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University of Toronto’s Independent Weekly
the newsmagazine
U of T’s APOLLO 13 DREAM TEAMpage 3
May 20, 2010Vol. I N0. 1
LIFE AFTER SCHOOL?page 6
TORONTO UNDERGROUND CINEMApage 4ATOM EGOYAN
page 7
TRANSIT CITYbackpage
T H E Q & A I S S U E
There is no question that there is ongoing tension between the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) and Antonin Mon-geau, former president and current alumni chair of EFUT (U of T’s French club). Their strained relations reached a critical point on April 25 when UTSU Executive Director An-gela Regnier sent an email to Mongeau ask-ing him to “cease and desist any contact with staff and executive members of the Univer-sity of Toronto Student’s Union effective im-mediately” because of his alleged “displays of hostility and aggression against staff and executive members of [UTSU].”
Mongeau played a controversial role in the recent UTSU elections. He posted a confron-tational video on YouTube showing a Ryer-son Students’ Union (RSU) exec campaign-ing on behalf of the Stronger Together slate. In reaction to the video, the UTSU election’s Chief Returning Offi cer issued 25 demerit points to the Change slate based on ha-rassment from a “non-arm’s-length party.” This compelled Change to publicly distance themselves from Mongeau.
A few days after the cease and desist email was sent, UTSU held an open forum on the state of the Student Commons project in a University College classroom. Mongeau de-
fi ed the cease and desist by attending the meeting. Forty-fi ve minutes after the sched-uled start of the meeting, outgoing UTSU President Sandy Hudson announced that it was cancelled due to “unforeseeable circum-stances.” An attendance list went around to the approximately 35 attendees asking for their names, affi liated organizations, and email addresses. Then the meeting dis-persed. Within half an hour, telephone calls went out to a select group of attendees to notify them that the meeting would recon-vene immediately at the Graduate Students’ Union basement at 16 Bancroft.
Mongeau caught wind of the new location and entered the basement partway through the meeting. Campus police were contacted and a recess was called. Police came and talked to Mongeau privately before escort-ing him out of the building. The basement door was subsequently locked.
Regnier’s cease and desist request was not a formal injunction against Mongeau. It was not sent to him through UTSU’s lawyers, but was upheld by the campus police. UTSU refused to comment on their harassment claims. Campus police and the university administration have also offi cially declined to comment.
Interested? Send resume to [email protected]
Online media manager needed!
May 20, 2010 Q&A issue the newsmagazine
Welcome to the newsmagazineThis summer, the editors here
at the newspaper are launching the newsmagazine.
Like the newspaper, the magazine will be independent, which means that rather than seeking any subsidy from the university’s administration or unions, we run solely on adver-tising revenue and are therefore beholden only to our readers.
Unlike our weekly paper, the newsmagazine comes out on a monthly basis. This better re-fl ects the pacing of the summer news cycle on campus, and al-lows our contributors to take a longer look at the current events that shape the student experience.
Each magazine is a theme-driven exploration of the news and arts we regularly cover in our weekly newspaper. In our inaugural issue, we built our stories around Q&As that we conducted with the spring newsmakers: U of T students, alumni, professors, directors, city transit activists, and fresh-ly-minted theatre managers.
The June magazine will ex-plore Nature & Culture around campus; July will look at Food & Drink; and August will test the relationship between Art & Science. the newspaper will continue printing over the sum-mer, alternating with the maga-zine on a biweekly schedule.
UTSU vs. Guess Who?Our student government leaves
questions unanswered
2 May 20, 2010
the newspaperEditor-in-Chief
Helene GoderisArts Editor
Sarah D’Angelo News EditorAmy Stupavsky
Layout EditorVictoria Dobbs
the newspaper1 Spadina Crescent, Suite 245
Toronto, ON M5S 1A1Editorial: 416-593-1552
[email protected]@thenewspaper.ca
the newspaper is U of T’s independent weekly paper, published by Planet Publications Inc.,
a non-profi t corporation.
