Bow. James Bow.

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Over on Spacing Toronto, columnists John Lorinc and Steve Munro have collaborated on a debate on whether or not the Toronto Transit Commission should be taken over by the provincial transit agency Metrolinx. It’s an interesting read, and you should check it out. The idea is not as far fetched as you might think.

Metrolinx, the provincial agency set up by Dalton McGuinty’s government to invest in public transportation in the Greater Toronto Area, has already made moves onto the TTC’s jurisdiction, with the support of both the TTC and the City of Toronto. Several of the transit announcements that surrounded Metrolinx’s foundation incorporated projects that had been proposed by the transit commission and Toronto’s city council, including Transit City’s network of six LRT lines stretching across the northern half of the City of Toronto. Funding for the Eglinton, Sheppard East and Finch West LRTs have been secured, and Metrolinx appears to have bowed to the TTC’s recommendation that the Eglinton Crosstown line be built as an LRT (with a lengthy underground section in the middle) rather than a more expensive extension of the Scarborough RT).

But Metrolinx’s contributions came with strings attached. Once the Sheppard East, Finch West and Eglinton LRTs are built, they’ll be owned by Metrolinx and not the TTC, even though these will be operated as part of the TTC, accepting TTC fares and transfers to and from connecting TTC routes. This is a sharp departure from how transit infrastructure was built before. Even when the provincial government covered 75% of the cost of subway construction, ownership of the new infrastructure remained with the TTC. These days, it seems to be felt that with the province absolving Torontonians of their share of the infrastructure construction, said infrastructure should be counted against the province’s assets rather than that of the municipality. The fact that this new infrastructure will operate alongside and even connect with TTC-owned infrastructure is a complication that will be addressed another day.

There have been calls for a full provincial takeover of the Toronto Transit Commission before. I recall such suggestions taking place as early as 1994 when Metropolitan Toronto backed away from new subway construction offered by the Bob Rae government. Whatever the benefits provincial ownership of the TTC may offer, the suggestion that Torontonians might have to give up control over their local transit system, to serve regional interests, has not been popular.

Well, at least until now. As Toronto’s structural problems become more clear, as the financial reserves drain out and the city contemplates a $200 million shortfall in the operation of the underserviced TTC, the suggestions have come from several quarters that the province needs to step forward to share the cost of operating Toronto’s transit service. Toronto mayor David Miller and his council are currently in negotiations with McGuinty’s government about some sort of funding arrangement that could come into play by the end of this year. But some proposals have gone further. Recently, mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi voiced what some have suggested: that perhaps the province should take the TTC off of Toronto’s hands altogether. By assuming full cost, they will effectively close the structural funding gap that plagues the city. And assuming full cost might not be possible without assuming full control.

In making the case for uploading the TTC to the province, Mr. Lorinc makes a strong case for a Greater Toronto Transit Authority serving residents in the 416 and 905 region. Already, tens of thousands of commuters each day travel to and from jobs and other destinations located on both sides of the 416/905 divide. The Greater Toronto Area has a balkanized network of transit agencies each concentrating on their own little patch of land, and attempts to coordinate services to make travel more seamless has been slow in coming. Mississauga Transit buses pass TTC stops on their way to the subway, leaving Torontonians on the hook for the cost of operating poorer service on the same roads. The boundaries between the GTA’s transit authorities make less and less sense each day. Maybe it’s time to eliminate them. And if so, maybe it makes sense for the provincial agency, Metrolinx, to assume control.

However, as I noted in the comments posted after this debate, has Mr. Lorinc given much thought as to what a resident in the 519 region might think of this? Or how about 613? Or 705?

One thing the debates surrounding Toronto’s upcoming election show is that the challenges facing the next council are big — bigger, perhaps, than the council is designed to handle. As all sorts of issues, from transit to garbage collection to economic development, now spill outside of Toronto’s boundaries, the need for a regional manager becomes ever more clear. Just one problem: the provincial government seems unwilling to give us just that.

