Made with Love

TTC chair pitches transit tax

Pullmyfinger

Senior Member
Joined May 21, 2011
Messages 1,081
As a home owner you really want to pay $180 a year for the next 30 years eventhough you don't use the TTC?

https://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/26/ttc-chair-pitches-transit-tax

Get ready Toronto for a new transit tax — or at least a massive fight over slapping one on every property.

In what Mayor Rob Ford’s loyalists are already calling a “back door tax attack,” TTC chair Karen Stintz is proposing adding $180 a year to the average Toronto home’s tax bill in a bid to raise $250 million annually to fund transit construction.

“It is my belief that Toronto needs a dedicated transit fund so we can properly plan transit for the future,” Stintz said Tuesday night.

Stintz and TTC vice-chair Glenn De Baeremaeker will make the announcement Wednesday when they unveil the OneCity transit plan — an ambitious laundry list of transit lines,
The TTC chair was confident she has the votes on council next month to get city officials to start studying the idea and report back in October. Stintz hopes if it is implemented, the city could start collecting the revenue by 2013.

The transit funding plan would add the equivalent of a 1.9% property tax increase on a home each year for four years until it maxes out. The owner of an average home would pay around $180 a year for the next 30 years, Stintz confirmed.

She estimated the increase on homes and businesses, drawn from the “uplift” when a property is reassessed, would provide a dedicated revenue stream to the city of $250 million a year for transit construction.

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti called Stintz’s tax “a war on the suburbs.”
“It’s an incredible shift to the left for her,” he said, adding he doubted she would survive re-election in her own ward with this proposal.

“Stintz needs to take the hint, seniors don’t want to eat cat food,” Mammoliti said. “It is a tax increase that is unaffordable to those that just can’t do it.”
Sources say Mayor Ford’s office briefly looked at the revenue tool Stintz is now proposing in 2010 but dismissed it as “a massive hidden tax grab.”

George Christopoulos, the mayor’s press secretary, said they were made aware there was a motion coming.
“But we haven’t seen any specifics,” Christopoulos said.

The city would require the province’s permission to change the market value assessment process to accommodate the plan.
“The principle is that we’re bringing transit to every area of the city and transit improves property values,” Stintz insisted.

The project that would first be funded by the tax would be extending the Bloor-Danforth line up to Sheppard Ave. through the Scarborough Town Centre. That project would replace the planned rebuilding the Scarborough RT as an LRT.

The next priority project would be the East Bayfront LRT. That $360 million line needs around $270 million in funding to get built.
Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong slammed Stintz’s proposal.

“This is a massive tax attack and it’s a back-door tax attack,” he said.
 

tboy

Well-known member
Joined Jun 2, 2010
Messages 9,197
I can kind of see the point, the way of the future is a move away from all of us hopping into our car and polluting the air incessantly.....but this is not the way to do it.....if they want to raise the money to expand the business, then they should do what every other business does: apply for a loan.....and if they can't get a loan, then they might want to think about trimming the fat....namely the employees in the 100K club.....

thank god i don't live in that godforsaken city any longer.....
 

Madman

Reviewer
Joined Aug 12, 2011
Messages 17,534
It's all about bitch slapping the Fords. I don't agree with it because it will ensure Ford gets voted in again and this time will probably upset the electorate enough to bounce out most of the left leaning council. They are being very short sighted in their thinking.
 

BIG BANG

Active member
Joined Sep 15, 2011
Messages 29
They looked like innocuous transit motions, proposed by different councillors at different city committees.But some were tiny pieces of the then-secret $30 billion OneCity transit expansion proposal.Their passage gives the blockbuster plan a chance of success.

To leapfrog the transit blueprint straight to council on July 11-12, TTC chair Karen Stintz and vice-chair Glenn De Baeremaeker would need support from two-thirds of the 44-member council. They don’t have that.But the motions, including a request for will be on council’s agenda.

Each opens the door to discussion of the 175-kilometre, 21-line OneCity plan.
If Mayor Rob Ford and his allies get one of the motions ruled out of order, Stintz, De Baeremaeker and their allies have three more chances to get a majority of councillors to order a staff report ahead of an October vote.“This evolved organically, but there was a lot of careful planning,” Stintz said in an interview after OneCity was officially revealed Wednesday.

Added Councillor Joe Mihevc, brought into the core OneCity group along with colleague Josh Colle: “There are many routes to Rome. We wanted a variety of options to get this on the agenda, and we got them.”Seeds for OneCity were sown at the late March meeting that saw council reject Ford’s subway-only expansion in favour of a four-line, provincially funded $8.4 billion plan that includes surface rail.“Karen and I knew that this couldn’t be the end,”

De Baeremaker said. “As amazing as eight-and-a-half billion is, it’s only four lines. There’s a lot greater need.”
The first question was: What’s the responsible, politically palatable way to fund a dramatic expansion of Toronto mass transit?They drew inspiration from Councillor Mike Del Grande, Ford’s budget chief, who surprised many by proposing a $100 million-a-year tax on parking lots to create an ongoing fund for subway construction.

