Raise the Hammer

Donna is quoted last week as saying she will vote "no" to such a waste of money.
Today she says she will not vote against this project, due to the amount of money coming into the city.

Donna is scary.

Comment edited by JimC on 2016-05-26 07:06:00

I'm sincerely troubled with our council. It seems time after time it's the same type of people who get elected actively choose to keep Hamilton in the dark ages.. This should not be brought up again for discussion. It was voted and the money is there to do a great service for the city. I cannot believe there are foolish councillors who want to say no to this money??
Absolutely unreal, and truly an embarrassment to everyone watching.. They certainly are not speaking for me, and I wish there was a way to wake this city up..
It would be helpful if our wonderful bunch at city hall would spend more time promoting a wonderful thing. Too bad some of them have an emotional quotient of a teen in high school worrying about some silly complaints from a business in the international village whose business wasn't going to make it any way.. So many come and go in that area, and I think with the completed LRT it will only be an area highly sought after in the end. Too much ignorance on an issue in a city where the status quo has always been the highlight of the day..
Sad really!

Jim.. there are no morals here when it comes to funding.. If we don't take this money now, it's going to be justified to morally give it to another community who would like to build more transit.. Your bias is showing regarding Wynne, that is what this is truly about here.. Regardless how you feel about our current provincial government, I think you should only want the best for the city you live in.. Regardless that your car ride may be interrupted for a while or not.
Through this investment, it will spark spinoffs where the government will be able to collect more and pay down our current deficit. There has been no real investment in a long time in this city and it shows. Ontario can run that debt up all it likes, as long as Hamilton is given some of that money on tick.. There is not enough money in this world to pay off every debt. The monetary system is based on false credit, and the money coming really doesn't exist anyway. So I'm morally fine with this investment in our city..

And despite what all of the experts and studies have shown she isn't sure if she agrees with the route. Really?

Without a stitch of formal education or training on the topic.........let the ward heeling begin!

Good plan. It's not like we're competing with neighbouring municipalities for jobs. Let them have the money and we'll just continue on like some backwater township forever frozen in time.

When we bought a house the money to buy it didn't exist either. We borrowed it and are paying it back and enjoying an asset we can live in that will improve our quality of life and hold its value. It's called investment and governments do it too

The City of London which was planning a combined LRT and BRT based rapid transit system recently decided via their experts that, just a BRT only system was best. This was primarily based on the cost, $500 Million instead of $880 Million for the combined LRT and BRT system. Upon hearing that Hamilton's Council might turn down their free transit money, London's Council is prepared to officially ask the provincial government for Hamilton's $1 Billion for their entire combined LRT and BRT system. They realized that Their BRT decision was primarily based on capital cost and a BRT only system is just more affordable but as designed will move fewer people and attract far less development for their city. However, if there is now going to be $1 Billion extra flying around for LRT well, why not ask?

Halton Region (primarily Burlington and Oakvilleis also asking that they get the Hamilton's funding for their Dundas Street Rapid Transit proposal. We will probably here from Brampton soon as well! Toronto has 4 rapid transit projects ready to be funded and there is still phase 2 money needed for Ottawa's or Waterloo's LRT Systems. Come on Hamilton Council, S* or get off the pot!

You morally backwards SOB, you would then be saying "no" to a cleaner environment, to combating climate change.

Do you have any references for these claims that other regions are already asking for Hamilton's transit money or is it just hearsay or supposition?

I wouldn't be surprised, but it would be helpful to see the source.

London Free Press is the source.

This is exactly what happened after Brampton turned down their $400 Million ($387 Million really) for the last 3 km of the Hurontario Line. The line still ends in Brampton but at Steeles Avenue not at Brampton's downtown GO Station. Officially the Province breaks down its funding for these transit projects first as in the GTHA and outside the GTHA. The province is spending roughly $29-30 Billion for both categories.

Unofficially, through a contact of mine inside the "Lets Move Program" over 65 requests came in for Brampton's money from across the province, most but not all were for transit related projects. The problem created by Brampton losing this money, actually showed many hard to ignore realities, few of the projects already in the "Lets Move Project" official project list were ready to be funded. Many are still in the planning stages officially. This was the problem with Brampton's funding there were few ready projects (not already started) that could be built with just $387 Million.

