July 19, 2007
The Country Takes Aim
In a truly spectacular exhibit of vitriol, readers of The Globe and Mail have weighed-in on an article concerning beleaguered TTC chairperson Adam Giambrone’s recent announcement about the impending cuts to city transit. (The emergency meeting of the commission is set for Friday, and possible means of accommodating the new budget restrictions include a 25-cent fare hike, and the closing of the Sheppard subway line.)
Two scant hours after the article appeared online, the comments thread below stood at a staggering 120 responses, many of which seemed intent on airing frustrations with the phenomenon of Toronto-centrism, grievances with municipal politicians and their perceived mismanagement of city resources, outright rage concerning the wages of City employees, taxation divides, services available (and unavailable) to city-folk, unions, socialist "agendas," and real estate prices; along with some very unkind words about mayor Miller.
The greater portion of criticism seemed to be leveled towards their chosen targets from outside the city's limits, and goes to show how cheerfully wicked the rest of the nation seems to get whenever Toronto hits a pot hole, or in this case, lacks the funds to fill the pot-hole in order that we may drive over it.
Whether or not City Council has been mismanaging its resources, suffers from short-sightedness, or is being short-changed by provincial and federal powers-that-be is beside the point. All the casual red-herrings and unbridled spite directed at our shores are unfair, frankly ludicrous, and we suspect that many of those folks at large in the rest of the nation aren't getting enough happy in their diet. Except the fellow who suggested that Toronto simply mug Pickering to solve our budget woes. Buddy, you're ace.
Photo by stillsinflux from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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Having actually gone through most of the comments, I'd say about half are probably from people in the toronto area. If a story such as this is generating so much vitriol so quickly from those both inside and outside the city, I'd say it's a sign that Team David has seriously miscalculated the impression they think they are making on people. I would acknowledge that Toronto is in a budgetary mess not entirely of its own making. But up til today, this Council has not even made a pretence of belt-tightening. The land transfer tax it tried to foist on buyers had to be one of the most patently unfair new taxes I have seen in a while. The comments aren't just the sound of toronto-bashing. It's the sound of torontonians becoming fed up with these charlatans.
It's a fair point that about half the comments are from the GTA, guest, but for a Toronto issue, I still think that the loin's share of reactions posted by the other half often went just a little over the top... just a little; and often off topic.
This is really par for the course as far as G&M website discussions are concerned: unreasonable, inflexible partisanship from anonymous cowards; or simple mud-slinging and name-calling.
I stopped "joining the discussion" a long time ago, and I'm sure my blood pressure has dropped a healthy amount.
The ROC - Rest of Canada - has plenty of happy in its diet. That happy is paid for by Torontonians though, that's the problem.
Still one of the better debates I've seen online in a while...it's like a deadly streetcar crash and I can't stop watching!
Yeah, there's some vitriol, but that's the beauty of it. Won't find that level of debate on too many other sites (BlogTO, I'm looking at you!), and frankly, you can tell that ordinary citizens are getting fed up.
The GTA is a mess. We really do need to pay less attention to hawking subway stop buttons (sorry hipsters) and start thinking of radical ways to make transit a priority.
Actually, not thinking of, but implementing. That means tolls, private competition for the TTC and also building new connecting roads -- screw Jane Jacobs.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't "whether or not City Council has been mismanaging its resources, suffers from short-sightedness, or is being short-changed by provincial and federal powers-that-be" exactly the point?
If it's the former, shouldn't fiscal mismanagement and myopia be fixed before more funds are thrown at the city?
If it's the latter, shouldn't we be pressuring all levels of government to work together to repair inter-governmental policies? The Atlantic provinces seem to be doing a great job of working over the feds so they can have their cake and eat it too - perhaps there's a lesson in that for Toronto and the entire GTA.
Finally, if it's both - how are additional taxes a solution? The City will continue along a faulty path and the province and the feds will continue to pursue policies that are detrimental to the region.
The Globe and Mail forums are like the IMDb message boards and Toronto Star editorials: nothing good can come from reading them, unless you're really in the mood to take the pulse of idiots with typing skills (which can indeed be a fun and/or useful thing to do from time to time).
I have a friend who used to be an all-night security guy at Robarts, and he would pass the time by trolling the G&M site.
I agree completely with #6. Since the vote to increase taxes was defeated/deferred, the mayor has been talking about prioritizing and deciding which services may need to be reduced or cut. Isn`t that the job of the mayor to begin with?
I concur with the opinions of Canada about David Miller's lack of leadership.
David Miller does not have one ally or friend at the senior levels of government, which is one reason to proceed cautiously.
He also needed to sell his tax plan to the taxpayers of Toronto and make significant cuts in the city departments and the councillor salaries before proceeding(which he did not do) He also hired excessive numbers of employees, like the 250 public health employees last year when he knew he had a funding problem.At the same time he allowed TTC employees to neglect their most basic employment duties.
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I live in High Park, near Bloor and Keele and was born in Toronto and have lived all my life in Toronto. Toronto enough for you??
I have purchased a Metropass every month for 15 years and travel 5 days a week from Bloor and Keele to Sheppard and Vik Park using 3 subway systems and 1 one bus line. I also use the subway on weekends.
In 1995 1/2 the surface routes were cut and all the fulltime employees kept on payroll. Since then we have paid more for less.
Working for the TTC must be very pleasant, but it's not as pleasant for the TTC customer.
Service actually improved this year, but for the past 10 years the TTC has been run by 1950's managers and staffed by neanderthals(the union chief's hero is jimmy hoffa)
Until this year, TTC employees refused to check for Metropasses during rush hour, refused to announce subway stations, refused to keep even new escalators or elevators in good repair and refused to clean toilets so as to prevent another SARS epidemic.
Mug Pickering?
Is that because Mississauga would kick Toronto's ass?
I wonder if Giambrone was being appropriate in announcing service cuts before the Commissioners had met in emergency session to discuss the request from the City Manager for cuts. Surely it should have been received, staff questioned and a strategy put forward before Giambrone talked to the press?
Mayuus: I was racking my brain this morning trying to think of the last time I had heard the TTC make personnel cuts along with service cuts. It's so odd that with other organizations, people are the first to go since labour is always by far the highest expense, but the TTC just clings onto them.
Miller refuses to make any staff cuts - the 100 million in savings he says he can get are operational costs from closing services (like maintenace power etc) - the union labor just sits on their ass and continues to collect a paycheck.
But he has lots of money for each councillor to have 5 assistants, a $53,000 expense account for each councillor, city paid transportation and lunches, a 9 percent pay hike this year alone, and plenty of money for pals of his in backroom pork deals.
As always, a ruling political group paying for the mistakes of the previous group in power. Why is the city a mess? Two words. MEL LASTMAN. Actually more like one word. AMALGAMATION. To few Toronto "residents" paying for the 905ers. Urban sprawl rears its ugly head.