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While you may not share some of my views on public transit, you are going to LOVE some of the links on this webpage.

Those whose job it is to know about public transportation know that Toronto lags well behind other major population centers in the world that choose a progressive stance in their approach to transit and traffic planning. Toronto planners seem satisfied with traffic systems that congest rather than create easy flow throughout the city, and retain outdated streetcar technology that for some unknown reason City Hall wishes to perpetuate with a planned series of new streetcar lines, placing the city into severe financial stress without improving transit access for riders in the doing of it.

This is not a personal opinion. It is shared by a great many thinking Torontonians. Because the outgoing Mayor has chosen to saddle the city with several new streetcar lines as his 'legacy', even the other Mayoralty candidates have seen the need to wade in with their ideas on how Toronto should change its public transit and general spending priorities in order to reduce, rather than augment, the enormous financial strain the city is currently experiencing as well as offering solutions to some of the traffic-moving problems experienced by its road users.

But how have they 'waded in'?

Unfortunately, mainly with expensive ideas that will increase the city's $3 Billion current deficit to as much as $10 Billion while reducing the city's normal income stream, ultimately causing a tripling of current taxes and placing Toronto in a position where its deficit (money it owes to creditors) is equal-to-or-more-than its current $9.2 Billion operating budget. You may have read that some of the city's boroughs have seen this dreadful financial situation coming and are panicking and wanting out of the amalgamation. By comparison, New York City with more than three times as many citizens, has a deficit of $7 Billion, and has been ordered by Washington to eliminate it as a fiscal weight the general economy can not tolerate.

When a city's deficit/budget ratio reaches 50-50, it becomes a prime candidate for bankruptcy, and as New York is currently doing, must shred city services, welfare departments, and personnel in order to reduce that deficit. Other Toronto Mayoralty candidates have suggested ideas ranging from having the city lose income by selling off its assets, to spending even more Billions of dollars we don't have on the new streetcar system and putting the city in direct danger of bankruptcy in the process, to making foolish promises about reducing city services that just can't be kept because, although he takes the attitude that he will create those changes, city hall is not a dictatorship where a new Mayor can just march in and order changes to be made; and even if a new Mayor could wield such powers, the changes he proposes would bring such an insignificant reduction in the city's operating costs that they would make no difference at all in the reduction of the currently standing deficit... let alone address the city's traffic and transit needs. But at least the other Mayoralty candidates are cognizant of the need for some solution to transit that will serve Torontonians now and into the future.

This page contains links to all kinds of interesting sites and articles that describe up-to-date and advanced thinking about public transportation. Perhaps I should have entitled it, "The REAL Public Transportation Page". Don't be too discouraged by what toronto is planning after you see what the rest of the world is going with public transit. There's always the prospect of electing someone with intelligence and vision as your next Mayor.

Enjoy!