The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Will Public Transportation Ever Be The Same Again?

Episode Date: December 29, 2020

The vaccine distribution system ground to a halt in Ontario -- is that leadership?

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of The Bridge Daily. It is Tuesday of week 42. You know, I think it was somewhere a little more than a year ago. It was during the election campaign of 2019. Remember way back then? But I talked about a slogan that was used in 1979 by the Liberals. That was the campaign that pitted Pierre Trudeau, the incumbent prime minister, against Joe Clark, the conservative, progressive conservative leader. And the polls showed it was really close and it was tight. The campaign was basically around the issue of leadership.

And Joe Clark had had some rough times in campaigning before the actual election started and during the campaign. And Pierre Trudeau was, well, he was Pierre Trudeau. The gunslinger pose was a big deal in 1979. He'd stand on the stage with his thumbs in his belt and talk about whatever. But they tried to argue that, listen, it's all about leadership and there's only one leader in this campaign and it's Pierre Trudeau and Joe Clark can't find his luggage. And, you know, there were all kinds of things that were thrown at Clark during that campaign.

The slogan was very simple. The slogan was, a leader must be a leader. And, you know, for as simple and as kind of silly as a slogan is, I've never forgotten those words. Now, they didn't work for Pierre Trudeau. He lost the election. Clark won. It was a minority government. It only lasted nine months, and then Trudeau was back in power again.

But in the moment, in the spring of 1979, that slogan, a leader must be a leader, did not work for Pierre Trudeau. But I've always thought about it because it really kind of boils down to that question, that issue of leadership. And what is a leader? What is a real leader? Now, leadership can be defined in any number of different ways. It can be defined by saying a leader is somebody who can successfully build a team of people around him who believe in him and feel that he can take them to victory, whether that's in a political arena or whether it's in a military arena or a business leader, you name it,

that that person has a way forward and is able to get others to support him in that move forward. That's one way of looking at leadership. Another way is that person who stands up and is accountable for the decisions that are made on the part of their team and is prepared to suffer the consequences if those decisions that he or she are accountable for turn out to be wrong. So, I was thinking of that yesterday when the news came out that Ontario, for some bizarre reason, even though it had tens of thousands of vaccines,

had only given a few thousand vaccines in the almost two weeks since it had vaccines available to them. Now, that just didn't sound right. Now, who's the leader? Well, Premier Doug Ford is the premier. But the premier had also gone to a lot of trouble to announce that the person who would take over the vaccination distribution plan for Ontario would be Rick Hillier, the former chief of the defense staff of the Canadian Armed Forces, general,

a leader, led men into battle, knew that some wouldn't come back. What more do you need for leadership? Rick Hillier has the credentials. Now, I'll declare, Rick Hillier's a friend of mine. Met him during the days of covering the Afghan war, but since he retired and since I retired, we've met a number of times on a number of different things. Anyway, so when I heard the appointment, I called him up up and he was on this podcast,

you may recall. I thought, okay, this is in good hands. Well, clearly something was wrong somewhere. So what happens when this story comes out and the numbers become clear to everyone? Here's a test of leadership, right? Something was wrong. Something failed. And we probably aren't going to know the full truth on this until sometime after this is all over. But nevertheless, there was an accountability needed for what had happened. So who stepped forward? Rick Hillier stepped forward, said it was wrong. What had happened was they declared holidays, no vaccines on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day. In the middle of a pandemic with hundreds dying in this province and thousands across the country, I think we're up to over 15,000 now have died in Canada.

And we slow down the vaccine process. Slow down. We stop it for a few days. So General Hillier admits that was wrong. And they will now double, redouble their efforts to try to catch up, including making the decision that's been made now that they're, you know, the vaccines, the current ones, need two shots. And so the assumption had always been, well, you know,

we'll give one and we'll hold one. They're not going to hold anymore. They'll give one to as many people as they can give with the expectation that new vaccines will be here by the time they need the second shot. Most medical experts say that is the best route to go anyway. You've got to vaccinate as many people as possible. One shot is not going to make you immune from COVID-19,

but it's going to get you a long way to that area. So one shot's better than no shots. So one shot will be the opening gambit here, but with the assumption you'll get the second shot because there'll be new supplies here within a month. But the point I'm trying to make on a leader must be a leader somebody has to stand forward and say I screwed up this was wrong I'll take 100 responsibility I'm accountable and yesterday that was General Hillier now how time will look upon that as more details come out

about what exactly happened in this last week with the big slowdown, who made the decisions, why they were made, how they were made, and how quickly they can get back on track will all determine the General's fate on this one. So, no excuses for the screw up that happened. It is. Kind of unforgivable. But secondly.

