Off Off Topic: Cool Toronto People's Thread

[Zach6668 513]

I'm curious if Chris has any thoughts on "smaller" fire trucks.

 

http://www.thedigite...tivi-25625-0506

 

Right now, a lot of our city is built the way it is purely because of required turn radii and other amenities necessitated by the typically large fire trucks we use. In urban residential spaces, particularly, we could probably save more lives by having slow, narrow streets than having fire trucks get unimpeded access to them at the cost of extra wide roads that encourage speeding.

 

The small fire truck seems to be a good compromise, but I don't know all of the details, of course.

 

It's also never a bad idea to help reign in city funding for fire services, especially if this type of cost savings wouldn't result in fewer firepeople (is this the PC term?) and lower wages. Perhaps smaller trucks require smaller crews though, so maybe it would?

 

Again, I don't know these things, just spitballing ideas, and would love to hear from our resident emergency fire protection expert.

[Zach6668 513]

No confirmation here, and no real reason to think that smaller trucks would even mitigate this, but just to show you the effect the fire department has on the city, consider the following:

 

The original Queen's Quay streetcar right of way was intended on having a green track bed:

 

 

Word is, the fire department asked for a concrete bed instead so they could utilize the ROW for emergency purposes. This makes total sense, especially on a narrow ROW like QQ. The same is planned for Eglinton's LRT on the surface portions east of Don Mills, and presumably, the same problem can be avoided due to the road's ROW being significantly wider.

 

Anyways, ironically, a green track bed would have likely solved all of those problems we saw after the re-opening of QQ where drivers continuously turned onto the right of way. Well, not all of them, but the vast majority. The odd driver would have still found a way, as shown below, at the clearly-not-a-road portal at Bay and QQ.

 

[Zach6668 513]

(My last post on this for now, I promise)

 

Older cities in Europe and elsewhere have dealt with the reality of their narrow old streets by just simply using more compact fire trucks, still with the ability to pump water and do whatever else they need.

 

In a place like Toronto, where building height and massing require more power, we'd still likely need the bigger trucks, but those buildings tend to all be on much wider arterials anyways. So keep the big trucks for those calls, bring the little guys in for their manoeuvrability and ability to deal with smaller fires, like those on what would be narrow residential streets.

[gruven 530]

We tried euro pumpers (smaller) in the 90's. They were an unmitigated disaster. We are the fourth largest FD in North America with huge call volume. Those trucks get destroyed by the work volume). We can't even use regular pumpers with light duty engines and transmissions, we run them into the ground (tried THAT in the early 2000s)

And over 90% of the fire department budget is labour costs. We run with shitty equipment, lowest quality gear of any major FD, and dramatically understaffed. ( the downtown core and the vertical city it contains has grown by over 300,000 people since 1990, yet we've actually cut staffing to the FD. ) There is the added factor of the delayed response caused by arriving at a high rise not being the same as arriving at the actual fire. Sometimes it takes us 10 minutes sometimes to find the source of the call once we arrive. We are truly a disaster waiting to happen and that is not hyperbole. We are hugely understaffed and under equipped. Our aerial ladder trucks run with 3 FFs. Chicago and NYC run their ladders w 6.

To add to the issues, most city councillors love speed bumps and other traffic slowing road segments. They slow us down tremendously, and are really tough on the trucks.

By all sources that ARENT city council, the Toronto fire service is understaffed and under equipped, and that's the truth. I told my wife, if anything ever happens to me on the job, sue the city: they are so negligent when it comes to the fire department, it's crazy. They are playing a game of roulette with staffing, and eventually it's going to come back to bite them. The national fire protection act MINIMUM response standard is 13 firefighters on scene in 8 minutes 90% of the time. That's the MINIMUM. We achieve that standard response time just barely more than 80% of the time. FDNY hits it 98% of the time.

[Zach6668 513]

Well that's very interesting.

 

Thanks Chris. Lots to think about.

[Babying 613]

Understaff is huge problem with public service jobs. My wife complains about it all the time

 

I use to work for a big hospital and I saw the impact of very very tight budgets I also a did a report showing who was ripping off "the system". It showed who was continuing to call in sick and get fully paid. You know what the director said to me? He said sorry can't do anything they are Union

[Zach6668 513]

Understaff is huge problem with public service jobs. My wife complains about it all the time

 

I use to work for a big hospital and I saw the impact of very very tight budgets I also a did a report showing who was ripping off "the system". It showed who was continuing to call in sick and get fully paid. You know what the director said to me? He said sorry can't do anything they are Union

 

I agree... but we keep electing people like Ford and Tory who are basically given the mandate of "cut my taxes". Good service costs money. We all want it, but nobody wants to pay for it, it seems.

