A look behind the scenes; the unseen platforms that might make the cut
Rahman Mohamed
John Tory, Olivia Chow, and Doug Ford are considered front-runners in Toronto’s 2014 mayoral race. They have online platforms that include transit plans. But there’s still a total of 65 candidates in the race, 24 of whom have online platforms listed on the City of Toronto’s candidate list. John Tory’s isn’t listed. What do the online outliers have to say?
Mayoral front-runner’s transit plans
Rahman Mohamed
After 20 candidates, including Karen Stintz withdraw, the battle for the Office for Toronto has dropped to only 65 candidates (seriously) with Doug Ford taking the torch from incumbent Rob Ford, withdrawing on September 12 before being diagnosed with cancer. But only 11 candidates have complete contact information – phone, email and website, including media-declared front-runners Olivia Chow and John Tory. Doug Ford’s contact info isn’t listed on the City’s site.
So what do they say about the future of Toronto transit?
TTC; not the fastest or the cheapest
Rahman Mohamed
According to the Statistics Canada 2011 National Household Survey more people are using public transit. But not only is the car faster for commuting to work than public transit as reported by the Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and other Canadian media, it’s faster than public transit throughout the day, not just rush hour.
The TTC might brag about more than 1.5 million riders on an average day, almost 70% of Toronto’s population. But it still doesn’t rank number one in lowest fares or highest discounts. There are Dismal Discounts (Page 2) on the TTC and it has trouble keeping speed with other systems to help one of its largest group of customers: Post-Secondary Students and Accessibility on the TTC (Page 3).
The Nova's Rays 