Toronto's City Council's acrimonious debate over the fate of the Gardiner Expressway seems one of utter futility. They are about to render a decision. It is the ultimate no win.
At the moment, the whole council seems completely split right down the middle. Both sides really don't know what they are talking about. Personal agendas flow into the scene. The vote took place during the writing.
The Gardiner Expressway was called the mistake by the lake when it was constructed. In high school, one teacher gave us a study in urban planning. His assessment about its construction was that once used it was going to be like an urban planning Heroin. It does what it was designed to do. Once employed it became an addiction hard to kick.
Challenging most logic, if one carefully leafs through the various projects, one finds that they are all valid. Another commonality infused in each advocacy seems laced with the blissful ignorance of winter conditions. A flaw in both sides was in the limited view these people had of the highway. One would naturally think that the highway existed for the sole convenience of the suburban commuter. Another problem is the speed of which it is constructed. The City engineers seem to believe that the structure will eventually become dangerous about the year 2020. For a major project this is not all that far off.
A lot of political capital was expended by each side. The boulevard advocates abandoned cited magical studies and polling reports. They used every euphemism for the word stupid referring to their opponents. They had studies. There were studies supporting a highway teardown, There was an equal number of myths. For many politicians of both sides, if not all, this debate will come to haunt them in the future.
For the observer this debate seemed a real life example of the no win scenario. Truly the Gardiner Expressway debate can be called the Kobayashi Maru of city politics. There were four choices. Keep it. Tear it down. Or merge the highway projects into something called a Hybrid. Each version would work. BUT
No matter the choice, it would be wrong. The people who lost the close vote vowed to continue to vocalize against it. This project isn't really worth the political fight. It was something that had to be dealt with. The losing councillors and over social media vowed to keep up the fight. The whole debate was a red herring argument.
The same people that want to tear down are also in a severe fight to prevent the island airport to expand to accommodate jet aircraft. They have proven very poor advocates of any position. Here is a proposal that would have a far greater impact on the city than that intersection. Some of the City Mayor's Executive came out for tearing it down completely.
Basically these councillors were voting against the boss. This can only happen so many times without being forced out of their perk laden cushy appointments. Now the airport vote will be another very close vote with many of the same people sitting on the fence. Several key votes are on the Executive Committee. These councillors expended a lot of political capital and may have to hold their votes to support the expansion of the airport.
It is why this was a no win. By fighting this issue so severely, the expansion of the airport will pass because the four votes on the Executive committee will be forced to vote for the expansion. They lost a lot of their political blood on their support of another plan. Many of the councillors also prove themselves to be totally undemocratic vowing to reverse council decision. These same political hacks will not have the same persuasive power because its going to be very difficult after calling other politicians basically thoughtless idiots on this lesser issue.
Regardless, no matter the choice, every choice is wrong. And that is a very rare example of the no win situation.
Showing posts with label Toronto City Council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toronto City Council. Show all posts
Friday, June 12, 2015
Monday, June 08, 2015
TTC in total crisis
Emerging from the mists surrounding reality seems that the Toronto Transit Commission entered a serious period of crisis without anyone noticing. This morning's sudden, unexplained total communications breakdown on the critical Subway system points to the parade of problems surrounding today's TTC.
Clearly the Chief General Manager, Andy Byford, lords over this land of disasters. If the subway breakdown was a one off, then that is the way life is. Mark this list, for it is a list, these serious service interruptions continually occur wholly under Byford's apologetic announcements. Up to this point, Byford managed to slide off the problems onto previous managers, administrations and politicians.
He's continually referring to the necessary upgrades of the Subway communications and signal systems. Yet, with every weekend shutdown seems followed by a series of major service interruptions. With each the TTC seems to minimize the effects of each service interruption. Yes 150,000 riders were affected. Beyond that number is the total failure of the TTC or its Chairman to acknowledge the real impact of TTC traffic interruptions.
Each one of those are workers or students especially at the rush hours. Rush hours rarely have shoppers or tourists by traveling by choice. Each person must arrive at work on time and faces an wage decrease due to lateness. Each working rider also faces the reality that an employer regards their tardiness as the responsibility of the worker, not the responsibility of the TTC. Each person faces justified dismissal from their employment. Each person likely has a family relying on their ability for arriving at work in a timely fashion.
Further, each employer hires people to do necessary work when the work must be done. That is why any employer pays people for tasks. Not having those tasks dealt with costs companies including the likely loss of revenue. System wide failures cost all city residents monies whether or not they actually take the TTC.
