The fairness fallacy (a transit story)

Scarborough Councillor
Michelle Berardinetti, we must fight.
(Photo from her website)

It's taken me more than a decade of living in Toronto to feel a real vested interest in local politics. Watching the city elect a guy like Rob Ford as mayor will do that to you. I've not really kept my feelings for the mayor's policies a secret, and since I'm in the middle of trying out a dozen different directions for this blog, I might as well lob an angry rant about politics. I didn't want to write a "hey, I dislike Rob Ford" blog post. Not only has it been done, it's been done by people who have way more practice than I do.


Recently one of the city's suburban councillors by the name of Michelle Berardinetti took to Twitter to pontificate on recent attempts to reopen debate on a major rapid transit initiative known as Transit City. It consisted of a network of light rapid transit (LRT) rail-based lines, starting with Phase 1's Finch, Eglinton, Sheppard and Scarborough lines (the latter a one-for-one replacement for an existing RT rail line).

The four pieces of pre-Fordian Transit City.
Source: TTC.ca

Rob Ford declared on his first day in office that Transit City was dead. People did not want glorified streetcars, he said, so he asked the province to rip up its plans for the first phase of Transit City and use the money to complete the Scarborough LRT line and, significantly, bury the Eglinton line from end to end. Transit City had already called for the line to be buried through the centre of the city, emerging as a surface route on the east end at Laird Drive (which you'll find marked on the orange line above) and continuing through to Kennedy. What was so puzzling about this decision was that there was no reason to do it. What was so infuriating about this decision was that it would come at the expense of the Finch and Sheppard lines.

That didn't sit well with many folks, but it didn't seem like there was much anyone could do about it in a Ford-controlled city council until that same council shot down some fairly significant service cuts to the relative surprise of many. All of a sudden, the door was open to taking another look at the dismissal of Transit City.

This is where Michelle Berardinetti - and my indignation - comes in. She made some eye-opening comments on Twitter this week on why we should just accept the mayor's unilateral cancellation of the plan in favour of paying to bury the Eglinton line through the suburbs.

Heard LRT will stop every 300m between streets forcing Scarborough residents to walk to bus stops. Also exposed to elements.
@CouncillorMB on Twitter

Let me just start by saying that I think it behooves a city councillor to make major (read: multibillion-dollar) policy decisions based on reliable sources, not just what you "heard" somewhere. What really caught my eye, though, was the point about being exposed to the elements. Is she really suggesting that we should spend an extra $2-billion to bury the full length of the line just so people don't have to stand outside to catch the LRT? Apparently yes.

Scarborough residents will be forced to stand in the elements while downtown they can go underground.
@CouncillorMB on Twitter

Given the pain and anguish of these past several months, with consultants' reports on selling off everything that isn't bolted down, and slashing services from daycare to libraries, and the incessant messaging from the mayor's office that we need to focus on what we need, not what we want, this argument left me dumbfounded. After all, I live in what Councillor Berardinetti would likely consider downtown, and I have to stand out on the street corner to catch a streetcar home from work every evening and it is frequently unpleasant outside when I do that, so according to her, my whole streetcar line should be buried too?

What's especially irksome about it is that we are seeing here (once again) an attempt to pit downtown against the suburbs. It's a childish "fairness" proposition that ignores not only the realities of budgeting and wants-vs-needs, but fundamental transit planning principles as well. Sure, it would be super awesome if there was a subway that ran from my employer straight to my house, but when you're talking about billions of dollars, you really have to narrow your focus down to the level of capacity and convenience that is required, not what people will say they want in a telephone poll.

The "fairness" argument ignores the fact that downtown wards and the suburban wards are not the same. Population density is wildly different. Room for building transit lines is pretty much non-existent downtown, while Eglinton Avenue in the Scarborough stretch has enough room to lay down rail lines without displacing a single lane for car traffic. That was all part of the plan.

