Silly Little Country

Toronto City Council is a Joke - Economics Exercise

The latest brilliant policy is likely to have some unintended consequences, if any consequences.

Developers building condos on Toronto transit lines will now have to buy every unit a TTC metropass for a year in order to obtain condominium approval from the city, a policy critics say comes at a high cost and without proof people will use it.

Now the policy seems to me a bit silly, maybe harmful, but what makes this a joke is the commentary from councillors, exhibiting a rather dimwitted view of the universe.

Councillor Howard Moscoe, however, believes it “will cause people on transit lines to abandon their cars.”

Almost surely not - see below.

The policy states the cost of the metropasses cannot be passed on to the condo buyer.

I especially love that - how can anyone tell?
More from our genius Moscoe:

“Besides, it doesn’t cost the builder of the condo anything up front. He can buy the transit pass in bulk from the TTC at a 12% discount, and get a 16% writeoff on his income tax from the federal government for transit passes. So it’s a win win for everybody,” he said.

No comment. This beggars belief.

Mr. Moscoe said the idea is not really to generate revenue, since presumably some people in the building would have bought passes on their own, but to get people thinking about public transit.

My jaw is now on the floor. "since ... SOME"?

“I think we’re going to get awards for this all over North America,” he said.

I suspect Moscoe is right here and it is symptomatic of what is wrong with this city; instead of controlling budgets and providing services effectively, Miller and crew have whored themselves out left and right for awards using largely symbolic gestures.
Now of course this whole thing is a symbolic gesture, as the passes are transferable.

“This is found money for the TTC,” he said of the plan. Or a treat for a condo dweller who can simply resell the pass.

So it is probably not even found money for the TTC - we just need someone to set up a decent secondary market (an excellent web application) in Metropasses.
What strikes me is that one approach to forcing people onto transit is not giving them parking spaces. But as it turns out:

Mr. Dupuis noted zoning bylaws stipulate 1.2 spaces per unit, which creates extraordinary expense for some of the larger buildings that have to dig several floors underground.

Oh well, nevermind.
I do note that all the dumb quotations above issue from one person, so why is the whole council a joke?

He pushed the initiative forward, which passed council without debate.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 10:44 AM