“If the budget chief is willing to put a $100 million motion on the floor of council without talking to anybody at all, that tells us there’s an appetite or tolerance for a tax of some sort,” De Baeremaeker said.He and Stintz kept talking after the meeting — their offices are side by side — and within a week drew Colle and Mihevc into the circle.

They settled on what they considered the “least evil” option — “current-value assessment uplift,” an overlooked proposal from the expert panel that recommended council vote for light rail.They debated the amount. De Baeremaeker wanted to tap city taxpayers for half the $1 billion annual investment. Others said council would never pass that, and talked him down to $272 million.There was also a map to fill.

They went online to examine past, shelved route proposals and noted expansions championed by various councillors.
Stintz and De Baeremaeker peppered TTC and finance staff with questions, careful to make them “for information only” because Ford allies fired TTC chief general manager Gary Webster for advocating light rail.

The four each reached out to other colleagues, swearing them to secrecy for fear Ford allies would “throw a grenade over the wall,” and kill the incubating plan.Ducks in a row, Stintz last week briefed Ford’s chief of staff Amir Remtulla. “His big concern was there be no (final) decision in July and we assured him of that,” said Stintz, who also briefed the Toronto Board of Trade and CivicAction.

The OneCity team was ready to move.Mihevc, a left-leaning political opposite to Stintz, said council has found a “pluralism” to craft major policy initiatives without the mayor.“We’ve been able to break out of our silo thinking and build a city.”

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ci...-and-her-allies-made-the-onecity-transit-plan
 
J

Jesus Quintana

Guest
Isn't it interesting that this really reads to me more like a conspiracy than anything else.

You know all those people in the private sector make just tons and tons of money so it tasks the public sector to just make more and more fiscal demands on them through taxes. Bad hard working people.
 

God

Senior Member
Joined Oct 3, 2015
Messages 7,795
A confrontation between Rob Ford and a TTC driver occurred Wednesday because the mayor drove his vehicle past the open doors of a streetcar, the head of the transit workers’ union said Friday.

“My understanding is that Mayor Ford bypassed an open door and the operator then got off the streetcar – left his seat anyways – to advise the motorist, not knowing it was Mayor Ford, of the seriousness of the violation, as well was the concern for our passengers,” Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 president Bob Kinnear told the Star.

Failing to stop behind the open doors of a streetcar is a violation of the Highway Traffic Act, with fines of $109.
Ford’s office said Friday morning that they would not comment on the matter.The incident happened near Dundas St. W. and McCaul St., according to Kinnear, who said Ford drove past the rear doors but stopped before the streetcar’s front doors as passengers were boarding.The mayor rolled down his window and “had some comments for the operator,” said Kinnear.

The streetcar driver was “interviewed” by the TTC following standard procedure after Ford lodged a complaint, he said.
Kinnear said he didn’t know the exact nature of the mayor’s complaint.TTC spokesman Brad Ross has confirmed that the operator left his seat on the streetcar he was driving to speak to the mayor, something the driver agreed he shouldn’t have done.

“The operators are not permitted to leave their seats to have a discussion of any kind with any motorist,” he said.
Ross wouldn’t say what the TTC driver might have said or done after he got out of his seat.TTC chief executive officer Andy Byford confirmed there was a complaint about an incident involving the 505 Dundas streetcar.“The mayor actually phoned my office. I did speak to the mayor.

The actual incident related to the operation of one of our streetcars. In the same way as normally we wouldn’t comment on specifics around a customer complaint, I’m not going to on this occasion,” he said.

“We followed the normal process of investigation that we would regardless of who the complainant was… I’m satisfied that the matter has been looked into.”
Kinnear said that Toronto motorists are usually well aware of the traffic rules around streetcars, but many summertime tourists in the city often don’t.

“We’re not opposed to our members advising the public of the rules in the interest of safety for our passengers,” he told reporters Friday morning.
“The TTC does not encourage our members to get into verbal discussions with motorists.

But I think you can understand from the operator’s perspective, when we see this continuously throughout the day, it becomes frustrating. It becomes very concerning for our passengers and the safety of our passengers.

The driver is back at work and no disciplinary action has been taken, said Kinnear.Ross told the Star the operator didn’t miss any time at work as a result of the incident and the matter is now considered closed.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ar...t-stop-for-open-streetcar-door-ttc-union-says
 
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