More than 20 community groups and 600 residents sent a public letter to Premier Wynne and Minister of Climate Change and the Environment, Glen Murray, today calling for a side-by-side comparison of the controversial Scarborough subway to the Light Rail Transit (LRT) network, a comparison the City of Toronto has refused to do.
What did we get in the 2017 federal budget? A kick in the teeth, and some bold promises.
No more metropass tax credit
First the kick in the teeth. This budget scraps the public-transit tax credit that allows riders to claim a 15 per cent tax credit on their transit passes. This move will force the TTC’s most loyal riders to pay up to $263.25 more each year.On January 30, 2017, TTCriders organized a successful Day of Action across the City of Toronto. Volunteers converged at key intersections to mobilize riders and educate them on over-crowded routes, the recent fare hike, and the low per-rider municipal subsidy.
With support from the Maytree Foundation, TTCriders and friends organized a day long transit summit on January 21, 2017. We organized this summit because we felt it was time to step back and encourage leadership development, skill-building and strategizing between members of Toronto's transit justice movement.
As Premier Wynne announced she would increase gas tax revenue to improve public transit, Mayor Tory’s cost-cutting measures are forcing the TTC to cut service and hike fares.
Transit advocacy group, TTCriders, is organizing a day of action on MondayLast months the TTC started quietly removing the schedules printed on the TTC stops across the city. This was done to save the TTC $400,000 a year.
It feels like this should have been an example we shared in our mock #soefficientithurts campaign, but reality trumped our mock ideas.
We now have ward-by-ward maps so you know exactly how the service cuts are affecting your neighbourhood. Thank you Taylor Blake for your hard work making these awesome maps.
The TTC is being forced to cut service and break overcrowding standards because all levels of government are failing to invest in transit.
Thank you so much for coming to our transit summit. It is so important that we get to know each other and make friends, improve our organizing skills, and assess and improve our goals and plans to win real change for transit riders.
Thanks to Mayor Tory’s 2.6% budget cut and chronic under funding of the TTC, there is a $2.5 billion shortfall in the 2017 – 2026 TTC capital budget. New buses, wheel trans buses and bus stop improvements for accessibility are not funded in this year’s budget. Neither are two hour transfers.
For the past two weeks, STA has been canvassing in communities near Lawrence East and Ellesmere stations, two stations which will effectively shut down under Council’s current plan for a one-stop Scarborough subway extension (SSE), but would have remained with a 7-stop LRT. (For those who are not aware: There are three stations between Kennedy and STC on the RT line, and all three – Lawrence East, Ellesmere, and Midland – will be eliminated under the plan for the SSE.) We have been informing residents of Council’s plan, and were surprised to discover something:
John Tory's transit budgets are methodically and systematically destroying the TTC through less frequent, slower and overcrowded service.
For the 2017 budget, John Tory is now talking about a minor increase in funding to avoid service reductions. The reality is that service already has been reduced due to TTC budget shortfalls. In addition to this, today's service does not even meet the TTC's own standards, due to overcrowded routes.