Since my first post here on Metronauts, I have been energized by the positive (and negative) response from the community. Despite the relative silence on the comments thread in the last week or so, the discussion is far from over. I think we have reached the point where we would benefit from a meeting face-to-face, to discuss the formation of a transit advocacy group.

 To this end, I would like to invite readers and members of the community to meet on Saturday November 29^th, to the inaugural meeting of what I have tentatively named the Transit Riders Advocacy Coalition – or TRAC. The meeting will be held at the University of Toronto Faculty of Information (140 St George Street), Room 728, from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm. There is no need to RSVP – just show up and join in!

 The tentative agenda follows after the jump.  (more…)

As I sit on the GO bus from work, I have become very concerned about the state of transit as of late. The tanking economy and resulting cost-cutting pose a huge threat to the survival of Metrolinx – which does not currently have a source of revenue independent of the province. The Ontario government announced this week that it will be running a fiscal deficit for the upcoming budget and that it will be decreasing spending in order to balance the books. The draft RTP – which will eventually require $50B to build – will stick out like a sore thumb to politicians looking for a place to draw funds.

What makes the situation worse is that transit riders do not have a unified voice. Although the general thrust of government policy favours transit (sometimes explicitly, as in Places to Grow), it is easy for politicians to ignore the hard decisions when the transit community spends much of its energy debating the minutiae of subway construction instead of engaging the public and grilling the leaders. As important as it is to choose the right technology, we should be focusing on the larger issue. It’s like arguing over the best way to cut up not enough pie, instead of ordering a bigger pie altogether. Furthermore, while Metronauts are naturally well-informed, there is a larger consensus outside of our little community that “transit is important.” Think of all those university and high school students who have become accustomed to transit and wish it didn’t “suck so much.” There is a huge opportunity out there now for focusing the public consensus into informed, intelligent, and vocal advocacy.

I am calling on the Metronauts community come together and make a difference. The creation of a transit advocacy organization is a lot of work, but we can help improve the quality of life in the GTHA. I encourage Metronauts to discuss the key tasks and roles such an organization would take on, but I will list a few of the overall goals that I think are important after the jump: (more…)

source: Conservative Party of Canada

As everyone all probably knows already, Canada is again in full election mode with our trip to the ballot box scheduled for October 14th. Over the next four weeks, we will see the four main parties duke it out for our votes. Considering the dependency of infrastructure investment on upper levels of government, what we choose next month will have an impact on the shape of our future transportation. Therefore, I will focus my articles over the next while on how each party will deal with the transportation challenges in not only the GTA, but cities all across Canada.

Today, I will review what the Conservative government has done (or not done) for transit in the GTA since being elected in 2006.

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Friday’s Globe and Mail featured a prediction by Jeffrey Rubin, the CIBC World Markets economist, that damage from Hurricane Gustav and other intense storms this season could cause a sudden spike in gas prices to $1.75 a litre.

Every time there is a price spike, the media runs to the local gas station to cover the “pain at the pumps”. But does that pain translate into a change in behaviour? How much of an impact do gas prices have on the commuting public in the GTA? Do increasing gas prices cause people to make different personal transportation decisions, or are households just absorbing the extra costs?

It appears that gas prices are affecting vehicle purchasing decisions (sorry GM), but are consumers switching from private vehicles to other modes of transportation? I would love to see the research on that. (Perhaps our friends at Metrolinx have some sources they can share? If readers know of recent research on this question, please leave a link in the comments.) [UPDATE: High gas costs pushing people to use public transit, survey finds, Globe & Mail]

Surely demographic factors influence gas price sensitivity and the substitution of one mode of transportation for another. It makes sense that household incomes will affect price sensitivity, with the working poor being hit hardest. At the same time, many service workers need to use private vehicles to get to or perform their work (i.e. not the GO train Bay Street crowd) and have few alternatives. This creates a political problem that will bring calls for action.

But I also believe that there is a relationship to another familiar demographic trend with political and policy implications: Boomer parents versus their Gen Y children.

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As those of us who rely on the TTC as our primary means of transportation know all too well, the legal strike of late April 2008 hit the city by surprise. Surprise quickly turned to anger, and the blogosphere and media erupted with calls for the union to not only be legislated back to work, but to permanently forfeit their right to strike. Quickly legislated back to work in a historic Sunday sitting of the Ontario legislature, the two sides have been negotiating behind a press blackout while people continue to call for the TTC to be declared an essential service.

On Friday, to much fanfare across the blogosphere and the newspapers, both the TTC and the Amalgmated Transit Union (ATU) local 113 spoke out against being declared an essential service.

Yet what I find fascinating is the quickness by which progressive transit activists turn against the right of organized labour to carry out a labour disruption. In this post, I’d like to quickly run down the historical roots of this antagonism, and then argue that in a liberal society – one in which many rights have been conceded by modern trade unions – we have to be willing to tolerate disruptions in the interests of both human rights and liberal democracy. This all speaks to a central question: Should the TTC be declared an essential service?

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The economic conditions that supported the tremendous growth of North American suburbs during the last half of the 20th century – cheap energy and the modern industrial production system – appear to be undergoing a sharp reversal. What do these signals of the future mean for the suburbs and the demands that will be placed on politicians asked to respond to these changes?

You don’t have to be a peak oil theorist to recognize – as James Smith, CEO of Shell UK has – that “the era of easy oil is over”. The reality that we are not going to ever return to an age of cheap oil is just starting to sink into the consciousness of the marketplace, electorate and policy-makers. Scenarios of a serious supply crunch and $200 a barrel oil are no longer on the fringe.

The Freakonomics blog at NY Times recently held a quorum inviting a small group of smart and opinionated experts to imagine the future of American suburbia in 40 years time. The responses vary from James Kunstler’s “the suburbs have three destinies, none of them exclusive: as materials salvage, as slums, and as ruins” to the more hopeful “Suburbia will be flexible, it will be smarter, and it will be hybrid” of John Archer.

What about in the Toronto region?

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