In 1954, when the province of Ontario created the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, they created an agency that would assure the competent management of Toronto’s regional issues without sacrificing local concerns. The two-tier system worked by allowing the local councils to remain to deal with local issues, while at the same time providing a forum for discussion of regional concerns to take place. But this only worked because of one key criteria: in 1954, the boundaries of Metropolitan Toronto encompassed most of the urban region that was Toronto. By the late 1980s, that percentage had dwindled to near 50%.

Today, the province refuses to create a regional manager for the GTA, instead opting for piecemeal special purpose bodies like Metrolinx to tackle the matter on an issue-by-issue basis. They’ve been leery of regional governance for the GTA since the 1970s when Bill Davis refused a recommendation by former premier John Robarts to expand Metro’s boundaries to encompass Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham and Pickering.

And why would they cut their own throat? A regional government for the GTA would encompass almost half of the province’s population, and an even higher percentage of Ontario’s taxes. It would certainly threaten the dominance of Queen’s Park, creating an elected official that theoretically spoke for half of Ontario.

But the issues of the region of Toronto aren’t going away, and they have to be managed lest the economy of the whole of Ontario is affected. This is probably why Dalton McGuinty has taken the steps he has done to effectively act as the regional manager for the Greater Toronto Area. This is probably why the prospect of a Metrolinx takeover of the TTC is on the table.

Unfortunately, this is likely to fuel greater resentment from the other regions of the province, particularly the north and the rural east, who feel that Queen’s Park is paying less and less attention to their issues and more attention to Toronto’s problems. Already, you’re starting to see the polarization of the province along these lines, and the risk exists that should the government of Ontario shift, the regional manager that Queen’s Park represents (such as it is) may disappear entirely.

It seems unlikely, still, that the province will create a true regional government for the Greater Toronto Area. It’s even more unlikely (by a factor of ten) that the alternate solution of breaking the 416 and 905 area codes into a province in their own right is going to happen. So, what’s to be done? What is to be done?

We spent the bulk of this weekend cleaning, or getting out to enjoy what I'd like to call early spring weather, but I won't so as not to jinx it. Today, we had our third Sunday of our new family tradition of making pizzas in our oven (with Wayne and Marguerite's pizza stone using Erin's from-scratch pizza dough), and then heading out to the Waterloo Recreational Complex for an evening family swim. The kids are really into both things, and coming home, it is so much easier getting them off to bed.

Still working on Icarus Down and other writing-related projects, so in the interim, here are more pictures of our cute kids.

	Vivian raises her fist high...
	Ker-Pow!!
	Nora rolls her own dough. Also, note her new hairstyle!
	Peering at Mommy's hands.

And Jesus wept.

Over at the blog What Would Jack Do, Oregon blogger Jack Cluth highlights one of the many reasons he is so glad to find himself in Portland these days, rather than Houston.

An evangelical Christian hate group called "Repent Amarillo" is reportedly terrorizing the town of Amarillo, Texas. Repent fashions itself as a sort of militia and targets a wide range of community members they deem offensive to their theology: gays, liberal Christians, Muslims, environmentalists, breast cancer events that do not highlight abortion, Halloween, "spring break events," and pornography shops. On its website, Repent has posted a "Warfare Map" of its enemies in town.... According to a new exposé by the Texas Observer, Repent set out earlier this year to destroy a discreet club of swingers they discovered in town. On New Years eve, the harassment began, with Repent members, almost exclusively young men, showing up in military fatigues and bullhorns, blaring Christian music at the swingers' club building. The swingers, made up of "regulars" of middle aged, working class couples, were then stalked at every following visit to the club. Repent not only took video of each member, but obtained the swingers' license plates and dug through their trash, informing neighbors and coworkers of what was once private.

Now, I personally don't hold with swinging, and if a swingers' club were to set up shop across the street from me, I would be very interested in protecting my property rights. However, if the swinger's club is a quiet place, with no real outward indication that it is a swingers' club, where the attendees don't end up parking on my lawn, or make me worry about my children, I don't particularly care what goes on inside. There is a difference between complaining about a nuisance, and peering into a neighbour's windows and being offended by what you find inside. And the folks at Repent Amarillo cross that line pretty early on.

