Is it time for cities to hand over the responsibility for public transit to the province?

The Toronto Region Board of Trade thinks so. In a report released Monday, the business advocacy group argues municipalities in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor should upload the entirety of their public transit systems to a new, powerful body created by the province.

The release of the report follows the unveiling of the Ontario Progressive Conservative election platform on Saturday, in which leader Patrick Brown pledged to take over the TTC subway system if elected next June, but leave the bus and streetcar network under local control.

The board’s proposal goes much further than that and is sure to spark controversy among local leaders across the region. But the report’s authors argue that consolidating the planning, construction and operation of transit into a single provincial body would benefit transit riders and municipal governments by reducing the risk of politics interfering in the delivery of evidence-based projects and freeing up cities to spend resources on other priorities.

“The existing, fragmented transit development and operating model is not meeting the needs of taxpayers, the business community, and transit users,” the report states.

Including GO Transit, there are 12 separate transit operators between Durham and Waterloo, and the report asserts that creating an overarching agency “would provide the vision, scale and resources to finally provide the world-class transit system that the corridor needs.”

The report’s authors contend that the new organization, which they’ve nicknamed Superlinx in a play on Metrolinx, the existing provincial transit agency for the GTHA, would solve multiple problems that have plagued the region’s transportation plans for decades.

Currently, badly needed transit projects can be delayed by political disputes either between different orders of government or within city halls.

And because cities have fewer tools to raise revenue than higher orders of government, they often struggle to come up with enough money to pay their share of new transit projects.

Transit riders making trips across the region are compelled to deal with different operators that have their own fare structures and service models.

Municipal agencies also have a poor track record of integrating land-use policy with transit projects, the authors argue. That means the agencies miss out on opportunities to raise money by leveraging the value of land surrounding stations and to integrate much-needed new housing with transit projects.

By contrast, Transport for London, England, recently released 300 acres of property across the British capital to accommodate 10,000 new and affordable homes, and the city’s Crossrail project is expected to generate $850 million (Canadian) from commercial and residential development at 12 properties.

The provincial government would lay out broad policies for Superlinx and have final say over its budget. But to limit political interference, half of the agency’s board would be made up of business leaders and transit experts nominated by an independent panel. At least one space would be reserved for a citizens’ or riders’ advocacy group.

About one-third of the board would consist of municipal and provincial appointees, while the remaining members would be Superlinx executives.

A dedicated real estate subsidiary would be created to “evaluate all transit related real estate assets to ensure they are being used for their best purpose.”

Superlinx would be responsible for paying for the region’s transit operations and state of good repair bills, which cost $3.4 billion annually. But cities would still contribute substantially. Superlinx would cover the cost by taking over all fare revenue and transit-related government transfers that currently go to municipalities, as well as most of the operating subsidies that cities provide their respective transit agencies.

That would leave a shortfall of about $264 million, which the board says Superlinx could raise by leveraging the value of transit-related real estate.

Because cities would be paying a slightly smaller subsidy to Superlinx than they currently do to their own transit agencies, the authors argue municipalities would save money. In Toronto’s case, they estimate the savings would be $93.3 million a year.

Superlinx would assume all municipalities’ transit-related debt, estimated at $3.1 billion, about 80 per cent of which is Toronto’s. That would free up debt room for cities to pay for other major projects like housing and storm water infrastructure, while the province and federal government would pay for new transit lines.

The report estimates it could take between two and four years to complete the upload.

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Although the report asserts that “channels for local input” and regular consultation would ensure municipalities would still have a say in transportation plans within their own borders, city councillors and local transit agencies like the TTC would probably balk at giving up autonomy to a provincial government that itself has faced accusations of distorting transit plans for its own purposes.

But Jan De Silva, president and CEO of the Board of Trade, points to Hamilton and Brampton, both of which have spent years debating how to proceed with billions of dollars worth of provincially funded light rail plans, as evidence that too often local bodies are getting in the way.

Democracy is one thing, she suggested, “but effectiveness of how government is working is something else. We need to think of how this impacts citizens.”

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