Join Us on Sunday, March 1 for a Public Forum on The Tory Era and the Challenge of Inner Suburban Transit

Greetings!

With the election of the Tory mayoralty campaign, and the rather ominous vote for Ford in the inner suburban areas, a number of us thought it would be an opportune time for stock taking in the growing public transit movement in Toronto. The Free and Accessible Transit Campaign of the Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly and TTCriders are jointly organizing a public forum on these issues, inviting partners in the public transit movement and people generally interested in fighting for better, more affordable and accessible public transit.

We are inviting you and your organization to participate in this forum.

 

The Tory Era and the Challenge of Inner Suburban Transit

The election of Tory creates a slightly new situation for the public transit movement.

  • Early in the Tory Administration there are clearly some new positive moves, with plans to restore 2011 service cuts, improved service on bus certain routes and the Yonge subway line, promises of less overcrowding and free fares for kids under 13.
  • But this is in the context of increasing fares (costing $93 per year per rider and retaining the fare-box ratio of over 70%), dropping plans for two-hour transfers, long timelines for consideration of low income fares or passes; lack of clarity for the future of the LRT lines in the Northwest and Shepard, and the continuing woeful lack of service in important pockets of the inner suburbs, regardless of the important new positive plans.
  • There are already difficulties in getting funding (other than loans) from the province and it is unclear about the sources for increased city subsidies for the TTC.
  • At the same time, the huge amount of votes for Ford in the inner suburbs also tell us something about what people in those key areas might be thinking – we need to learn more about what that is, and how to build on what’s progressive, and challenge what’s not, particularly when it comes to public transit. In other words, we need to learn how to reach those people with our efforts to build an inclusive and effective public transit movement, address their concerns, all the while, challenging the right-wing populist and limited solutions of the Fords and Tories of the world.
  • This forum is a way for us to collectively engage move forward in this new context.
  • The proposed format is the following:
1) Framing Introductions – 40 minutes
  • Three speakers: one from the Free and Accessible Transit Campaign (Kamilla Petrick), who is also an activist with TTCriders; Marco Covi from TTCriders; and another from the inner suburbs (Milan Gokhale from STA has agreed) - 40 minutes
    • They will speak on the likely effects of the Tory election and the main things that need to be addressed for the public transit movement;
    • Brenda will talk about the needs, perspectives and meaning of the inner suburban support for Ford, regarding public transit;
2) General discussion (30 minutes)

BREAK – 10 minutes

3) Divide into smaller groups, divided according to mixing people from different movements and organizations (30 minutes)

  • Discuss the following questions: What are the principal tasks we have as public transit activists in understanding and addressing the needs of people in the inner suburban areas of the city? What might this mean for how we work together in the public transit movement in the next period?
4) Groups report back on their discussions and conclusions (20 minutes)

5) Chair will do a 2 minute synthesis of the reports back and lead a discussion on:

  • What does this mean for our current campaigns and plans?
  • What should our next steps as a transit movement be?
The forum will be held in Beit Zatoun, 612 Markham Street (just west of Boor and Bathurst);

Sunday, March 1, 1:00 – 3:30 PM

Please let us know if you can attend and bring some people, and if you have some other constructive ideas for the forum (speakers, etc)

Look forward to hearing from you,

Herman Rosenfeld, for the Free and Accessible Transit Campaign and TTCriders Campaigns Committee (416) 466-4915 and [email protected]

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