All U of T community members, including students, staff and faculty, are encouraged to contribute to the newspaper.
the editorial
Photo EditorAlex Nursall
Illustrations EditorMelinda Mortillaro
Science EditorTim Ryan
editorial by Helene Goderis
cover illustration by OCAD student Patrick Kyle
by Diana Wilson
the newsmagazineEditor-in-Chief
Helene Goderis
Arts EditorSarah D’Angelo
Features EditorDiana Wilson
Layout EditorVictoria Dobbs
Photo EditorDan Epstein
Business ManagerJamaias DaCosta
Copy EditorGord Brown
In the spirit of our Q&A issue, the news-magazine hoped to provide a platform for UTSU to respond to Mongeau’s questions. Mongeau denies UTSU’s claims of harass-ment, stating that UTSU’s unwillingness to answer his questions is symptomatic of their opacity. the newsmagazine sent Mon-geau’s queries to UTSU with a disclaimer that they do not represent the views of our paper and that the organization should take the opportunity to correct any possi-bly misleading information. UTSU Presi-dent Adam Awad’s response: “I am not in a position to debate with Mr. Mongeau at this time.” (Note: The explanations in brackets following the questions were also written by Antonin Mongeau):
How much money was put into the Clubs Funding Rollover fund this year? (During the 2008-09 elections VP Inter-nal & Services Adnan Najmi promised the establishment of a roll-over fund for clubs funding. He later confi rmed that the fund was in fact operational beginning this year. The fund would presumably house any un-used moneys from one year to increase the next year’s budget. Clubs are chronically underfunded, and the smaller ones have a
The Faculty of Architecture has decided to move into 1 Spadina Cres. The University has tentatively offered the Architecture Faculty’s current space at 230 College St to the U.T.S.U. as the new home for the Student Commons. The original plan for the Commons was a new building on Devonshire across from Varsity Stadium. At the April 28th meeting newly mint-ed UTSU president Adam Awad presented photos, layouts and some sketches for possible renovations of the old building. He explained that the College St. building would have a little more useable space than the planned Devonshire space and, with careful retrofi tting, would still be eligible for LEEDS certifi cation. Without anything formalized yet, the renovations are projected to cost 15 million dollars. The secretly rescheduled meeting ended in a yes vote to explore the possibility of moving the Student Commons project to 230 College Street.
tendency not to pick up their second and third instalments, meaning that of the pur-ported $180K allocated for clubs, less than $100K actually went out the door. Where is the rest?)
Where will the Student Commons ac-tually be?
If a democracy had a 100% incumben-cy rate, wouldn’t you say it needed drastic electoral reform to introduce more democratic accountability? (The incumbents have never lost an election since the CFS took over in 2002. No functioning democracy has a similar incumbency rate.)
How often does the UTSU use police to silence dissent?
What proof do you have that Antonin Mongeau is harassing you?
Given that Antonin’s attendance at UTSU meetings and events on Uni-versity property has been sanctioned by both the police and the adminis-tration, how long can you continue to hide in the GSU basement?
the newsmagazine: How did the U of T Scientists get involved in Apollo 13? Why did Grumman Aerospace contact you?
Phil Sullivan: Having obtained research support from various US government agencies, UTIAS already had a strong reputation in the USA. In particular Dr. French’s highly sensitive qua-drupole mass spectrometer for trace gas analysis had been used on a NASA mission to Mars, as I recall. I think his involvement with US space programs was thus well known to senior per-sonnel at Grumman, the build-ers of the LEM.
tn: With only four hours to help, what resources did you use to calculate the correct pressure? Would you use the same resources today?
PS: Basically, classic “back-of-the envelope” estimates using engineering judgements based on past experience, Newton’s three laws of mechanics, and some known scaling laws for the propagation of blast waves. Data on masses and the like was sup-plied by Grumman, and physical constants were obtained from readily available text books. I used a slide rule to “crunch the numbers.” Given such a short time to respond, the approach to-day would be basically the same, except for possibly using the internet in place of text-books for rapid access to physical con-stants, as well as a hand calcula-tor in place of a slide rule.
tn: As the story goes, UTIAS was in the middle of a rou-tine staff meeting when the phone call from Grumman came through. What was that moment like? Can you
recall the thoughts going through your mind?
Barry French: I left the meeting to take the call... I was a bit over-whelmed but we instantly and unanimously agreed to help all we could.
