BW4.1 – Public Presentations on the 2024 Capital and Operating Budgets North York Civic Centre, January 23, 2024 – 6:00 p.m.
Dear Budget Committee,
We are a transit advocacy group focussed on equity, delays and crowding on transit in Toronto. In particular, we are interested in Toronto’s suburbs being well-served by transit. Our comments reference the 2024 Budget Notes Toronto Transit Commission document.
Our top concerns for the City of Toronto 2024 budget are: delays, bus service frequency and priority transit lanes. This is based on an online poll we ran between January 14-16, 2024. We received 20 respondents.
On delays, we are supportive of the Bloor-Yonge Capacity Improvements project, which we advocated for from our creation in 2019. We are also supportive of State of Good Repair projects that prioritize projects that would help to prevent delays in service from being caused in the future. This also includes addressing backlogs that would address this criterion. New Year’s Eve 2023 saw dangerous levels of crowding on subway platforms. (1) Funds must be dedicated to having additional staff at stations to prevent dangerous crowinding from happening on the TTC for public events like New Year’s Eve.
We are supportive of a service increase to 96% by April 2024 and to 97% by September 2024 (pg. 10). However, we would like to see service prioritized for bus routes in suburban areas. We would like for there to be a 10-minute bus service frequency in these areas. It also helps to make the TTC competitive with the private automobile.
We are concerned that there is no mention of the RapidTO projects on the Capital Budget Plan for the TTC. They are not listed under “Expansion Projects” of Appendix 5 – pg. 35. Our 2021 Taking the TTC During COVID-19 report interviewed essential workers in the suburbs regularly taking the TTC during the restriction periods of the pandemic. (2) Some complained about crowded bus routes. There is a lot of potential to spending money, resources and political capital on building bus-only routes on Jane St. and Steeles Ave. West. This is where many working-class folks rely heavily on bus service. While we are supportive of the 77 of 100 priority signal projects (pg. 6) being implemented, we would like to see a financial commitment to the RapidTO projects.
Lastly, we are supportive of the TTC’s partnering with the City of Toronto and LOFT Community Services to better support people sheltering in the TTC with health services. (pg. 6) We are also supportive of having 10 Street to Homes outreach workers helping to support the underhoused. (pg. 6) Last year, our budget submission to the City supported offering increased supports for the unhoused and we are pleased to see the progress on that topic. (3)
Sincerely,
Jean-François Obregón & Faizan Ahmed-Chan
(2) https://voicefortransit.com/2021/08/30/taking-the-ttc-during-covid-19/
(3) https://voicefortransit.com/2023/01/23/letter-to-city-of-toronto-budget-committee-jan-16-2023/
A Voice for Transit 