Leader must be a leader. Leader must stand forward when. Things go wrong and be accountable. And be responsible. And on that, Rick Hillier filled the bill. Here's my next point on the pandemic. And it kind of fits into that slot that you know I love talking about, which is airlines and the airline industry. And I think you probably heard this yesterday, but I think it's important to keep it in some perspective.

The U.S. transportation industry keeps a very close eye on the number of people who are traveling through airports. And on Sunday, two days ago, nearly 1.3 million people traveled through the U.S. airports, which is more than any other day since last March when the pandemic started, when there was only a couple hundred thousand. So 1.3 million people traveled to travel through airports on Sunday, which was, in fact, the day after Christmas. But people were still trying to get to families, get to home. Some, I imagine, were starting already on their trip back, but the vast majority still, as they were at the end of last week,

trying to get home. Now, this, of course, has got a lot of people worried. All those people in airports and in airplanes, is that not just going to keep spreading COVID-19? Well, they may have a reason to be concerned about that. However, here's the way i look at it for those days immediately before and immediately after christmas where people the vast majority are simply trying to get home they're traveling on airplanes which right now is one of the safest ways to travel outside of

walking alone outside with nobody near you. The air filtration system in airplanes was already good before this started. It's much, much better now, and it's as good as anywhere in the world. The safety procedures that are used on airplanes now are incredible, and the tracing and tracking is amazing i remember uh our friend rebecca we've talked of rebecca before um when she was in europe last year on uh for a university and she lives in vancouver she's going to u of t this year uh when she was on her way back to vancouver her home to see her parents and family for Christmas, she flew on, I think it was Air Canada, but she flew to Vancouver. And two days after she got home, she got a phone call from the airline saying there was a person on that flight who's since tested positive for COVID-19.

They were sitting in such and such a seat. You were sitting in this seat. We think you should get tested even though you were some distance away from that person. That's tracing and tracking. Anyway, she was tested and she came back negative. But the overall procedure on airlines, pretty good, going.

Here's the problem. The problem wasn't the airports and the airplanes, in my view. The problem is where they were going, who they were going to be with, how big was the group. Was it a legit family bubble, or was it much more than that? Did they quarantine going in, or Are they quarantining coming out? Those issues are fundamental to this whole issue of the number of people traveling on airlines, not necessarily the 1.3 million who traveled on Sunday,

but it's where they go, who they see, when they travel again, do they quarantine? And obviously, you know, were they wearing masks, were they distancing, were they washing their hands, all those things. So to me, that's the thing to keep in mind about air travel right now. Okay. Here's a different kind of travel. And a different way that we've been impacted by the coronavirus. I live, as you know, in a small community, Stratford, Ontario, 30,000 plus,

which is kind of typical of many small communities across the country. I'm not sure if it still exists, but it used to be that if you were 20,000 plus, you were a city. Under 20,000, you were a town or a village. I'm not sure if that's still the case. But Stratford calls itself a city, and I think the actual number here is 33,000, and it qualifies as a city. And we have a pretty good city here.

There are issues, there are disputes, and there are arguments, and the town council is an active place. But overall, life is pretty good in a normal years. This has been difficult. Stratford known, of course, around the world for the Stratford Festival, the Shakespearean Festival. It's been closed. It was closed all this year, 2020.

And it's probably going to be closed for at least half of next year, 2021. That has a huge impact on the revenue coming into this town. It's a big draw, the festival, and therefore it's a big draw for hotels and restaurants and B&Bs and all of that. So it's difficult. But there are still normal civic services. You know, garbage collection, sewer, water, all of that stuff. Plus, public transportation.

Now, when I'm either walking or driving around Stratford, I see the buses. Almost always there's nobody in them. Almost always, you know, other than the driver. And when there are people in it, it's usually like one, maybe two, or the whole bus. Now, am I just seeing it at certain times? Probably.

But the overall numbers, I'm told, like most cities its size, in this province, and I assume in most of the country, use of public transportation is down 40 to 50 percent. 40 to 50 percent. Now, it costs money to run buses. The engines are going all the time. The gasoline you're using or diesel or whatever it is you're using in your particular mode of public transportation. Electricity in some, obviously. However, here's what's important to keep in mind.

And this also kind of plays to the whole issue of leadership, and it's one of those things that we don't often talk about or think about because we're kind of focusing on what the danger spots are or the problem spots. But governments, in this case, both the feds and the province, and I think this happened in most places in the country, if not all, said we have to keep public transportation going. It's an essential service for no matter how few people. They could be frontline healthcare workers. It could be grocery clerks, but we have to keep it going. And so they plowed in money, big cash.