PS: I expect most of us thought that Apollo 13 was “game over” for the astronauts. I can dis-tinctly remember hoping that some one else was doing similar calcs, and was surprised to learn later that we were the only ones. I suspect that the engineering teams involved at NASA and elsewhere had judged that the proposed separation solution would work, but because of the huge risks involved, wanted an independent opinion.
tn: How has the Apollo 13 incident infl uenced your career and/or life?
BF: It was an immensely grati-fying experience to have partici-
On April 16th 1970, the staff at UTIAS (University of Toronto Institute of Aerospace Studies) were in the midst of a routine staff meeting when they were interrupted by a phone call that would change the course of Aero-space history forever. It was US based Grumman Aerospace, call-ing to convey the message NASA had received moments before, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
Apollo 13 had experienced an oxygen tank explosion that had crippled the Service Mod-ule, leaving the Apollo 13 crew stranded in the Lunar Module (LM, formerly called LEM), which was connected to the Command Module. The even bigger problem? How much pressure would be necessary to safely separate the modules and get the three stranded astro-nauts home.
40 years later the UTIAS team, Professors Barry French, Phil Sullivan, Rod Tennyson, Irvine Glass and Ben Etkin were hon-ored during a ceremony at The Canadian Air and Space Mu-seum for providing NASA with the exact calculations needed to bring the Apollo 13 crew home safely. We asked Professors Barry French and Phil Sullivan to share some of their memories about that famous day.
pated in such a high profi le event and in helping to save four human lives. And my grandchildren love the story (and all this unexpected publicity 40 years later).
PS: In later years I used it in lectures to engineering students as an illustration of “engineering at work” validating some of the material we teach, and as an ex-ample in a philosophy of science text to refute the postmodernist claptrap that passes for serious critiques of science in certain disciplines.
the newsmagazine talks with two members of the UTIAS
Apollo 13 Rescue Team, (left to right) Professors Phil Sullivan,
Rod Tennyson, Irvine Glass, Barry French, and Ben Etkin,
pictured below spacing out.
May 20, 2010 Q&A issue the newsmagazine
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3May 20, 2010 the campus
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photo courtesy of Joan DaCosta
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Who you gonna call? After Bloor Cinema owners booted them to the curb, Toronto Under-
ground Cinema’s (left-to-right above) Manager of Public Relations Charlie Lawton (age 22),
Manager of Operations Nigel Agnew (age 25) and Manager of Finance Alex Woodside (age
24), got busy greenscreening themselves into a world making Toronto movie magic.
4 May 20, 2010the inside
If you’ve never seen the 700-seat movie palaceIf you’ve never seen the 700-seat movie palacehidden beneath Toronto’s Queen & Spadina
fashion district, you’re not alone.
Lodged in the rear end of a half-vacant mall under a condo building at 186 Spadina
Ave, the theatre hasn’t seen regular operation
since its doors were shuttered in 1995 after a
stint showing Chinese-language cinema. Enter Nigel
Agnew, Alex Woodside and Charlie Lawton, three
entrepreneurial twenty-somethings who are giving
Torontonians the chance to become reacquainted with the
venue they’ve dubbed Toronto Underground Cinema.
The action started Friday May 14 when a packed dou-
ble-bill of Clue and Big Trouble in Little China played
for an excited near-capacity audience. Regular screen-
ings will begin May 28th.
My memories of working with Alex and Nigel at the
Bloor Cinema are mixed with triumph and heartbreak.
We dreamed big and delivered: bringing directors Ed-
gar Wright, Kevin Smith, and launching the largest
shows in Toronto Fringe Festival history, where Charlie
Lawton met his cinephile soulmates. After the Bloor’s
owners booted them to the curb, this trio of hardcore
fi lm geeks got busy greenscreening themselves into a
world making Toronto movie magic.
After the interview, while picking out props for the
photo shoot, Lawton asks me “Can you take some
photos of us where we don’t look like total nerds?”
Sorry, Charlie. That’s not possible.
the newsmagazine Q&A issue May 20, 2010
the newsmagazine layout editor & former Bloor Cinema
manager catches up with her ex-colleagues in their new digs
5May 20, 2010 the inside
the newsmagazine: What’s your favourite fi lm to watch on 35mm?
Nigel Agnew: Off the top of my head I would say The Godfa-ther. I feel like watching it on 35 is akin to eating a seven-course Italian meal.
