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30 Comments January 5, 2012 at 3:15 pm

cityscape

Fighting for the TTC: Meet CodeRedTO

CodeBlueTO fought for a measured, evidence-based approach to developing our waterfront—and won. Can CodeRedTO do the same for transit planning?

By Hamutal Dotan

The newly launched CodeRedTO website.

For all of their concerns about Rob Ford and his approach to governance, many on the progressive side of Toronto do credit the mayor with one thing: he’s sparked a wave of activism and community engagement this city hasn’t seen in years. Helping to lead the charge against some of Ford’s more headline-grabbing plans last year was CodeBlueTO, a group of citizens who became very concerned when Ford brother Doug started musing about scrapping existing plans for waterfront revitalization in favour of Ferris wheels and monorails. Building on a network of concerned residents that had developed over the past decade or more, as those original plans were developed, CodeBlueTO launched a website, hashtag, petition, and public information campaign that helped turn the tide against the Ford brothers and let to a unanimous vote by city council to endorse the existing planning framework.

Looming larger even than the waterfront for many is Ford’s revisionist approach to transit planning—most notably, his cancellation of the long-planned Transit City network of light rail lines in favour of a completely buried Eglinton LRT, and a fervent wish to build a subway line on Sheppard.

Hoping to turn the tide on this front as well, and advocating for “a rational, affordable, and achievable rapid transit strategy” is a successor group of sorts to CodeBlueTO named (of course) CodeRedTO.

The group is very new, and their first order of business is to hone in on a mission statement—and they are hoping to do it with a bit of help from you. Between now and Monday, they are asking for feedback on four draft mission statements from Torontonians who care about transit planning; you can view the drafts (they are all very short) and submit your comments here. Organizers will mull over that feedback and finalize their mission statement next week. They’ll follow that up with calls to action: plans include reaching out to city councillors, canvassing in transit corridors, and making buttons—the bread and butter campaign work that helped CodeBlue generate a broader public debate on the issues involved.

Transit planner (and Torontoist contributor) Laurence Lui is one of CodeRed’s organizers. I asked him today about CodeRed’s aspirations—and whether, specifically, the goal was to bring back Transit City. He replied that their hope was “to achieve some sort of Council consensus that would return some sanity to the City’s rapid transit plan. By extension, it may mean returning to aspects of Transit City, especially since all the [environmental assessments] and planning are already completed and approved. That doesn’t mean that those plans can’t be tweaked to address concerns.”

This isn’t the first time there’s been a campaign to save some version of the light rail transit plans Ford inherited and then quickly jettisoned—efforts which have thus far haven’t gained anything like the momentum that would be needed to pressure Ford into reversing course. But with recent disclosures that the penalties for cancelling Transit City are now pegged at $65 million, and that private sector can only be expected to cover between 10 to 30 per cent of a Sheppard subway, there’s an opening for CodeRed to build momentum around Transit City’s less splashy approach—one which has light rail instead of subways, but which would provide service to more residents at a lower cost. Now it’s up to those residents to take that message to City Hall.

Comments

Anonymous

What does it mean for transit planning to be “affordable” in an environment where $10 billion is committed to Toronto transit expansion (including two of the 10 most expensive infrastructure projects in Canada)?
- http://twitter.com/c_9 Cameron
  
  It can mean a lot of things. If we take it as given that Toronto requires transit expansion (and it is a fact), then we need the best bang for the buck. Under Ford’s ideas which have no council approval, Finch gets nothing, Sheppard east waits for the private funding fairy which we know doesn’t exist, and we blow over $8B on Eglinton. Under alternate plans we can spend the same money (less, actually) on three LRT lines and get better transit for more of the city, sooner.
  
  Affordable means using resources we have (or will have in future, on reasonable amounts of debt) and using them in intelligent ways. Transit expansion is happening all across the country, and yes Toronto’s expansion ideas are big – so is Toronto. I hope that governments and voters recognize legitimate needs in every region!
  - Anonymous
    
    Look, I have two problems with that.
    
    First, “affordable” is really just a code word for Transit City. So why don’t they just come out and say, “we want Transit City”?
    
    Second, take a look at the current environment. Bafflingly vast amounts of money are being spent on questionable transit projects. Meanwhile, the “affordable” Transit City project died amidst mass public apathy. So if you’re looking at this and saying, “What we need is more *affordability*”, you are absolutely solving the wrong problem.
    
    Instead, we should be learning the lesson that money is almost no object if the people and politicians are excited about a project. Do people get excited about things that are “affordable”?
    - Anonymous
      
      The thing is, Transit City was in place, funded, and started when Ford showed up and pulled the rug out from under it (he actually voted for it when he was a mere councillor). But it’s not too late to bring it back in some form; all the planning has been done, and all parties understand clearly what it will do, and how much it will cost.
      
