Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Toronto, The head of the union representing TTC workers says Toronto is facing a “transit crisis” and must secure more funding and vehicles if the city’s already-strained transit system is to keep up with a booming population.
Speaking to a crowded room of reporters Monday morning, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 President Bob Kinnear warned that fares and the city’s subsidy to the TTC’s annual $1.6 billion operating budget will be insufficient to meet the expected growth in ridership.
Kinnear was addressing a report, released by the ATU today, which made 68 recommendations to improve transit in the city.
The report, titled Toronto’s Transit Future, makes a number of recommendations for fixing transit at the local level, including better integrating GO Transit with TTC service and restructuring fare systems.
However it directs much of its wrath toward the federal government.
“We are the lowest subsidized system in North America,” Kinnear said Monday.
He said while the City of Toronto subsidizes each transit trip to the tune of 80 cents, rates in most other municipalities are at least 50 per cent higher.
“We’re seeing drastically overcrowded vehicles, people left at bus stops,” Kinnear said. “That’s what we’re facing if you can magnify it in your head if we don’t have sustained funding from the upper levels of government.”
According to the report, the TTC will carry an additional 60 million riders over the next four years, costing an additional $66 million to support at current service levels.
Kinnear said it’s vital that the city get sustainable, ongoing funding from the federal government in order to operate properly as demand grows.
To that end, Kinnear vowed to make Toronto transit an issue for the 2015 federal election and urged Torontonians to support whichever party offers the city the best deal.
Addressing the crowd of reporters, Kinnear said Stephen Harper, Tom Mulcair and Justin Trudeau need to ‘get out of their limos and onto the bus.’
“I think it’s time we come together and start demanding that the upper levels of government provide proper transit funding,” Kinnear told CP24 in an interview Monday afternoon.
He said Toronto is the economic engine of the government and if the city becomes stagnant, the country will follow.
“I think all Torontonians need to come together, put aside your political allegiance and recognize that the number one issues in the city is transit,” Kinnear said.
SmartTrack needs more study
The union’s report also addresses Mayor-Elect John Tory’s SmartTrack plan, calling for further study to be expedited.
The SmartTrack transit plan served as the linchpin of Tory’s election campaign.
Kinnear said Monday that the union is neither for it or against it at the moment.
“What we’ve proposed is to expedite a study so we can get to the facts of that proposal much sooner,” Kinnear told CP24.
Kinnear said he’s spoken with Tory and that the Mayor-Elect is receptive to sitting down and speaking further about transit plans.