[gruven 530]

 

 

I agree... but we keep electing people like Ford and Tory who are basically given the mandate of "cut my taxes". Good service costs money. We all want it, but nobody wants to pay for it, it seems.

i think part of the problem is that they promise cuts but there is no place to make them. It's really educational to sit through budget meetings. 10 people can get up and give deputations and reports on why cutting the fire budget is bad. Councillors still vote to cut. But they all have their multi million dollar vanity projects that all get kept so that they can get their constituents to re-elect them. It's really truly not about the topic at hand. It's always about poi

Limits. That's why it must be frustrating for city planners to make recommendations to council that will suit the city well for the long term but then get chopped down by councillors that really only care about that re-election.

[Zach6668 513]

Yeah, well, it's all about "efficiencies" with the pols while they promise to go blow $9 billion on something the Ontario government was essentially building without any city funds already (SmartTrack), without any sort of studies or planning rationale, or anything.

 

My completely uneducated haphazard analysis makes me think there are certain divisions/departments that could benefit from an entire retooling of what they do, how they do it, and how they're paid to do it (like, say, the police department), while others would benefit from actually being funded to the point where good service isn't a constant daily struggle (fire dept per your analysis, and TTC per mine).

 

This may be me only, but I bet there's a decent chunk of people who would accept higher taxes if they had any sort of confidence it would be spent wisely and efficiently. I know I would.

 

TTC's state of good repair capital backlog is higher than the city's share for SmartTrack, but of course, it's not sexy enough to win an election, it just helps millions of people every single day. Guess which is slated for the funding...

[Babying 613]

 

 

I agree... but we keep electing people like Ford and Tory who are basically given the mandate of "cut my taxes". Good service costs money. We all want it, but nobody wants to pay for it, it seems.

 

Health care falls under provincial and federal.

 

I was given a budget for a department. The budget dollars remain the same but employee costs go up by 1-2 %. When the budget consists of 90% of your budget it is tough to balance

[Zach6668 513]

Ah oops, I only read the first line of your post and forgot your wife worked in health care... but ya, same principal applies... we all want nice things, but we refuse to pay for them.

[Babying 613]

Ah oops, I only read the first line of your post and forgot your wife worked in health care... but ya, same principal applies... we all want nice things, but we refuse to pay for them.

 

I also worked in health care for 1.5 years. People were nice but the environment sucked huge

[MapleLeafpoker 1,462]

... we all want nice things, but we refuse to pay for them.

 

these kind of statements, made by people as left wing as you are, seem to imply that there is no such thing as waste in the public industry, and/or overpaid workers due to unions which are too strong.

[Ottawa_Biatch 288]

 

 

these kind of statements, made by people as left wing as you are, seem to imply that there is no such thing as waste in the public industry, and/or overpaid workers due to union which are too strong.

 

Agree 100%

[FCP Bob 1,312]

these kind of statements, made by people as left wing as you are, seem to imply that there is no such thing as waste in the public industry, and/or overpaid workers due to union which are too strong.

 

the reality is that 30 years ago people in the public service made a little bit less than people in the same and similar jobs in the private sector but they had much greater job security.

 

Today they make more than the private sector and have the sort of job security and benefits that most people outside of government can only dream of.

 

Being named an essential service and having wages determined by arbitration has led to police and fire services getting way above inflation increases for the most part. Arbitrators don't take into account the ability to pay and just use comparisons that grossly favour the employees. The big thing that the jail guards who just negotiated a new contract wanted was to be named an essential service which means they can't strike but also means they get to suck at the arbitration tit now which has hugely benefited others in the public service.

 

The problem isn't the workers it's the politicians who are weak or who like the Provincial Liberals are owned by the Unions.

 

I'll give you one example of massive waste. When you go to get a police record check in Toronto the desk is manned by an armed officer. That is nuts. Why is a $95K per year constable doing a job that should be done as almost an entry level customer service job at 60% less money.

 

We could afford better services if they were run better and smarter and if the workers didn't cost so much more than is necessary to hire qualified people to do those jobs.

 

Next time a cop tells you how dangerous his job is maybe let him know that the garbage collector has a far more dangerous job and those people aren't usually grossly overpaid since they have competition from the private sector so can't be too crazy with their wage demands.

[FCP Bob 1,312]

The one public service job that is probably more dangerous than the current stats and studies show is fire fighting. I hate to think of the long term damage done to fire fighters from the noxious crap that they inhaled especially 30 plus years ago when less was known about some of the dangers.

 

I'm guessing the rate of cancers and lung problems is far higher than people in the general public of the same demographics.

 

I'm curious what happens with older fire fighters as they age and chronic injuries crop up in what is such a physically demanding job. Are people forced to retire once they reach a certain age or level of fitness ?

