A toonie a year for toilets and trails
Big number: $2, the amount the annual residential property tax bill for an average home in Toronto would need to go up to cover the cost of clearing more park trails of snow and opening more winter washrooms.
Throughout this pandemic, I’ve kept walking. I will soon pass 1,500 consecutive days of walking more than 10,000 steps — for me, that’s about eight kilometres — according to the app I use. I can’t stop. Each day, no matter how much the weather sucks or how many deadlines I’m facing, I go out for a long walk. The app, and the streak, control me. I’m glad that public health guidelines have allowed me to keep it up.
But as the temperatures have dropped, two things have made my walking routine more challenging: trails and toilets.
Trails because I like to stick to routes that go through parks, and in many places the city’s approach to winter maintenance is to put up a sign letting people know there’s no winter maintenance. Snow and ice abound.
Toilets because, well, when you got to go, you got to go. The number of publicly available washrooms was already at a low with businesses closed, and it’s worse now as many facilities in city parks have shut down for the season.
So I was happy to see Coun. Mike Layton, a member of city hall’s budget committee, ask the parks division for a report on what it would cost to significantly — and permanently — improve both situations. The answer: about two dollars.
Let me explain. According to the report, a fully phased-in program would cost about $1.1 million a year to expand the number of park trails that get winter maintenance. Adding more winter washrooms would cost about $855,000 a year. In both cases, there’d also be some capital and start-up costs.
This year, every dollar added to the annual property tax bill of a home assessed at the city average — about $700,000 — will give city hall about $1.1 million to put toward services. So an increase of around two bucks a year for the average household would raise enough to cover the operating costs of improvements laid out in the report, plus financing for the construction costs.
Those improvements would include keeping the boosted service levels we are seeing this winter. Because going to a park is one of only a few permitted types of exercise under current COVID-19 restrictions, the city started plowing an additional 64 kilometres of park trails. But still just 270 kilometres of approximately 690 kilometres of park pathways and trails are getting cleared this winter, leaving a lot of places to slip.
It’s a similar story with the washrooms. Usually the city keeps just 17 washrooms open year-round, as many locations have not been winterized. This year, they added 28 more winter washrooms, plus 51 port-apotties. In total, when you include facilities at outdoor rinks, there are 143 places to go this winter, compared to 64 a year ago.
Good improvements, but there is no clear plan yet to keep them. The figures in the report requested by Layton would cover that cost, plus the cost of adding winter maintenance to another 70 kilometres of park trails, and 15 new winterized park washrooms.
For two dollars on the average property tax bill.
For me, that seems like a no-brainer. A toonie a year for toilets and trails. Sign me up. But Toronto’s 2021 budget doesn’t yet include the money necessary to even begin the process of permanently adding the washrooms and snow clearing. If it’s going to happen, some funds need to get approved via amendment before council approves the budget on Feb. 18.
Unfortunately, however, stuff like this runs up against the edict, established first by former mayor Rob Ford and now by Mayor John Tory, that property tax increases that fund the operating budget should not exceed the rate of inflation. This year’s budget will mark a full decade of that strategy.
The low tax approach comes at a cost. Changes that could improve quality of life are left on the cutting room floor each year. Sure, life in the city goes on without things like extra trail clearing and more winter washrooms, but it would be nice to see Toronto strive to do better than the status quo.
I may be biased by my daily walking streak, but trails and toilets seem like a good place to start. A couple of bucks to put us on steady footing and give us more places to go.