From Facebook Note: Hybrid Buses vs Local Food?

Here's another baffling story about Toronto City Hall and the environmental leadership being provided by Mayor Miller's team socialist. (I'm starting to understand Sue Ann Levy's frustration!)

So the TTC bought a whole bunch of Hybrid Electric Buses. Turns out they're not working as they should according to the agreement of Purchase and Sale. They are enjoying significantly less of a life span than they should, are breaking down and are only resulting in a 10 percent fuel savings. So the bright lights that be at the TTC are going to go back to buying dirty Diesel buses. (Guess Bombardier doesn't build the Hybrid-Electric buses?)

Meanwhile, a report coming through the process at Toronto City Hall recommends sourcing food for City programs from local producers. Aside from being just the latest in trendy green-washing (there are numerous studies that suggest that buying local produce is not always greener) this is an insult to most Torontonians who are struggling to pay bills in the face of an economic downturn. At a recent Council meeting, some genius on Council moved a motion that all food be sourced locally. They probably also wanted organic. I guess that's what you get from uneducated politicians who claim to have educational backgrounds they don't actually have. I dropped out of a University Astronomy Course once - can I please tell you how our Solar System works?

So, the report that City Staff has produced says that it will cost an additional $15,000 to provide food for Children's Services alone - that's not even one of the City's bigger food budgets but wait until this lunacy hits the Homes for The Aged and Shelter programs. I'm all for good nutrition but it starts at home - not at publicly-run charitable organizations when the City is broke!!!! Priorities people, priorities.

Now, what's really ironic is when you place these two programs against each other. Saying that the TTC's Hybrid Electric buses only reduce fuel consumption by 10 percent is an interesting piece of spin. Sure, if it was my personal vehicle, 10 percent wouldn't amount to that much. But we're actually talking about one of the biggest bus fleets in North America. Every budget year, the Mayor tells us that the City needs more money for, among other things, rising fuel costs. So to my mind, saving 10 percent is signficant, particularly when we don't get any rebate from the City when the cost of gas decreases as it is right now.

Here's Mayor Miller pushing a new package of increased user fees, increase property taxes and reduced services while trying to provide gourmet foods for people who would be happy with Campbell's Soup - produced locally but wonder if it qualifies under this program.

Any savings in energy or reductions in Greenhouse Gas Emissions from buying local food for City programs (again, not a slam dunk) would be elapsed in about one day (total guess) when the TTC returns to dirty Diesel buses.

Seriously folks. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. And at the end of the day, are these buses not under warranty and is the City's contract not specified to ensure that these things work or that extensions will be granted, more buses delivered until they do work as promised?

What kind of investor does this? What companies switch horses mid-stream without fully knowing how that horse will perform in the long-run. And what is the cost of the 10 percent fuel savings?

I suspect they don't want the buses because Hybrid-Electric buses make a lot more sense than expensive, heavy, capital intensive, inefficient streetcars that Mayor Miller would like to buy from Bombardier for the next 100 years, leaving us either caught on a slow streetcar, with cars banished from our streets or choking in congestion behind brokendown streetcars. The TTC can also continue to provide it's brilliant short-turn services, kicking riders off prior to their last stop for 'operating efficiency."

And the TTC has the gaul to attack Metrolinx for thinking outside the box and looking at new solutions to our problems. To paraphrase Einstein; "You cannot solve the problems of today with the same thinking that created them." Come on TTC, it's not 1965 anymore.

Once again, I also have to ask what the Mayor meant when he said "Climate Change is the most serious challenge facing our generation" cause he clearly did not mean it as a call to action.