[Zach6668 513]

 

 

these kind of statements, made by people as left wing as you are, seem to imply that there is no such thing as waste in the public industry, and/or overpaid workers due to union which are too strong.

Guess you didn't read my other posts on this topic?

 

I don't think my stance is ambiguous.

[Zach6668 513]

I'll give you one example of massive waste. When you go to get a police record check in Toronto the desk is manned by an armed officer. That is nuts. Why is a $95K per year constable doing a job that should be done as almost an entry level customer service job at 60% less money.

 

Along those same lines, I think the TPS Twitter feeds, especially that Ops feed I RT all the time, are run by full ranking officers. Not sure if that's all that necessary.

 

 

Oh, but on the topic of public vs private, maybe it's different in my industry, but I was under the impression the money was in the private sector, not public. Maybe that's not true for entry level or lower level people. They probably have a higher salary than private?

[MapleLeafpoker 1,462]

Guess you didn't read my other posts on this topic?

 

I don't think my stance is ambiguous.

 

I did. I think you mentioned something about TTC repair being a good example of smart management of capital expenditures. I got tempted to reply to that too with some verified second hand knowledge, but I chose to keep my opinions to myself knowing it would fall on deaf ears.

[Zach6668 513]

 

 

I did. I think you mentioned something about TTC repair being a good example of smart management of capital expenditures. I got tempted to reply to that too with some verified second hand knowledge, but I chose to keep my opinions to myself knowing it would fall on deaf ears.

 

Well, I also clearly stated that I think people wouldn't be so averse to taxes if they had any belief that the money could be spent wisely, i.e., not wastefully.

 

And I'm not sure how ludicrous a statement that we should pay for the maintenance of the capital assets that we do own and rely on before we build vanity projects that rely on fudged ridership data, or worse, no completed studies to date, is, and how that somehow makes me a radical lefty pinko, but ok.

[MapleLeafpoker 1,462]

Well, I also clearly stated that I think people wouldn't be so averse to taxes if they had any belief that the money could be spent wisely, i.e., not wastefully.

I'm not sure why you think thats a statement that isn't beyond obvious, so why would I give someone credit for it. Thats like me saying everyone would be happy if they all won the lottery.. Its just not reality.

If you give someone $20 to buy a $15 item, and they manage to spend $23, you dont then give them $30, in hopes they get better.

 

 

 

And I'm not sure how ludicrous a statement that we should pay for the maintenance of the capital assets that we do own and rely on before we build vanity projects that rely on fudged ridership data, or worse, no completed studies to date, is, and how that somehow makes me a radical lefty pinko, but ok.

I never used the terms radical or pinko, but ok.

Personally, I just dont believe in anyone who is so clearly one sided either way.

[Zach6668 513]

Well, you accused me of being unable to see the waste in government spending, and I think that statement makes it clear that I can see it.

 

So... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[mrdannyg 274]

I'm not sure why you think thats a statement that isn't beyond obvious, so why would I give someone credit for it. Thats like me saying everyone would be happy if they all won the lottery.. Its just not reality.

 

That's not true at all - there are plenty of people, either explicitly or implicitly, who would never be happy to see their taxes go up, even if they were absolutely sure it would be spent efficiently, especially if the spending was on something like public transit or downtown firefighting capabilities that may not have much or any benefit to a typical suburbanite.

 

Plus, he only said that repairing TTC based on existing studies and recommendations makes more sense than paying for something that is not studied, duplicative, and already being paid for by someone else, and that it was a good place to spend was his opinion only - you guys always accuse him of being one-sided (which he is) but seem to read anything about possibly spending money on public transit and assume he's advocating for us to replace every road with a streetcar.

 

As a perfect example, you said it would "fall on deaf ears" if you pointed out that repairing TTC would be a good example of smart asset management. I don't know what your source is, but I assume it had something to do with shady overpriced contractors or the city choosing to increase spending in a stupid way or any other examples that would increase the budget line without actually being helpful. The thing is, I doubt Zach would actually deny any of those things, and he has typically accepted that they are true. But they're also irrelevant, since the suggestion isn't "increase spending" it is "do this and do that, which necessitates increased spending". Hell, most of his arguments lately are actually against increased spending, since (like Smarttrack) they are being done in stupid ways (his opinion) and there are obviously very limited dollars available.

[Zach6668 513]

How long do I have to work in transportation planning before I get to say something is in my "professional" opinion?

 

I don't feel there yet, but just curious.

[Babying 613]

Rip David Bowie. I actually took my wife on a date for a concert in Toronto a long time ago

 

Was I a Bowie fan? No but neither was she. We went because I thought she may have wanted to go. If I remember Duran Duran open for Bowie