Alex Woodside: It’s compli-cated because my favourite fi lm is 2001 and my second favourite is Apocalypse Now but I prefer to watch both of those on 70mm – but that’s impossible. So I would say The Big Lebowskithen because that’s shot on 35.
Charlie Lawton: Ooh, that’s really tricky. Probably an old classic. I would love to see In-diana Jones on 35 or one of those movies I loved when I was younger. So that, or Ghost-busters, or Clockwork Orange would be beautiful on 35.
tn: How is the experience of watching a fi lm on 35mm different from watching a DVD at home?
NA: The most important thing about watching it in a theatre as opposed to at home is that you
have an audi-
ence to watch it with.CL: When you see it with a
crowd it just has an energy and electricity to it that you don’t get at home.
AW: You’re not only interact-ing with what’s going on the screen, but you’re also reacting to how the audience is reacting to what’s going on. It just makes it a bit of a more complex and layered experience.
NA: 35 has its own charac-ter. You can see the cigarette mark on the top on the right hand corner when they need to change the reels and sometimes they have some wear and tear that adds to the overall feeling of watching something that’s been crafted on fi lm.
AW: I always think that 35 looks better than DVD or even Blue Ray because that’s the way it was shot – if it’s shot on 35 I think it should be viewed on 35. If it’s shot digitally then I think watching it through a digital medium is the best way to view it. But nothing beats 35 for a fi lm shot on 35.
tn: Not everyone gets the opportunity to revive a forgotten cinema. What
circumstances led you
here?
NA: Really the opportunity was almost sheer luck.
AW: After leaving the Bloor Cinema I spent the day with Leslea [a former colleague] tracking down who was run-ning this space – like a full day. I had known about the space for about 5 years but I’d never been inside, so I was really excited. We had a conversation with [the owner] but ultimately we decided it wasn’t the right time. Then a whole bunch of months later Charlie was really bugging me…
CL: We were talking and Alex mentioned this theatre and I was like “That sounds like the best job you could possibly have, why did you not do anything with that?” and kinda smacked him on the back of the head and said “Give me the information, I’m going to go do it”. Then I got in touch with Nigel.
NA: We came in and spoke with the owner and told him that we would provide infrastructure and operate the theatre if he was willing to put some money into it, and he agreed.
tn: Has your experience so far at the Toronto Under-ground Cinema differed from your expectations?
AW: The reaction from the community is what really sur-
prised me. It’s not only from general people on Facebook but people within the fi lm community who have really let us know that they re-ally want us to succeed and that they’re really excited.
CL: There’s a bit more danc-ing and listening to music than I thought there would be.
tn: What do you think peo-ple should know about the TUC?
CL: Most importantly I think they should know where it is.AW: We’re located in the base-ment of a condo building. We’re really hard to fi nd, which is a problem for us but it’s why we called ourselves the Toronto Underground Cinema.
NA: It’s a cinema that’s be-ing run and operated by 3 very enthusiastic movie fans. We live and breathe cinema and that’s what’s important to us. When you’re coming here you’re not just a seat number, you are somebody. We’re work-ing to make sure this is a place you want to come regardless of what’s being shown because you know you’ll always have a good time.
tn: In your wildest dreams, what do you want for the TUC?
CL: I’d love it to become a part of Toronto’s culture so ev-
eryone knows the Un-derground Cinema. Like
by Victoria Dobbs
the Alamo Draft House
in Texas.NA: I’d like it
to become the premiere event
space in Toronto. I’d like to have directors when they’re fi lming in the city come here and use the space to enjoy nights with their audience.
CL: Kevin Smith one month, Quentin Tarantino another, Martin Scorsese….
NA: I’d like to be able to put enough money into the place where it’s top of the line and can compete with the big boys like AMC and Cineplex.
AW: I want to be able to spend enough money on the lobby to make it look like Tony Mon-tana’s mansion in Scarface. I want a “the world is yours” globe, lit with neon lights, that spins.
tn: What are the most ter-rifying obstacles between you and success?
NA: The most terrifying obsta-cle is the amount of work it will take.
CL: Making sure everything is ready for the opening is prob-ably the most terrifying part. But really the terrifying one that keeps me up at nights is the x-factor, the audience. We could turn this into the best theatre in the world, the fl oors paved with gold, but for all we know the au-dience might not show up.
photos by Dan Epstein,
graphics by Victoria Dobbs
May 20, 2010 Q&A issue the newsmagazine
Desperate for a cinefix?
