Rob Ford and Karen Stintz finally find something to agree on: free plastic bags
After a very public rift over transit, Rob Ford and Karen Stintz are back on the same side, and it’s all because of the plastic bag fee. The Toronto Sun reports that Stintz plans on voting with the mayor to kill the 5-cent plastic bag fee during Wednesday’s city council meeting (Ford vowed to scrap the fee last month). Not that Stintz will likely return full-time to her former place in the Ford fold—the fee is a smallish matter and one Stintz never liked in the first place, having voted against the so-called bag tax when David Miller introduced it in 2009. [Toronto Sun]
(Images: Karen Stintz, Mike Beltzner; Rob Ford, Christopher Drost; plastic bag, londonista_londonist)
I don’t know enough to know what kind of dfreeifnce it would make, but I’m wondering why the subways aren’t included in service cuts. Obviously peak service cuts are out of the question, but is there a reason why off peak cuts aren’t under consideration? For all the crush at rush hour, later evening midweek trips bring a train every 5 minutes with several dance floors of free space. Are there substantial enough savings to be had cutting trains there? I don’t think I’d have too much to complain about if there was a train every 7 minutes instead of every 5.To be clear I’m not advocating cuts. I’m just curious about what is and isn’t on the table and why.Steve: The service improvements through the Ridership Growth Strategy did not affect subway service, and so there are no subway cuts now.