      Transit City may be imperfect, but, unlike burying light rail in a tunnel, it is not certifiably insane.
    - http://twitter.com/c_9 Cameron
      
      Actually no, I don’t mean it as Transit City. I think Transit City had flaws. Ford’s ideas have more flaws. Let’s take the best items from both!
      
      The project wasn’t “questionable” to anyone who has bothered to learn about traffic patterns, congestion, population growth, etc. It was very poorly explained and sold, and the apathy didn’t kill it, it’s the lies to people who were not apathetic and voted for the liars. Typical politics, sadly.
      
      You’re right that just picking affordable is the wrong solution. So how about we pick the elements that make sense and are needed?
      
      I don’t believe we should waste money – unlike Ford, I would not have given the TPS a huge raise, or wasted a ton on Jarvis reversal or TC cancellation fees. So getting excited about subways, while fun for some, isn’t going to work for me or others – subways cost over double and take longer to build too. We need better transit sooner.
      - Anonymous
        
        IMO The biggest problem with Transit City that not enough people really understood what it was. Miller and his crew did a horrible job at publicizing the information and showcasing why they were doing it, and the research to back it up. I only really heard/understood what Transit City was when it was being threatened to be put down.
        
        Hopefully those rallying for it’s resurrection can learn from this and make sure to do a better job at informing people about it’s necessity and impact as a whole(so far it seems they are?).
      - Anonymous
        
        Not enough downtowners understood it. The suburbs were plastered with info regarding Transit City in Miller’s final days.
      - Anonymous
        
        Of course, nobody is in favor of wasting money. Nor is anyone in favor of unaffordable transit. I’m uncomfortable that these poorly defined weasel words are being used to frame the debate.
        
        And I strongly disagree that subways should be out of the transit planning picture. Of course, you would probably call that wasteful and unaffordable.
      - Anonymous
        
        He wouldn’t be alone in calling subways IN LOW DENSITY AREAS wasteful and unaffordable.
        
        http://johnmcgrath.ca/2011/12/30/density-and-subways-revisited/
        
        You’re welcome to your own opinions, but don’t make up facts.
      - Anonymous
        
        I followed the link. So Toronto can’t support new subways because *average* density is low? That’s like saying it’s impossible to freeze to death in Toronto because the average temperature is around 9 degrees.
      - Anonymous
        
        North east Scaborough is one of the lowest density areas in the city.
        
        Hence why it’s the last place that requires a subway.
      - Serge
        
        I think that’s right. “Affordable” can’t mean Transit City, because it has to mean a measured, evidence-based approach to transit planning. Transit City wasn’t that — it was a transparently political plan whose goal was to run lines to all of the city’s wards and to kill the Sheppard line dead. So it mixed good elements (the Eglinton line), silly elements (Sheppard and Finch LRTs to connect with the stubway, when rapid bus transit would have worked fine), and baffling elements (a Jane LRT adjacent to the subway running up the Allen, that is just in the process of being expanded? really?).
      - Anonymous
        
        The bus ridership on Finch is well beyond what a bus can comfortably handle. It would be a great LRT line. Don Mills too.
      - Serge
        
        The bus ridership on Finch is shuttling to the Yonge-Finch subway. When the Spadina extension, which is underway, is complete, then traffic patterns will change. Even if it did not, Bus Rapid Transit can certainly handle the bus ridership on Finch. BRT is not the same as ordinary buses.
      - Anonymous
        
        BRT requires a huge capital investment, it’s not that much cheaper than LRT.
        
        Ottawa has perhaps the highest capacity BRT system on the continent, yet they’ve hit a ceiling and are now building LRT to meet demand.
      - calvinhc
        
        As an LRT advocate, I will say that the capital expenditure of BRT is not as close to LRT as lukev suggests. However, it’s operating cost will be greater, and this cost recurs every year.
        
        Furthermore, while the Feds and Province occasionally come up with funding for capital projects, they NEVER come up with funding for the operational costs. If the demand for LRT is justifiable (as it is on Finch), why save on the costs you can get help with when you will have to pay more to operate it without any help?
      - Anonymous
        
        I’m with you to the extent that you argue for rational, evidence-based decisionmaking. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen, Team Ford has very little regard for rationality or evidence.
      - Anonymous
        
        Serge, here’s some REAL info on LRT, so that you will know what it’s really all about: The Toronto LRT Information Page
http://www.facebook.com/cassandra.damiris Cassandra Damiris

Transit City is a great idea, except for the fact that it doesn’t have any plans for the dense parts of downtown that have no transit at all (with the exception of streetcars that are so slow they’re practically useless).
- therandomdialer888
  
  That really wasn’t the point of the suburban-focused Transit City. Transit improvement to the existing streetcar lines is coming in the form of new, higher capacity rolling stock (needing fewer cars, less bunching) and better fare integration (reduction in loading time).
  