Regular screenings start
May 28th
More photos of the Toronto
Underground Cinema available
at thenewspaper.ca
Check the cinema’s listings from
torontoundergroundcinema.com
or on Twitter @TO _ Underground
6 May 20, 2010the arts
Remember being a plucky high school graduate, fl ip-ping through the brochures of post secondary education? I do. The future seemed like such a warm place.
But I’ll spare you the senti-mental rehashing of my own little Kunstleroman and get to the point. University did not endow me with clarity or purpose. Not in the way I had dreamt it would when I was 18.
Going through the motions of school feels like being in a clip from a National Geo-graphic documentary. Maybe one of baby sea turtles hatch-ing on land, then waddling frantically through the sand while birds of prey swoop down and snatch them up into the sky. If one in a hun-dred make it to the ocean it’s considered worthwhile. And I do feel like someone’s breakfast most days of the week.
Studying a fi ne art form is fi nicky.
Arguably, it relies more on a student’s ability to see be-yond the classroom than on monitoring a looming GPA. It’s the seemingly s y m -biotic relationship between the term ‘student’ and ‘artist’ that g e t s
me wondering if post-sec-ondary is necessary for suc-cess. If you’re a driven artist, is sweating through an un-dergraduate degree anything more than an expensive ex-pansion of your social net-work?
It’s not uncommon for students to drop out in the middle of a program or fi n-ish their degree only to scrap it completely to pursue new directions. I want to know what it takes to make the most of university, so I in-terviewed recent U of T Fine Arts graduate Alex Nursall. While a student, her list of extracurricular activities was remarkable: she worked as an associate photo editor for both The Varsity and the newspaper, hosted The Bea-ver Lodge on CIUT, played the bassoon for the Hart House orchestra and the HH symphonic band, vol-unteered as a sexual health counsellor at SEC, worked as a residence don at UC, an-nounced volleyball games for the Varsity Blues, ran Varsity track, and played in a punk band called Too Far North.
the news-magazine: What are you currently studying? What year are you in?
Alex Nursall: Currently I’m studying the terrors of the real world. I just fi nished my 5th year at U of T and now I need a break from school. I do have a degree though, in English and Visual Studies, which makes me qualifi ed for jobs such as stand-up comedy, apple picker, or a writer for Two and a Half Men (rimshot).
tn: Did you have any expectations about the program initial-ly that have been fulfi lled or disap-pointed? How have your perceptions of the program changed?
some of the classes; if you’re only there for that lovely 80%, why the fuck would you care about building yourself as an artist, especially if it’s
not your medium?I’m a photographer, and if
you put me in a performance art class, you’d probably just fi nd me hiding in a corner, giggling and cowering. It’s not that I don’t think perfor-mance art is important, it’s because I myself am not a performer, and would be ut-ter shit at it, and am way too self-conscious.
Did that even answer the question? Fuck.
tn: Do you feel that there are specifi c limitations to art school?
AN: Well, they’re trying to in-struct you in a program that (aside from the knowledge of past artists and techniques)
really focuses on y o u r personal expression.And it’s hard when people seriously suck at it.
I know I’ve made some pa-thetically shitty work in my
time there, and so has everyone else. You’re limited be-cause you’re trying to express yourself while trying to con-form to the likes and dislikes of the prof, which fucks with your head after awhile. I once did this detailed photo project for a class, and after hours of editing, realized that it wasn’t going to work. So instead, I fi red up Word, typed in three words in a nice, simple font, printed it out, and handed that in. I got an ‘A’. An ‘A’! What the fuck is that?
tn: How would you rate your overall undergraduate ex-
perience so far? If you could, would you change anything?
AN: It was interesting, and I learned a lot, blah blah etc, but by the end I was pretty tired of it. Partly, it’s because I’m kind of cranky and fi g-ured out later on that while I love photography, what I re-ally love is photojournalism, and you don’t go into VIS to become a photographer for the New York Times.