The other issue was Toronto and York Region, at the time, they were the only transit operations inside the GTHA that had projects approved and ready to go. It would not have looked good politically if that money was instantly shoved to them. Especially, when phase 2 projects in both Waterloo and Ottawa both are only missing a single funding component, the province's portion of the funding.

This brings up another thorny issue, both Ottawa's and Waterloo's phase 2 LRT project are being 1/3 funded locally. Its getting harder and harder for the provincial government to give away 100% funding of LRT projects in other cities while these 2 areas are forced into making very tough long range funding choices. All while Brampton's and maybe Hamilton's council, continue to play political games with free provincial rapid transit money.

These political games as I call them, are based on behind the scenes knowledge that I have acquired working in and with the provincial level of government as a consultant. The whole controversy is mainly based on the fact that, its free "Liberal" money. Most of the councilors whom are refusing this free money are Conservatives who want to be well positioned in 2018 when, they believe the Premier's government will most likely be defeated. You would not believe the extreme and mostly homophobic comments of Conservatives when Wynne was elected in 2014. They knew they couldn't state these comments publicly but boy behind the scenes, you would have thought the world was about to end. They were worried that because and I quote, "the huge numbers of all those fucking freaks, who voted that dyke bitch into office may make it almost impossible for a good wholesome conservative government to ever be elected into power again in Ontario". It never occurred to them that the public didn't accept that, there message which was mainly, "no we can't do anything until the budget is balanced in 2018". The fact that, their messages' harsh nasty tone and the way there points were delivered to the public were part of the problem, those points never seem to cross their minds!

Legitimate Ontario debt concerns aside, and semantics aside (asset, debt, deficit, budget, whatever).

...Semantically, the $1bn is a budget item that is planned to be spent regardless as part of the Moving Ontario Forward fund. If the money needs to be spent anyway, a great place to spend is transit, and Hamilton is a good place to spend it on.

We are actually morally obligated to say yes. I say yes even though I disagree with the Hydro One sale. But that horse has left the barn and if they want to mandatorily spend that "budget" in transportation infrastructure -- Hamilton LRT is one of the best-ever opportunities and one of most moral place to spend that budget (deficit as it may be), given the huge benefits to Hamilton and large long-term ROI.

Morally, we cannot be left out.

Even though Council is wavering, we have to remember they did not do a "Motion to a Stop Work Order on LRT" -- the money is already being spent right now.

Looking behind the council theatrics, my perception is the LRT office is actually working more efficiently than the HSR office at the moment. I hope Hamilton, for their sake, hire someones for HSR that will work more efficiently hard towards an HSR expansion integrating with the LRT (push forward the 10 year Rapid Ready plan).

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2016-05-26 11:10:35

You mean to say that a politician will sabotage a city changing project out of self interest and not look out for the public they claim to represent? Next thing you're going to tell me is that Santa Claus isn't real!

It's amazing how often those that decide to become elected officials are the ones least suited to lead.

We have some councillors who are clearly unintelligent, couldn't find work as middle managers, below mediocre quality, and we deserve much better.

Which is why the Operating Agreement is going to be interesting. Operational decisions will (hopefully!) be made on the basis of rational planning rather than petty local politics.

Ryan that is a good point but when we in Ottawa pay more than 3 times for transit on our tax bill per person than what people in the most expensive part of Hamilton pay, its cold comfort. We want some free stuff too!

In fact, according to the CUTA's and The Ministry of Transportation Ontario's Urban Transit Factbook of Ontario, As of 2015, Ottawa is currently paying a Municipal Operating Tax Grant per Capita of $252.56, where Hamilton is paying, $75.80 per capita.

Under our Constitution Municipalities are not an official level of government. Therefore, the City can't charge municipal taxes on the Federal or Provincial government land and properties. The city receives cash in lieu of taxes from the senior levels of government. The amount is decided by the senior level of government not the city, so you can imagine we get seriously screwed. It was recently figured out that on a square metre basis, the feds, by far the biggest land owner in the city, is only paying 1/3 what a normal private company or residential address would be charged and the province about 75%. Being the National Capital actually costs the city and its taxpayers quite a bit of money!

