Preventing Toronto from falling apart
Let's make Toronto a Stronger Town
Walking around my neighbourhood, it doesn’t take long to spot things in need of attention. Street signs are worn out, the grass and trees along the street are barely alive, benches are damaged and dirty, and the sidewalks are cracked. Things look a little shabby. Beyond these surface-level issues are more significant ones. Park washrooms are frequently closed, community centre pools are often out of service, and the subway runs very slowly at many points along the line.
The backlog of of maintenance and repair work grows every year, and is projected to reach $24.7 billion by 2035. This includes $214 million for community centres, $76 million for libraries, and a whopping $2.34 billion for Toronto community housing. Then we have transit, where the TTC’s maintenance backlog is expected to reach $6.1 billion.
What is going on here? Why can’t a growing, vibrant city with a multi-billion dollar annual budget keep everything working well and looking good? Instead of allocating funds to maintain and repair existing infrastructure, we budget to build new things. In the hot-off-the-presses 2026 budget, 53% of the $63.1 billion capital budget is allocated to “state of good repair”. With nearly half of this budget going towards new or improved infrastructure, it’s no wonder the maintenance backlog is growing so fast.
Failing to budget enough to maintain the infrastructure we already have occurs in many cities, not just Toronto. It’s an issue the folks at Strong Towns focus on extensively. They describe it as a Ponzi scheme: cities budget to build new things because they receive immediate revenue from doing so, in the form of development charges, fees, and other taxes. But they do not take into account the ongoing cost of maintaining this infrastructure—that’s a problem for the future. But when that future day comes, the same pattern repeats itself, new things are once again funded while the maintenance backlog grows even further.
That’s exactly what’s happening in Toronto. Until you understand this, it’s difficult to see the pattern. Many of the new and improved items in the budget sound great in isolation, and are difficult to argue against. But as soon as you realize that every new thing we build will not be properly maintained, it becomes clear why the city is struggling with so many issues today, and why those issues will keep getting worse. These maintenance costs are hidden at first because new things don’t need to be repaired right away. The biggest maintenance bills come due 20-30 years later.
To improve this situation, we must increase the percentage of the budget for maintenance and repairs to a point where the backlog begins to shrink. Because of how long this problem has been going on, it will take time for things to turn around, but at least we’ll be headed in the right direction. This is a matter of discipline and responsibility. Just like in your personal budget where you put off a big, new purchase to pay for home repairs, we must defer building new things until we can afford to maintain what we already have.
The City is inviting residents to provide input on the proposed 2026 budget. You can register to speak to the budget committee on January 20 and 21, and submit feedback online.
The longer we defer paying for maintenance and repairs, the worse things will get. Just like when you delay fixing a leak in your roof where it ends up costing much more once you have water damage and the whole things needs replacement instead of a less expensive patch. Similarly, the longer we wait, the more it will cost, and we will end up having to replace rather than repair things like pools, community housing, and transit infrastructure. In the meantime, the experience of living in the cities gets worse, as park get shabbier, sidewalks deteriorate, and buildings feel decrepit.
As the saying goes, the best time to have addressed this was many years ago, but the next best time is now.