Maybe if you had spoken to me the moment I got out of the program, I might have been a bit crankier about it all, but since I’m a year out, it sort of makes everything seem a little nicer with hind-sight. I’m starting to lose my teeth in my old age.
the newsmagazine Arts Editor probes
the brain of U of T graduate Alex Nursall
about the existence of life after school
AN: When you enter into
an art
program fresh out of high school, you expect it to be this sort of highly detailed instruction process where your profs are constantly
swooping around you, trying to create the next Vermeers or
Banksys or whatever. What I got was kind of that, but there were times
where it felt like they just sort of hucked you into the fray
and hoped you could swim through the
mess of paints. Tortured metaphors aside, I found it to be a relatively inter-
esting program, but it was limited. Lots of fun classes were cancelled or fi lled up in a nanosecond, meaning that lots of the time you just got placed in something
just because you needed the credit, which is bullshit. No wonder people didn’t care in by Sarah D’Angelo
self-portrait by Alex Nursall,
illustration by Sarah D’AngeloMay 20, 2010 Q&A issue the newsmagazine
7May 20, 2010 the arts
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the newsmagazine: This is your fi rst time directing someone else’s script. What was it about the script that pulled you into directing Chloe?
Atom Egoyan: I was attracted to Chloe because it offered a chance to set an erotic drama with com-plex characters in Toronto, which presented a great opportunity for me.
tn: A lot of Chloe seems to be about establishing connec-tions. For many Toronto-nians, this is a fi lm that helps them connect with their city, not hidden or transformed as some other city, but as the real Toronto. Did this fi lm change your relationship to Toronto in some way?
AE: It confirmed that we live in a unique city, and that it has been greatly under-utilized in film. When I was offered the script, it was originally set in San Francis-co, and I convinced the producers that I could make Toronto look equally sexy. What’s surprising is
how many Torontonians don’t rec-ognize certain locations, because they’ve never seen them given such a lush film treatment.
tn: You brought out the city through marked referenc-es. Did you want Toronto to function as a character in this fi lm?
AE: I felt that Toronto was a little like Chloe, usually being paid a lot of money to pretend it was some-thing else (New York, Chicago, even San Francisco), and that this was a chance to be itself.
tn: Chloe was a departure in some ways from your previ-ous fi lms – has Chloe broad-ened what you’re capable of directing or opened you up to any new directions?
AE: I think it has shown that I can direct a more linear and accessible fi lm. The problem is that most of the stuff I’m being offered right now are sex thrillers, and that’s that last thing I want to do. I’m reading a lot, and have started writing some new ideas. I’m looking forward to taking the summer off.
Set in To-ronto, Chloe is an erotic thriller about a woman (Ju-lianne Moore) who hires a prosti-tute (psychologically-tangled Chloe, played by Amanda Seyfried) to test h e r husband’s fi delity.Chloe is a smart script: intimate,
gripping, dark, complex, and fi lled out with a throbbing soundtrack. Its twist-ed plot is buoyed with nuanced perfor-mances by Julianne Moore and Aman-da Seyfried that convincingly realizes the psychic tension between their two
characters. T h e
script’s se-ductiveness
rubs off on our city, which is ex-
actly what Egoyan had in mind when di-
recting the fi lm last year. Whereas most directors that de-scend on Toronto try to transform or hide the city, Atom Egoyan’s Chloe celebrates Toronto – from close-ups of Yorkville street signs, to illicit rendezvous set in iconic city bars, to the familiar rattle of a streetcar as it cuts through the background of a scene.
the newsmagazine caught up with Atom Egoyan on
his way to Cannes to talk about directing Chloe, his
first foray into filming another writer’s screenplay
by Helene Goderisphoto found in the newspaper archives features Atom Egoyan circa
1979 at our editorial desk in his days as the newspaper arts columnist
the newsmagazine Q&A issue May 20, 2010
DAVID MILLERMayor of Toronto
A1: Transit City was developed by
the TTC in response to my elec-
tion promise but is more than a
transit plan. A transit city is one
where it is possible to make ev-
ery trip, not just your commute to
work, through some combination
of transit, walking and biking any-
where in the city at any time of day.
Its greatest success is that a public
consensus has formed around the
principle that every neighbour-
hood deserves transit.