To pay for those Capital costs we had to increase our operating fees including cancelling the planned discount for transit passes for people with low incomes past 2035. Last year

According to the MTO we have the most expensive to maintain roads in the province. In the winter we can get 45-50 cm a day of snow. Just like you come spring time we get pot holes. Mainly having to build the same amount of roads a city of, well 1.2 million, generally has to build but with a geology that greatly increases cost. If you look around Ottawa you see large outcropping of rocks along highways and anywhere significant digging had to occur.

The interesting thing is although, the rock may require very hard drills and dynamite to clear away when you are building a road or Transitway through it. The rain, can by erosion easily break away huge pieces of these rock outcrops and leave them for us to pick them up off the road. Large visible rock outcrops in the 3 story Western Transitway trench that took 2 years of diamond drills and dynamite to cut away, has had to have kilometres of concrete to cover them now because rain and snow are breaking up the faces of these rocks sending huge pieces on to the road surface of the Transitway. You don't have to dig very far here and hit solid rock, in many places he have less than 6 metres of top soil, which means when we build anything, there is a lot of expensive blasting and drilling.

The semi regular 5.3-5.5 earthquakes (roughly one every 2 or 3 years or so) in our seismically active area are enough to do only minor damage to plaster and drywall but it definitely speeds up the degradation of our built infrastructure. In fact before they covered it up with concrete, you could clearly see the major fault lines in some the rock outcroppings along the wall of the western Transitway trench. Were actually do for one now!

The 2016 budget adopted for the City of Ottawa allocates $102 million to "roads and traffic maintenance":

http://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/budget-and...

The 2016 City of Hamilton budget allocates $92 million to roads according to

https://www.hamilton.ca/budget-finance/2...

This implies Hamilton is spending about 50% more per capita on roads than Ottawa (populations are 520,000 and 884,000 respectively), despite the weather-related high maintenance costs Ottawa has. And Ottawa is spending much more per capita on transit.

This does reveal the very different priorities in the two cities!

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2016-05-27 10:02:44

Yes it is! the reason we are finally changing the Central Transitway from BRT to LRT is we just can't afford to maintain a bus fleet of 1100+ buses and bus backups at every major Transitway station at rush hour. Not just the famous ones on Albert and Slater Streets but we were having back ups at stations on the Transitway proper. Albert and Slater streets have painted bus lanes that have much lower capacity then physically segregated Busways (those bus lanes have to cross 12 intersections as well).

If stayed with buses instead of converting to rail, we would have to have downtown and other central Transitway stations able to handle a bus every 15-18 seconds by 2031. That would mean we would have to make Transitway (BRT) stations with capacities that were equal to some of the very large South American and Chinese Busways. Brisbane's Cultural Centre Station is a perfect example of what Ottawa would have to build in downtown and we still be stuck with the high system operating costs.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7WzkvqBJjwQ/VL...

Simply changing to LRT conservatively saves us $60 Million a year in operational costs and will free up to 150 buses during peak periods alone. I'm not saying we shouldn't have LRT, I'm just saying we want our free stuff from the province too! We have had to sacrifice far too many other things far into the future just to so we can pay our 1/3 for phase 2.

This is a video from the 2010 quake. We had another in 2012 but it was in the middle of the night. both were officially 5.3 on the Richter scale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUgdWYBG...

Sure but I couldn't do it for a week or two. My family and I are literally moving into our new place June 1, 2016. So we are kind of busy for the moment. Is their any specific length our format you want the article to be in?

Keep in mind I'm just a dumb planner if its not in some type of Microsoft Office format it can be pretty alien to me. So if you want it another form please spell out the conversion clearly and slowly.

Many Thanks

Exactly, $1 down and $312 billion to go - Hamilton leads the way with responsible government.
Actually, I think Brampton was first, but we all need to get on board.

