Toronto buying new street cars. 

The City of Toronto’s surplus from last year is a whopping $292 million, almost $140 million higher than previously forecast, a city source says.

Most of the windfall, minus about $8 million earmarked for two funds, will be directed toward the outstanding bill to replace the TTC’s old streetcar fleet, the source confirmed Friday after word started to leak out ahead of a Monday announcement.

Councillor Peter Milczyn, a budget committee member, said he knew the surplus would be “substantially higher” than the $154 million estimated by staff when council approved the 2012 budget in January, but he hadn’t heard an exact figure.

“Council directed that the surplus be directed to capital purchases and specifically the new TTC streetcar order,” Milczyn said.

“That order (made under the previous administration) was about $750 million with no way to pay for it. I think we’ve identified about $200 million, so this (surplus) would leave us with $500 million to $600 million to find.”

Much of the surplus is thanks to Toronto’s hot real estate market and the land transfer tax that Mayor Rob Ford has vowed to scrap.

During January’s bruising budget debate, council defied Mayor Rob Ford and his allies by using $19 million in surplus funds to prevent a host of cuts.

Despite the vote to aim the rest at the streetcar order, councillors now trying to prevent other cuts, including closure of city-run zoos at High Park and Centreville, are likely to look at the latest windfall with interest.

Summary: The Toronto mayor had taken out 292 million dollars out of the yearly budget, and has has decided to spend it on new Toronto street cars. Their was a lot of disgusting about if they should or shouldn't spend it on the new street cars, some thought it was very unnecessary to do so. They assume that with Toronto's very high taxes it will be easy to pay off the debt of the brand new street cars. 

Opinion: Why fix whats not broken? the Toronto street cars are fine, they get people from point a to point b. They aren't the most comfortable things in the world however they are just like the subways, but they aren't getting redone. Personaly i dont think it is worth the time and effort to re due the street cars, how long are the cars going to be down for before people can start using them again. for 292 million dollars i think it is a awful idea. The Canadian government could definitely put that money to something more important.   

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1169839--city-of-toronto-surplus-surges-to-292-million-most-of-which-will-help-buy-new-streetcars

Friday, April 22, 2012