter is the TTC would be crippled by cuts of that magnitude. We believe that the city, which has made transit its priority, should not be talking out of both sides of its mouth."

He also took issue with the city's numbers, which only allocate half of the expected federal gas tax to transit over the next five years.

TTC commissioner David Shiner, a former city budget chief, said that if the $91-million in provincial gas-tax money the city is getting this year were applied to the capital budget, then both sides would be happy. But instead, the city is "misappropriating" that money, and using it to offset what would otherwise be a decrease in the TTC's operating subsidy from the city, which is more than $200-million.

Gord Perks of the Toronto Environmental Alliance said the provincial and federal governments should cover one-third each of the TTC's capital budget, so the city isn't forced to make impossible choices.

I think the above is from the Globe and Mail.

Jan. 19, 2005. 01:00 AM
Editorial: A telling TTC tussle


A budget tug-of-war pitting City Hall against the Toronto Transit Commission underlines this city's urgent need for a "new deal" from Ottawa and Queen's Park.

Local politicians have been drawn into a no-win situation. TTC commissioners refuse to trim their $444 million capital budget for the coming fiscal year. They argue this money is needed for basic track repair, fixing signals, maintaining tunnels and bridges, and replacing worn-out buses, some of them 20 years old.

Delaying such work, they argue, worsens the system's deterioration and adds to repair costs.

But City Hall officials say the TTC's planned spending would overload Toronto's borrowing power and threaten the city's credit rating. To keep the municipal debt below $2 billion, they want the transit commission to cut $95 million.

Raising Toronto taxes could save the TTC's capital program, but only by saddling ratepayers with a 9 per cent tax hike. That would be on top of the planned 3 per cent increase, for a crushing tax jump of 12 per cent.

In keeping with a promised "new deal," federal and provincial officials are sharing money from their taxes on gasoline. But the impossible choice facing Toronto and its transit lifeline is an urgent reminder that upper governments are falling far short of providing the required help.

Delivery of gasoline tax money must be speeded up. Currently, it will take almost five years for the federal government to fully pay its promised share. Beyond that, Ottawa and Queen's Park should each pay one-third of the TTC's capital budget, as they have in the past.

Toronto's budget woes, and the transit system, can be fixed. But it will take fairer funding than is now on offer.

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Well I got a newsletter from my MP in the mail recently and there wasn't one single word about Toronto in it. It was all about federal plans that the MP was involved with.

If a Toronto MP doesn't even mention their own city in a newsletter - who else is looking after this city??!