I would say morally, we need to address the 5,600 waiting list for low-income housing in Hamilton. Everything goes better when people have a stable roof over their head. The nature of work is in a huge transition. Consider the level of automation happening (even in China where about costs are relatively cheap) with robots replacing the bulk of factory workers. It is happening! Once we figure out how to allocate the fruits of these labours in an appropriate manor, the nature of commuting and transportation needs will change beyond our imagination. It might sound very futuristic, but the sooner we face up to it, the sooner we can provide input towards the outcome. Don't get left behind.

Should say "labour costs", not "about costs". Sorry.

Its not just $ 102 Million (expenditures) that's literally just the roads. There is quite a bit you missed there, everything from traffic light maintenance, traffic light signal vehicle operating costs cost's (Ottawa's one of the few cities left that still owns its own vehicles instead of hiring a private company to do maintain its signals) This also has revenue attached to it because many smaller area communities hire our equipment to fix their signals

$176 Million (Expenditures) actually $157 Million (Net)

Then you have add about $10 Million (Net) for other city department that use part of their budgets to maintain rural roads as well. Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Forrestry Services, Drinking Water Services, Storm water Services and Wastewater Services.

A total road operating budget of around $191 Million (expenditures) and $167 Million (Net)

This compares to the Transit Commission Operating Budget of $538 Million(expenditures) and $490 Million (Net)

I'm trying to compare Hamilton's and Ottawa expenditures not necessarily capture every expense required to operate the roads.

Ottawa is much more detailed (you can download the spreadsheets) but as far as I can tell the $92 and $102 million are both for "road construction and maintenance which is a good way to compare the cities.

In other words Hamilton's total expenditures on roads are similarly more than $92 million but the ratio is likely similar.

I should point out that the the $92 million is only the capital expenditure part of Hamilton's road budget. The capital part of the transit budget is only $18 million.

What are Ottawas capital expenditures on roads and on transit?

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2016-05-28 06:50:13

Since Wynne has pushed up the provincial election to the spring of 2018, and construction on the lrt is supposed to begin 2019; all of this discussion may be a waste of time and energy. The next party in power, and I hope it isn't the free spending Liberals, may just scrap the billion dollar transfer because the province is in such a financial mess.

Ontario is not necessarily in such a financial mess:

Ontario can balance budget in 2017-18 after 9 straight deficits: fiscal watchdog

Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government is positioned to reach its target of balancing the budget in 2017-18, after nine straight deficits, according to a new report from Ontario's independent fiscal watchdog.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/on...

Ontario’s path to balanced budgets diverges from Alberta’s ballooning deficits

http://www.bnn.ca/News/2016/2/26/Ontario...

But I bet the workers Ottawa who are paid to fix roads actually work.

What planet do you come from. We are twice as indebted as California with half the people meaning 4x worse than one of the worst in the U.S. with similar infrastructure and demographics. Ontario is the most indebted jurisdiction in North America and is about to become Greece. Name any growing industry in Ontario other than Government of government paid!!

And your plan is what... More highway lanes?

tu quoque arguments add nothing. throwing gas on a fire is not going to help Ontario. Saying Ontario does not have a financial problem is silly.

Not investing properly in transit is a huge part of the economic issue in ontario. If not now then when? The result of ignoring this need will be more and more highway infrastructure deficit

The roads Capital Budget is a s follows for 2016,

$174.5 Total, 122.6 for renewal of existing roads and roughly $51.9 Million for new growth related roads and Strategic Initiatives Programs.

The Transit Capital Budget which (obviously does not include the Confederation Line LRT project) for 2016,

Total of $37.2 Million, however, many other departments especially the roads and infrastructure have budget items that specifically look after the Transitway System that although not part of the official transit budget help keep it running and add to that budget.

Historically, that was always one for the problems of tracking Transitway costs because not all of the costs of running the system are in one budget and the pro BRT people could always hide these costs and claim lower costs for BRT compared to any rail based system.

List of Other Capital Budgets that help Transit and the Transitway.

Dollar Values in (000,000's)

Roads and Transportation $6.2 Finance & Economic Development $ 43 )

(Covers all 3 ongoing projects)

1. West Transitway Extension
2. Barrhaven-Riverside Transitway Extension
3. South-West Transitway Extension

Infrastructure (Solid Waste and Storm water) $1.3

Thanks very much for clarifying the budget numbers. So Ottawa spent about 11% than Hamilton per capita on capital expenses for roads and 20% more per capita on capital expenses for transit.