It was quickly adopted by
McGuinty as a top government
priority and election promise, and
was subsequently incorporated
into the Metrolinx regional trans-
portation plan. The recent cuts,
however, jeopardize these funda-
mental principles. Metrolinx now
proposing a subway from Forest
Hill to Leaside at the expense of
Rexdale, Jane-Finch and Malvern
among many other neighbour-
hoods. The risk is that future tran-
sit planning will focus on where
the next line goes, pitting neigh-
bourhoods against each other and
ensuring that only those with po-
litical infl uence will ever get rapid
transit.
A2: Obviously the $4 billion in cuts
needs to be restored, but we also
need to start moving forward on
Scarborough-Malvern, Jane, Don
Mills and Waterfront West.
A3: Transit systems can only be
effective if they form part of a net-
work. Any discussion of contracting
out parts of the network to private
operators could cause permanent
damage to the TTC’s ability to pro-
vide mobility to Toronto.
There also needs to be sustainable
and predictable operating funding
in the form of a return to the 50-50
cost share agreement between the
TTC/City and the Provincial govern-
ment as was in place under the Da-
vis, Peterson and Rae governments.
ERIC MILLERDirector, Cities Centre
A1: The proposed east-west routes
are very long and that the average
speeds along these routes will be
relatively slow [due to] short stop
spacings. Both the Spadina and St.
Clair lines have quite slow speeds.
The result, worst case, might be a
service that is not signifi cantly im-
proved relative to current buses.
The exclusive focus on LRT as
opposed to subway is unfortunate.
While subways are more expen-
sive, plans for some of the LRT
lines are also quite expensive. At
a minimum, a subway option for
the Eglinton Avenue route should
be seriously considered given that
this corridor might well justify the
extra capacity, better level of ser-
vice and travel speeds that a sub-
way would probably provide.
A2: While addressing accessibility
defi cits in some of the suburban
portions of the City, the plan does
not increase transit capacity into
the City’s Central Area.
A3: The funding cuts are very dis-
turbing. But they are just the latest
in a long history of failing to “put
transit fi rst” and of actually doing
something about improving tran-
sit. In the mid-1980’s Toronto had
a very aggressive transit expansion
plan. Nothing has materialized out
of that plan except a stub of a sub-
way line along Sheppard Avenue
and a poorly designed and imple-
mented streetcar upgrade along
St. Clair. We are 25 years behind
in building the transit system that
the City and the Toronto region
needs, and the cost and the mag-
nitude of the job facing us is now
extremely daunting.
The danger facing us is that we
will let the challenges discourage
us from doing anything. The al-
ternative, however, is a recipe for
economic, environmental and so-
cial decline in the City. We must
fi nd the political consensus and
the political will to move forward
quickly to signifi cantly improve
the transit system.
STEVE MUNROtransit activist
A1: Successes. Transit City takes a
network view of transit needs, not
an approach of proposing one line
that takes a decade to build and
serves only one small segment of
Toronto. Also, the plan focuses on
movement between parts of the
city that have to “make do” with
bus service.
Shortcomings: There has not
been enough fl exibility by Transit
City proponents (especially the
“offi cial” ones) to recognize that it
needs modifi cation to improve the
plan’s credibility.
A2: Don Mills: The south end of the
line should be at Eglinton where
it would meet the north end of the
“downtown relief” subway line. This
would make Don Mills and Eglinton
a major node in the network.
Eglinton: Redesign section west
to Hwy 427 to run side of road tak-
ing advantage of the available right
of way and development patterns.
Waterfront West: A complete re-
think is required.
Scarborough Malvern: build the
2km stretch south from Sheppard to
UTSC as part of the Sheppard line.
A3: The lack of sustained, dedi-
cated funding for both capital and
operating costs. Every discussion
focuses on how “we can’t afford”
to spend more, and the result that
transit is always planned on a
“barely enough” basis. Transit is
not seen as an essential, ongoing
part of public spending.
Underbudgeting causes debates
about alternatives to take place on
a “one at a time” basis with jock-
eying for what gets built fi rst. This
does not generally produce what is
needed most, only the construction
of lines with powerful supporters.
KATHLEEN WYNNE
Minister of Transportation
A1: Unfortunately, due to the Prov-
ince’s fi scal situation, we had to
spread the investment into these
projects over a longer period of time.
The greatest success is yet to come.
Metrolinx has advised us that even
though we are spreading the invest-
ment over a longer period of time, all
four Toronto projects will get built.
The successes will be visible in the
construction jobs that will be a result
of these projects moving forward and
the thousands of cars that will be tak-
en off our roads when these projects
are completed.
