TORONTO — Franz Hartmann sat down between community activist Effie Vlachoyannacos and TTC union boss Bob Kinnear inside the Essex Room at the downtown Sheraton Hotel.
From behind the table and under the glare of the spotlights situated on both sides of the room, Hartmann leaned forward towards the microphone and said, “The TTC needs fixing. Fares are high, stations are dirty, customer service needs improvement and we need to expand the TTC to get accessible, fast transit to the four corners of our City.”
But he’s concerned that several leading mayoral candidates believe privatization is the solution.
“Privatization makes public transit worse,” said Hartmann, the Executive Director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance which is a member of the Public Transit Coalition, a collaborative of thousands of Torontonians who agree that the TTC must be kept public, be properly funded by all levels of Government, and that the Transit City Light Rail plan be completed by 2020.
“That means more people will drive. And that means more smog and more greenhouse gas pollution.”
Due to the generous contribution from the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), Local 113 (Kinnear’s union), the Public Transit Coalition launched a $500,000 television, print, transit and online ad campaign Monday to let the public know what happened in similar cities that privatized their transit system.
“Privatizing public transit has not worked in major cities around the world,” said Hartmann. “And there is no evidence to suggest it will work in Toronto.”
Kinnear quickly dismissed the notion that ATU, Local 113 “made a large contribution to this campaign because the union is somehow afraid of privatization.”
He pointed out that his union negotiated with a private transit company decades before the TTC was established. And it continues to bargain today with Veolia Transportation, a corporate multi-national, in York Region.
“As a union, we are not afraid of privatization,” said Kinnear. “We can deal with whoever is on the other side of the bargaining table.”
Still, he’s deeply concerned about other big cities that have privatized their transit service.
So is Vlachoyannacos, a Scarborough native, who knows what fast, reliable transit service means to those living in the inner city suburbs.
She understands how hard it can be on a person to travel one way on a route that takes 90 minutes without traffic delays or to stand outside for 30 minutes waiting for a bus during the cold winter months.
“We need to make sure that what’s being offered are real solutions,” said Vlachoyannacos. “Not hobby horses or sweetheart deals that won’t help Toronto’s ridership.”
Otherwise, she said, the university student in Malvern will continue to take four buses to reach the U of T Scarborough campus. The Thorncliffe Park shift worker will keep on struggling to make her way home because her bus only runs during traditional rush hours.
And the father in Rexdale will remain at the bus stop, watching three full buses pass him every morning as he tries to make his way downtown to work.
“Privatizing transit will result in higher fares,” she said.
“This means that the mother in southeast Scarborough will continue to have to walk 25 to 30 minutes to buy her groceries because she can’t afford the rising cost of fares.”
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