The picture, at least in these two transportation categories, is that Ottawa spends a bit more on roads and a lot more on transit.

As a planner, do you know how net levy spending per capita on transport (roads and transit) scales with the size of the city? I would guess that for high density cities it scales slower than linear and for low density cities it would scale faster, but I'd be interested to see data on this.

Of course, the averages would need to be taken over a long time period since infrastructure projects in any given year can be very expensive and cities sometimes go for a long time without building or upgrading transit.

there is no compelling need, hence the general disinterest and widespread opposition. We will do "it" when "we" need to

I can't remember the proper name of the theory, planning School was a long time ago however, there is a population growth/cost of servicing relationship curve that seems to hold true even today.

Generally for a city with Canadian,American, Australian and New Zealand like urban sprawl development and a centrally located denser old downtown core you have an interesting breakdown along area population size and the costs of servicing them. Keep in mind economy and geography can alter this somewhat.

Generally, if a city/urban area's population is below 750,000, a 1% increase in population will produce a less than 1% increase in the cost to service that growth.

If the city/urban area's population is between 750,000-1,250,000, a 1% increase in population will produce a 1% increase in the cost to service that growth.

If the city/urban area's population is greater than 1,250,000, a 1% increase in population will produce a greater than 1% increase in the cost to service that growth.

This being true, once an area has reached a certain population it is better to alter and or increase the density of standard suburban development and or any new residential and commercial development located throughout the area, as the area's population grows to get a better return for servicing cost of growth. That usually means intensification of existing communities and changing the way you build newer ones. Which is what is slowly happening. Better regular transit and the introduction of rapid transit becomes a must at this point. Even American cities with hard core road only planning have realized that once an urban area has reached a population 4 million it is virtually impossible to handle the majority of new traffic growth with personal car based roads and expressways. Even Texas has admitted to this, transit spending has to greatly increase.

Dallas by the way, has in terms of mileage, the largest LRT system in North America. Almost 160km of LRT ROW has been produced since 1996. Houston which has significantly less LRT mileage but has one of the most heavily used LRT systems in the US (measured by passengers per mile of service). If Dallas and Houston can build LRT, certainly Hamilton has the ability to pass out enough consent among its city councilors to actually support and vote for an LRT system!

Thanks very much!

I guess an obvious question for somewhere like Hamilton (unlike Ottawa) is whether our effective population is 520,000 (the City itself), 722,000 (the census CMA which is supposed to group together communities that function as a unit), or 6.6 million (GTAH).

I think that in terms of transport needs, Hamilton is arguably very close to or over the 750,000 break point, and will soon be beyond the 1.25 million break point where "business as usual" greenfield development and auto-centric planning starts being very expensive.

This was already a major point of the 2007 transportation master plan and is clearly a big part of the reason Metrolinx wants to build an LRT in Hamilton (and the Province is trying to limit growth outside the current urban boundary). Remember that the LRT is infrastructure for the next 40 years, not just addressing the very real limitations of transit in the current King/Main corridor (where service is already insufficient).

The theory uses urban area not just city proper so realistically, Hamilton right now is in a commuting zone of 750,000-1,250,000 people. However it is inside a much larger in both size and population urban growth area centred on Toronto.

That brings out another question. How big is this outer region. As a planner using the GTA as a base region is useless because people daily travel beyond it and use transit from outside that area to get inside to their intended location. I prefer the Greater Golden Horseshoe Region which became official in 2006.

As the Regional population and geographic base it most accurately reflects the true nature of the commuting distances most people are actually travelling. So the region's population is a mindboggling 9.5 Million and expected to be, at the least 11.5 Million by 2031. This is the region the GO RER and the rest of the GO rail and Bus system will connect. With internal connections to the various area HRT,LRT & BRT projects and then to local transit services.

How can this comment be greyed out. It's not offensive. The planet part is a little rude but the bulk of the comment is not even close to being offensive.

The fact that the truth here appears to be offensive is why I rarely read this site anymore let alone post. Shame.