  If you want more improvement, this CodeRedTO group should look at limiting the hours cars are allowed in the streetcar lane (like on King), removing left turns (with offstreet roundabouts to allow cars to do a right turn/U turn), more traffic light control, and elimination of ALL on-street parking on street car routes.
  - http://www.facebook.com/pedro.marques Pedro Marques
    
    Exactly. Some streetcar routes could become rapid corridors with indirect investments:
    
    - Eliminate street parking by building side street parkades or giving incentives to new condos to build *public* parking into their developments.
    
    - cab controlled green signals
    
    - no left turns on these routes
    
    Another solution would be to make Queen St + Richmond St. a streetcar loop route. One exclusive streetcar lane in one direction on Queen and in the other direction on Richmond from Don Valley to Bathurst. This would overcome most of the streetcar clogging traffic gridlock downtown and create a dependable transit route. Bathurst then has enough width for a full two way exclusive streetcar lane connecting Queen to the subway network. Spadina, University and Yonge provide other connections.
    
    These solutions would cost much less than building a downtown subway. We need one eventually, but we need transit improvement immediately.
    - Anonymous
      
      “Bathurst then has enough width for a full two way exclusive streetcar lane connecting Queen to the subway network.”
      Actually the space is only there south of Queen, as Bathurst is four lanes north of Queen and six lanes south of Queen to Front. The practicality of building such a short right-of way is questionable but I can see why that would be an attractive option.
    - Anonymous
      
      “… or giving incentives to new condos to build *public* parking into their developments.”
      
      This is something I’ve wondered about a lot – why doesn’t (or why can’t) the city mandate that new buildings include a certain ratio of public parking spaces in their parking lots?
- http://twitter.com/c_9 Cameron
  
  I agree. But the whole point was to bring benefits to the millions that live outside the core. They think (incorrectly) that services are better and more money is spent downtown, and they think (correctly) that they have crappier transit options and fewer options. Step 1: fix it. Step 2: work on downtown. (Since we have to pick, sadly)
  - Serge
    
    Sure, but Transit City was an extremely cost-ineffective way to do that — on most of the planned liens the benefits (accelerating commutes by several minutes) far exceeded the costs. A more cost-effective way to bring benefits to the millions that live outside the core is to build on the existing GO system. That could happen in three steps: (1) harmonize fares, by adopting a flat fare-by-distance pricing plan regardless of mode of transit throughout the GTA; (2) LRT-ize the GO trains, running trams along their rights-of-way every 5-10 minutes, all day, both ways; (3) slightly relocate those GO stations that are near subway stations, so that they are actually colocated, making transfers easy.
    
    None of those three steps is particularly simple, but neither is building entirely new transit lines. The Eglinton line is badly needed, although we can quibble about how it’s constructed — running it underground in the suburbs is idiotic. Beyond that, though, LRT-izing the GO system through the above three steps would by far yield the most bang for the buck. The idea that you build an entirely separate and parallel right of way in order to avoid a bunfight between two agencies is idiotic. If we’re to move towards evidence-based transit planning, then let’s do it, please. The GO map is the obvious starting point.
- Anonymous
  
  I’m willing to wait for some downtown relief, it’s horrible/annoying/aggravating agreed, but I at least appreciate that there is some amount of service. I work in Don Mills and by car takes about 20 mins to get home downtown, by transit over an hour(on a good day). Downtown you can at least walk(when it’s nice) or bike(most of the time), but those aren’t practical alternatives in the city suburbs.
- Eric S. Smith
  
  (with the exception of streetcars that are so slow they’re practically useless).
  
  And yet they’re crowded with riders during peak periods. Supposedly bad transit that you can use in your neighbourhood is better than supposedly better transit at the other end of the city, a fact that arch-Fordians ignore when claiming that only subways are good for anything.
  - Anonymous
    
    Original poster’s point was that Transit City did nothing to solve the transit system’s most serious transit problems, which are downtown. In fact it would have made them worse, as it would have dumped even more people on the overcrowded Yonge subway. Plus, popularity does not imply quality or efficiency (e.g., Microsoft products).
    
    Edit to add: The terrible streetcar system is exactly why the air keeps going out of the Transit City balloon — you have to keep explaining to people, “It’s not a streetcar!” On the other hand, if Toronto had Zurich’s tram system (a guy can dream), everybody would be like “What’s a subway?”
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JGQXHEDCH7MEYNDZTGDY6FVLW4 Travel

Transit City is a great idea…

Manali Tour
http://www.toronto-townhouses.ca/ Camilla Goodwin

Ohhh men. This sucks! I hate this.

Torontoist

cityscape

Fighting for the TTC: Meet CodeRedTO

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