Going through people's trash? Confronting people at their place at work? If these people were jilted lovers dealing with their ex-girlfriends, the restraining order would have been issued a long time ago. Worse, these brownshirts aren't limiting their activities to just the swinger's club. Their mission explicitly states that they'll take their military-fatigue-wearing brand of intimidation to gay pride events, Earth Day celebrations, Planned Parenthood events, and even events raising awareness about breast cancer, if those events fail to promote a connection between breast cancer and abortion (a link that has been pretty thoroughly scientifically disproven). Further targets include "Idolatry locations such as palm readers, false religions, and witchcraft."

You know, it's no accident that these guys are wearing military fatigues, blaring their intimidation through bullhorns, and using terms such as "may involve more aggressive use of soldiers and prayer warriors." Even your average evangelicals wouldn't touch these tactics with a ten foot pole (it would be rather hard for Jehovah Witnesses to get converts by this means, but clearly conversion isn't the goal here). As unChristian as these so-called Christians are, it is unfortunately true that our religions have sects within them that twist the religion's message of love into hate, and spin that hate into the threat of violence, and even its act. it's clear to me that, in the long term, the United States has as much to fear from terrorist attacks by Christian-extremist-based domestic groups as they do from foreign-based Islamic-extremist groups. Indeed, some would argue this has already happened, what with Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City and, more recently, the looney who flew his plane into a building containing offices of the IRS, although some Republicans are reluctant to make the connection.

Once again, as a Christian, I am shamed by those individuals who claim to follow my faith but in reality follow a darker version that has been twisted into the opposite of the truth. And for this reason, I had to bring this story to the attention of Dr. Dawg. I think it's important that more real Christians speak out against this small town terrorism. It's time for real people of faith to tell these idiots that what they're doing is not okay.

(Update: 4:33 p.m.): I should note that there is some opposition by decent people in Amarillo. A group called Angel Action is standing up to the group's actions, and there is a Facebook group you can join.

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Remember the glory days, five years ago, when the new season of Doctor Who was given star treatment on the CBC, with Christopher Eccleston introducing episodes that debuted just a week, if that, following their release in the United Kingdom? Now, after forcing Canadians to wait six months for their Doctor Who-on-CBC fix, the new guys, Space, have provided some redress. Here's a press release:

Millions of fans have been "patiently" waiting for the arrival of the new Doctor. Today, SPACE announces the wait is over as the Eleventh Doctor takes up his residency with a new series of DOCTOR WHO starting Saturday, April 17 at 9 pm ET, exclusively on SPACE. In this 13-part season, a whole new chapter of the iconic DOCTOR WHO franchise unfolds. Actor Matt Smith takes on the coveted role as the Eleventh Time Lord, embarking on new adventures with a new partner, the enigmatic Amy Pond (Karen Gillan).

Saturday, April 17 at 9 p.m. That's not long at all. Now I can review the episodes after most of you guys watch them, rather than before!

Many thanks to Andrew Gurudata for getting me this wonderful news.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I've said it elsewhere, but it applies here: the blooper video for this one must be long and very, very boring. Just watch:

Wow.

Hat tip to John Gushue.

KEITH BEATY/TORONTO STAR

(This has been crossposted to Transit Toronto)

Mayoral candidate George Smitherman was recently interviewed in the Toronto Star (see here), calling for the privatization of city services such as garbage collection and the Toronto Transit Commission. Although he promised not to take such bold steps without ensuring that "outsourcing doesn't diminish services while saving money for taxpayers" he said that "we need to look at outsourcing where it makes sense, given the state of the city's finances, while protecting our citizens."

I don't have the full text of the Star interview in front of me, so I don't have the full context of what Mr. Smitherman said about privatizing certain routes on the TTC, but from what I have read of Mr. Smitherman's comments, he does Torontonians a disservice by offering up piecemeal privatization as a panacea for the city's problems. His solution as presented is especially simplistic for the TTC.

