Karen Stintz points out the obvious


 Posted on April 24th, 2013 –

Specifically, Stintz says that Ford is “abdicating his responsibility” (to Ford Nation: that means failing to do his job), by continually putting off on hearing about various transit funding options for the city (expected to need about $2 billion over 25 years).

The options, put forward by Metrolinx, include:

  • Parking fees levy: An extra $1 a day, for a total of $1.4 billion a year.
  • Sales tax: An extra 1 per cent added to the HST, for an estimated income of $1.4 billion a year.
  • Fuel tax: An extra five cents per liter of gas, estimated to bring in $330 million a year.
  • Payroll tax: With a hike of 0.5 per cent, this would be expected to generate $700 million a year.
  • Property tax: Estimated to bring in an additional $670 million a year.
  • Vehicle travel fee: Drivers would be charged 3 cents per kilometer traveled. Expected to raise $1.6 billion per year, but the setup and administrative costs would probably be massive (if this was even doable).
  • Highway tolls: Same as above, but only on highways and at 10 cents a kilometre. Expected to pull in $1.4 billion a year.
  • Development charges: Developers would be dinged with a 15 per cent increase, amounting to about $100 million a year.
  • Transit fare increases: Guaranteed increases each and every year (in place now — thanks, Rob!), are apparently not nearly enough. An additional 15 cent per ride is expected to generate $50 million a year.
  • Land value capture: This weird one has private land owners forking over cash to the government when their property values increase as a result of adjacent government projects (they build a park next door, claim that it makes your property more expensive, and skim the difference). No figures provided.

I’m not going to sit here and claim that any of these are giving me a boner, but with these few, short paragraphs, I’ve managed to do infinitely more research into the topic than Ford.

Maybe none of these ideas have any merit at all. Maybe some of them are quietly and not obviously brilliant. Rob Ford will never know as his only response is to obstinately stick his fingers in his ears, scream “I can’t hear you!”, and blame everyone and their dog for lack of planning, poor leadership, and a lack of momentum.

In the meantime, you can actually hear the paint dry as Robbie mulls over his own, intricate and vast transit plans, which comprise of:

Think hard, Robbie!

What's on your mind?