At the end of this, who remains accountable? Today's TTC planning seems a shambles. Seems, no exists in shambles. There are massive cost overruns and project delays. There are service interruptions. There is flip flopping by the operations managers as they follow the whims of city politicians into a variety of ideas, none of which are followed through on. When a City Council creates, and begins a plan, the following political incarnations cancel, reverse and adversely modify those projects.
Even with the weaknesses of the LRT plans for rapid streetcar corridors in Scarborough, those projects might have been nearing or fully completed had not the retrograde thinking of a group of thuggish politicians representing the opposite end of the city blocked and reversed planning. Those projects had been fully financed. Then they took credit for subways that do not exist using questionable funding profiles that have been proven totally false and inadequate when compared with the reality experienced with the York University subway extension project.
It should be pointed out that swift action came with the YorkU extension cost overruns with the firing of a couple of managers directly responsible for that project. But while these poor people were responsible, they weren't the people accountable. The TTC Board and its Chief General Manager are the people who are accountable. The latter group seems to have Teflon coating when it comes to accountability. The Toronto media seems to buy their excuses hook, line and net fully supporting those people.
The long list of subway failures, of project delays, of cost overruns falls within the tenure period of Andy Byford. Clearly he remains because he appeases the political delusions of the TTC Board. Byford never stood up to the political interference from the Toronto City Council. How does the City fix it? First diminish the political influence on the TTC Board. Second, insist upon the resignation of Andy Byford. Too many adverse events have occurred to smooth over the Chief General Manager's ability to politically survive that list which he is accountable for.
Clearly the Chief General Manager, Andy Byford, lords over this land of disasters. If the subway breakdown was a one off, then that is the way life is. Mark this list, for it is a list, these serious service interruptions continually occur wholly under Byford's apologetic announcements. Up to this point, Byford managed to slide off the problems onto previous managers, administrations and politicians.
He's continually referring to the necessary upgrades of the Subway communications and signal systems. Yet, with every weekend shutdown seems followed by a series of major service interruptions. With each the TTC seems to minimize the effects of each service interruption. Yes 150,000 riders were affected. Beyond that number is the total failure of the TTC or its Chairman to acknowledge the real impact of TTC traffic interruptions.
Each one of those are workers or students especially at the rush hours. Rush hours rarely have shoppers or tourists by traveling by choice. Each person must arrive at work on time and faces an wage decrease due to lateness. Each working rider also faces the reality that an employer regards their tardiness as the responsibility of the worker, not the responsibility of the TTC. Each person faces justified dismissal from their employment. Each person likely has a family relying on their ability for arriving at work in a timely fashion.
Further, each employer hires people to do necessary work when the work must be done. That is why any employer pays people for tasks. Not having those tasks dealt with costs companies including the likely loss of revenue. System wide failures cost all city residents monies whether or not they actually take the TTC.
At the end of this, who remains accountable? Today's TTC planning seems a shambles. Seems, no exists in shambles. There are massive cost overruns and project delays. There are service interruptions. There is flip flopping by the operations managers as they follow the whims of city politicians into a variety of ideas, none of which are followed through on. When a City Council creates, and begins a plan, the following political incarnations cancel, reverse and adversely modify those projects.
Even with the weaknesses of the LRT plans for rapid streetcar corridors in Scarborough, those projects might have been nearing or fully completed had not the retrograde thinking of a group of thuggish politicians representing the opposite end of the city blocked and reversed planning. Those projects had been fully financed. Then they took credit for subways that do not exist using questionable funding profiles that have been proven totally false and inadequate when compared with the reality experienced with the York University subway extension project.
It should be pointed out that swift action came with the YorkU extension cost overruns with the firing of a couple of managers directly responsible for that project. But while these poor people were responsible, they weren't the people accountable. The TTC Board and its Chief General Manager are the people who are accountable. The latter group seems to have Teflon coating when it comes to accountability. The Toronto media seems to buy their excuses hook, line and net fully supporting those people.
The long list of subway failures, of project delays, of cost overruns falls within the tenure period of Andy Byford. Clearly he remains because he appeases the political delusions of the TTC Board. Byford never stood up to the political interference from the Toronto City Council. How does the City fix it? First diminish the political influence on the TTC Board. Second, insist upon the resignation of Andy Byford. Too many adverse events have occurred to smooth over the Chief General Manager's ability to politically survive that list which he is accountable for.
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