Mr. Smitherman is quoted as saying, "If you say outsourcing and you say the TTC, what do they do? They buy buses and they run them up and down routes for the collection of a fare." He then offers London, England as an example, despite the fact that the example has been criticized, and ignoring the fact that London is significantly denser than Toronto, giving public transit there a significant advantage that the TTC does not have.

He makes it sound so easy, doesn't he? Just offer up contracts and private companies will beat a path to city hall, offering money to purchase TTC vehicles and operating them for no further cost than the right to collect their own fares. A beautiful solution, isn't it? Who could possibly find fault with it? Indeed, why haven't we thought about this in the thirty-eight years since the TTC last made back its operating costs completely from the farebox?

Mr. Smitherman unfortunately seems uninformed when it comes to the finances of the TTC, otherwise he would know that there isn't a single surface route on the system which makes back the full costs of its operation from the farebox. Only a handful (most of them streetcar routes) come close. Even though the TTC is the second-least per-rider subsidized system in North America (75% farebox recovery; only GO Transit does better at 81%; even New York City gets more subsidy from its governments to operate, at 62%), the only parts of the system that might conceivably be profitable are the subways, and they subsidize the operation of the entire surface network.

If you cut out the subways of the network — the only part that a private company could conceivably come forward to purchase and operate without subsidy — you end up increasing the amount of subsidy required to keep buses and streetcars on the road operating frequently. If you cut out the surface routes which are the closest to making an operating profit, then you might decrease the total subsidy required to operate the remainder, but you are forced to ask yourself what steps the private companies will make in order to ensure that the services they purchased make a profit for them.

To his credit, Mr. Smitherman makes further promises, saying "If you're going to outsource the delivery of bus service on one line or five lines or 10 lines, the fundamental conversation … has to be that the frequency of service will not drop," so, no cuts in service will be allowed. Will these routes be required to accept TTC transfers? Will they be required to accept TTC fares? One would think so, which means that the bulk of the savings required for private companies to operate the service for fares alone will have to come from a reduction of labour costs.

For the knee-jerk anti-union types, this is an obvious and desirable solution, although it's worth pointing out that TTC drivers' wages are not significantly out-of-whack compared to their private counterparts. Indeed, there are reports that the TTC and GO Transit are having difficulty hiring and keeping bus drivers, in spite of the wages they offer. After taking the TTC's driver training courses and getting their special bus driver licenses, a number of new personnel have been known to quit the transit agency and take up jobs with the private charter companies, where the passengers they pick up are happy to be on the bus, and where the drivers themselves get to keep tips.

Mr. Smitherman would do well to note that York Region Transit operates under an amalgamation of multiple contracts, some of which have been offered to private companies (a legacy of YRT's creation from the merger of nearly a half-dozen smaller transit agencies). There have been benefits from this arrangement, such as when one contract ran out and a strike occurred, only a part of the network was shut down. However, even with this contracting out of service, York Region Transit has not come anywhere close to eliminating its operating subsidy. Its farebox recovery is less than fifty percent. Even the privately run VIVA service — by all accounts a winner with riders — still requires taxpayer subsidies to run.

If Mr. Smitherman wants to consider the contracting out of the TTC, perhaps he should be bolder than he is. Rather than talk about "one line or five lines or 10 lines", perhaps he should talk about a system where tenders are called for private companies to come forward to operate the TTC, division by division, for a taxpayer subsidy that one expects to be less than the current subsidy required to operate. It's a debate Torontonians deserve to have, and there are potential benefits to this arrangement, even though it would require a lot of political capital to implement, make for an interesting few years in the labour relations department, and may not in the end produce the results that some proponents of privatization expect.

However, Mr. Smitherman owes Torontonians more than suggesting that the changes he offers are both bold and simple. Bold they may be, but they aren't as simple as he claims, and they won't save Torontonians from the need to pay for the transit that they deserve.