The height of my indignation, however, is reserved for the glaring omission in Councillor Berardinetti's logic that it is unfair for downtown riders to enjoy full-blown subways while suburban riders slum it on the surface: the riders of Finch West. One way or another, even under the madness of king Ford, the Eglinton line would be built. But with Transit City dead, the people of Toronto's northwestern reaches were getting royally screwed.

When Ford was asked about this upon his declaration of Transit City's demise, he mumbled some platitudes about bumping up bus service on Finch West. This plan, if you can call it that, suffered from the minor deficiency that the TTC is throwing as many buses as it can at Finch West in rush hour and still can't meet demand. It then proceeded to suffer from a major deficiency when Ford ordered the TTC to slash 10% from its operating budget, a move that resulted in the threat of there actually being fewer buses on Finch West than before, let alone more.

Spoke to one Scarborough MPP who is adamant that Scarborough residents be treated fairly. Not second class citizens.
CouncillorMB on Twitter

What about the communities whose LRTs were cancelled outright to cover the cost of treating riders in her ward "fairly"? Second-class citizens? Tell that to Finch riders who will get nothing because of billions spent burying for no other reason than that Scarberians don't feel like standing in the rain. Well, that's according to Councillor Berardinetti. The mayor has come out with a double-down strategy on the status quo that employs the rather dubious argument that people won't use the Eglinton line if it's not buried because then it will be too slow.

You know what's slow? Finch West. They are the true second-class citizens in this story, and I'd like to think it has nothing to do with the fact that riders in the Finch West area (Ward 8) are largely in lower income groups compared to the Scarberians represented by Michelle Berardinetti in Ward 35. But to be fair, it's not really her job to fight for Ward 8's residents, so maybe we should just leave that be.

Heard from several MPPs to stop flip flopping especially given the financial pressures at the Province.
@CouncillorMB on Twitter

Province wants City to make a decision so that they can get on with it - and words of advice are flip-flopping doesnt help.
@CouncillorMB on Twitter

This is the delicious denouement of her comments that night. When people in politics are accused of flip-flopping, I'd just once like to hear a politician come out and say "Yes, I changed my mind. I did that because the situation changed. I am more concerned with getting it right now than I am with sticking to a bad decision just to make it look like I'm decisive." But that will never happen, especially not in this case. Why? Because Toronto city council never actually changed its mind on anything. There was no vote to shoot down Transit City. The change in policy came from the mayor's office alone. If council were to come out tomorrow and vote to continue with Transit City as originally conceived, it would constitute no change of policy on its part.

The premier accepted Ford's decree that Transit City was dead because he thought Ford carried with him the mandate with city council and voters alike. Neither of those seem quite so assured today. If council takes back control over the transit agenda, it will be flip-flopping only insofar as it represents council resuming its prerogative to stop following the mayor blindly, something it never should have done in the first place.

The sad part is that even if council does snap back to reality and hammer out a compromise on burying the Eglinton line, all the talk has been of routing that money back to the Sheppard LRT. So far as I can tell, Finch West is still abandoned.

And how does this story end for Councillor Berardinetti? She got called out on Twitter for making this into a downtown-vs-suburbs battle, and responded the next morning:

never said I was opposed to LRT on Eg above ground from Laird to Kennedy. 
@CouncillorMB on Twitter

Well, there really can't be any other interpretation to your comments above about Scarborough riders being second-class citizens because they might be exposed to the elements and your repeating of the argument that we shouldn't flip-flop away from burying it from Laird to Kennedy -- so yeah, you did say that. Nice try, though.

Tell me what you think:

• How important do you think the 'downtown vs suburbs' comparisons are as a basis for city planning? Do Scarberians have a point?
• Does Rob Ford have a point about the deminished usefulness of building Eglinton without burying it?
• And why aren't the councillors for Ward 7 and 8, those most affected by the cancellation of the Finch LRT, up in arms?