Comment edited by notlloyd on 2016-05-30 16:02:58

So you finally admit there is a problem at least (can't see how you couldn't)and then you you say that what, building LRT and spending a billion dollars in Hamilton will go a long way to solving the problem? Is that what you are saying? I can't tell because your reply is essentially a histrionic "if not now when."

I posit that if the government of Ontario gave us a billion dollars to make Hamilton a 1 gig city, like Chattanooga TN, we would grow our tax base and thereby our infrastructure ten fold to what the LRT is going to do.

We are being bribed and threatened with our own money.

Comment edited by notlloyd on 2016-05-30 16:02:01

Yes that's great. The 1 Gig/sec system broadband and smart grid managed to lure a Volkswagen auto plant to Chattanooga, a city with less than half the urban population of Hamilton, Ontario and considerably less area population. The Volkswagen plant doesn't pay property taxes to the city and its pay roll taxes are paid by the state government. The auto plant is a non union shop and both Volkswagen and the state's Republican government are under investigation by US National Labor Relation's Board for actively and illegally blocking a vote to Unionize. Sure, the high speed broadband and smart grid is why Volkswagen located there.

The workers at that plant also make considerably less than other US and Canadian auto workers.

don't let the lunatic fringe chase you off, your voice needs to be heard, especially here

Agree with those who support the Liberals (at least on the issue of transit funding) or not, you'd have to completely ignore the fact that the Liberals have won two elections by majority in the last two years to call these folks the lunatic fringe.

Let me get this straight. You are opposed to cities being wired for high speed internet?

I never claimed there wasn't a problem. What you don't understand is that the problem is a total lack of any infrastructure spending other than on highways and private car accommodations. Until that turns around the problems will worsen.

If my choice is wiring a city for very,very high speed internet that is expensive and most people of modest means in Chattanooga can't afford, requires my hydro bills to subsidize it, is really only useful to people whom use the computer and internet a lot or require it for work all the time and could be obsolete in as little as 7 years, then no.

Light Rail helps everyone rich or poor have better mobility, has enormous latent passenger carrying capacity, far more than BRT, can act as a big catalyst to change entire neighborhoods for the better, limits car dependent sprawl, something our cities can no longer afford environmentally and financially, with proper maintenance will still be carrying a lot of passengers 40 years from now and is easily expanded into a larger network.

I understand fully. I applaud the LRT. I just think is is the wrong route and not necessarily a priority of spending. I also don't like the idea of the take it or leave it approach. But that does not make me ignorant of the fact that our province is in crisis.

Over 80% of the budget of this province is wages and benefits. We used our prior revenue not on infrastructure, but on mollifying unions. This started in the early 1980's when the transit plan spending was stopped. Every successive government has ignored the problem and now it is our crisis. These are the chickens coming home to roost. These are the times when we as children of those people need to look backward and say "what did you do to us?"

To say there is no financial crisis is folly. And to believe that the LRT is the best solution at this time to that crisis is wishful thinking at best. I understand all too well.

Comment edited by notlloyd on 2016-05-31 11:46:36

You wont get or lead the world with a 3d printer industry or advanced medical industries without 1 gig fiber optics.

This is a good comment. People who voted for the Liberals are not lunatics. They are just either ignorant, misguided, selfish or a combination of all three.

That's a good analysis to present to people who claim that Hamilton's population is "too small" for LRT, in conjunction with the fact that even the ridership on the current Main/King routes (around 30,000 per day in 2009 and over 36,000 now) is already enough to put us in the mid-range of currently operating systems.

Nevertheless, a city like Grenoble, with a metro population of 450,000 has had a very successful LRT network since the mid 1980s and is now building their fifth line. So there isn't really a good case to argue 520,000 alone is not enough.

I think many in Hamilton still don't get that we cannot rely on a "almost everyone drives almost everywhere" transportation model for much longer, especially once the the McMaster-Eastgate corridor densifies and functions again as an economically dynamic city again, which should be the goal. As in other cities, the first LRT line will be followed by others serving different parts of the city, perhaps as laid out in the BLAST plan.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2016-05-31 16:05:06