A2: It’s important to note that al-
most all of the $9.5 billion invested
into the projects are from the Prov-
ince. There is a little bit of Federal
money, but again, the majority is
Provincially funded. Our preferred
investment model would include
partnering with other levels of gov-
ernment.
A3: As a provincial government, we
have been clear that the funding
has not been removed. Due to the
economic downturn, the decision
was made to stretch out the invest-
ment into these projects. Metrolinx
has advised us that the projects can
be completed in 10 years instead of
the 8 years in the original funding
model. What would put Toronto
transit improvement in jeopardy is
if we lost momentum, or if we de-
cided to stop building.
ADAM GIAMBRONETTC Chair
A1: The greatest success of the
Transit City Plan is that it started
2.5 years from conception with
actual construction on Sheppard
Avenue last October. In addition,
it is affordable, serves all areas of
the city, especially all the “Priority
Neighbourhoods” (under-serviced
communities as identifi ed by the
United Way) and is build-able
quickly as LRT construction is not
as diffi cult as subway projects that
take a long time and are expensive.
The drawback is that the Prov-
ince has cut its previously commit-
ted-to funding and is refusing the
City’s offer to help fi nd solutions
(like covering the interest on the
fi rst couple of years worth of debt)
As a result Torontonians are being
denied access to better transit be-
cause of broken promises by the
Premier.
A2: Transit City was a complete
plan, that at this point has most of
the engineering done, so really it is
only the Province’s backtracking
on funding the stands in the way of
Transit City.
A3: In terms of other improvements
to TTC, it’s mostly a lack of funding
that inhibits improvements. 2010
marked the fi rst year the Province
provided no operating funding for
the TTC since 1973. We all know
that we need expansion, repairs
to stations and other things, but
without adequate funding, this is
diffi cult. The TTC is the least sub-
sidized system in North America.
Having said that, the TTC can focus
on things like better customer re-
lations by its staff that don’t really
cost too much.
Q1: Briefly, what do you think
the greatest shortcomings of
the current Transit City plan
are? Its greatest success?
Q2: What would you add to or
remove from these plans?
Q3: Other than the recent cut
in provincial funding, what is
jeopardizing our chances to
improve Toronto transit?
“There must be something in
Toronto’s tap water, because our
transit history is just torture,”
joked Paul Bedford, U of T profes-
sor and Metrolinx board member.
At the May 19 Metrolinx board
meeting, Bedford waved around
yellowed copies of newspaper arti-
cles that underscore a long history
of TTC expansion plans fraught
with roadblocks and delays.
Transit City, the TTC initiative
to build eight new Light Rail Tran-
sit (LRT) lines in Toronto’s prior-
ity neighborhoods, is no different.
In its 2010 budget, the province
delayed $4 billion in funding for
four LRT lines, putting Transit
City in jeopardy. Bedford’s joke
was a welcomed bit of levity at the
board meeting, where the provin-
cial agency unveiled the revised
Transit City plan in response to
budgetary cuts.
Metrolinx unanimously ap-
proved to move forward on fi ve
priority projects, to be split into
two phases over the next ten years.
For Transit City, that includes the
Sheppard East, Eglinton Crosstown
and Finch LRTs, and Scarborough
Rapid Transit. The revised plan
trims 20 kilometers of track from
the original Transit City plan, ex-
tends the project’s timeframe, and
cuts the number of Light Rail Ve-
hicles purchased from 300 to 182.
The Toronto Board of Trade,
which has a vested interest in the
municipal economy, has advised
Metrolinx to look at other fund-
ing options, such as a gas tax,
tolls, parking charges, and a one
per cent regional sales tax. While
taxes are unpopular, the Board of
Trade says that they are necessary
to build investment and move for-
ward on transit expansion.
City Hall, the TTC, and Metrolinx
now await the green light from the
provincial government for Transit
City, the last stop in this transit ex-
pansion plan.
For more questions & panelists’ full responses, visit thenewspaper.ca
the newsmagazine asked a panel of individuals involved in Toronto’s transit future to weigh in on Transit City. Our questions
8 May 20, 2010the city
by Helene Goderis
illustration by Peter Mohideen
the newsmagazine Q&A issue May 20, 2010
