Toronto backtracks on return-to-office plans for city employees as Omicron spreads blame online
Toronto’s downtown has been beset by a series of scandals that have tarnished its reputation, especially for its public transit.
The city has to face up to questions of whether it’s a model of public transit.
The city is under pressure from workers to justify moving public transit from downtown Toronto to Scarborough to the west. The city is grappling with a city-wide shortage of transit buses, and the situation will only get worse when an OMCON bus strike shuts down services in October.
In all of the chaos, Toronto’s elected politicians have been largely silent about whether they’ll be returning to office.
“I don’t think there’s that much that we can do about the transit situation,” Toronto Mayor John Tory told the press this week at a press conference at city hall.
“I don’t know that the transit situation is the way we should be about it, but this is the first time that I’ve heard the transit situation come up.”
On Monday, Premier Kathleen Wynne announced the province had agreed to fund a three-year plan to deal with transit woes in Ontario.
City staff have been working on the new transit plan since 2014. At a city hall press conference yesterday, the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing officials announced they had reached an agreement to provide a $6.7-million transit fund to the city.
City staff and city councillors had previously argued the funding would allow the city to implement a new, modern public transit system.
“It’s important to note that this agreement would not have an effect on other funding sources,” the ministry said in a written statement to the media. “As such, the province will contribute to the operational costs of the city’s proposed new transit project through a range of other sources.”
City staff will be working