In Stratford's case, I think it was somewhere around a million dollars for the year to keep public transport going in Stratford. And that's why the buses still run, even on those times and those days when there's nobody in them. Is that wasted money? Well, some people may feel, yeah, it is. But not if you're one of those people who desperately needs that bus ride

to get to the hospital to perform frontline health care. So, that's the way we look at it. That's the way Canadians look at it, because we have supported public transportation. I mean, Toronto, same problem, way down in terms of usage, more usage higher than here, but still way down as for normal times. I think if there hadn't been support from governments, I think it was somewhere around $600 million Toronto would have been in difficulty for. No, $600 million is nothing to sneeze at. Right?

So, I was looking around. That's Canada's story. What's happening elsewhere? Well, let's look at the big ones. Passenger numbers on New York's MTA and London's underground metro system initially crashed by about 95%. They've since recovered to only about a third of last year's levels. And while those numbers have rebounded, passenger numbers are likely to be lower in the near to medium term. But that's not what has experts worried. With cities around the world facing financial problems because of the economic impact of the pandemic,

governments may look to cut funding since ridership is down. That can create what some have dubbed a death spiral, a cycle of poorer services in even fewer riders. I have absolutely no doubt in saying that demand will be lower than it was pre-COVID, said Greg Marsden, Professor of Transport Governance at the University of Leeds in Britain. It will be lower because we're entering a massive recession and because people have adapted their behaviors. That's out of an NBC report from Britain. What really matters is how we manage the transition, he added. If we get this wrong, then it's very hard to bring people transport services back

once they've disappeared. So people are kind of looking around at, you know, other parts of the world to try and determine, you know, are there any lessons there? Well, we know one area that uses a lot of public transportation, and that's Asia. Transportation networks in countries where infections have remained relatively low, like Taiwan and South Korea, can offer some clues to the shape of post-COVID transit, says NBC.

Taipei Metro, whose October traffic was only about 15% lower than it was in 2019, launched a high-profile sanitization drive, hired hundreds more employees, and mobilized volunteers to scan passenger body temperatures at turnstiles. So they turned public transportation into a hiring situation. In Seoul, in South Korea, transportation authorities made congestion levels available online so passengers can plan their journeys to avoid crowds. You know what? In many Asian cities, there's huge crowds getting on a public transporter.

It used to be in the old days. And you'd see people actually kind of shoving people in to make room they also introduced an app not so sure about this i'm not sure how much i like this idea they introduce an app that makes it possible to report passengers who are not wearing masks. So, public transportation. How is it going to be impacted in the long term? You know, when I'm sitting here a year from now, and I look out the window and see the bus go by in Stratford, and the pandemic is hopefully by then something in our past,

first of all, am I going to see a bus go by? And second, are people going to be using that bus? Because if it is going by, and if they're not on the bus, you've got to assume that governments at some point are going to say, you know what, we have to rethink this whole idea. Because we can't afford to keep making big grants. So a small point, but a point that we haven't really talked about often, and something you can think about if you're moving around your city and you look at a bus going by, and you think about the impact things could have,

especially if you see a bus going by and there's nobody in it except the driver, which I got to tell you, I see too often. And once every couple of weeks that I have to be in Toronto, I still see downtown Toronto public transportation looking pretty empty, above ground. I'm not sure what it's like below ground on the subway system. Now, this is funny. This is kind of an odd little thing to add to as a kind of a closer in today's podcast.

But I guess it was last week, last week or the week before. For some reason, I was sitting there thinking, you know, I was in Toronto. I'd have to go in for, I can't even remember what it was, an appointment of some kind that I had to deal with person to person, socially distanced and masked. But I was walking among the big tower buildings in downtown Toronto, which is not far from where our condo is. And I thought, because I'd been in all those buildings so many times,

you know, either for meetings, for interviews, for lunches. And I thought, you know, so many of those buildings have on the main floor those tiny little shops that are basically shoe repair shops, right? You can get maybe your shoes shined, but for the most part, it's people, it's usually one guy, older, hands of a craftsman, who can fix your shoes, put new soles on them, fix cuts in the leather. And they usually, for some reason, also do keys, right? Well, like one of those like turn things with hundreds and if not thousands of different key shapes on it. You know, I once had a key. This is called double diversion here.

I still have the key to a lock that I bought from my cabin in the Gatineau Hills. And it was a European, German made, what do they call it? Iron mongery was the lock, was the door handle and key. And it's beautiful. It's still there. Still have it there. But it only had one key. So I wanted to get a second copy of that key made.

And I took it to one of these guys, like the shoe guy. And he said, I don't have this key. I don't have the blank for this key. You'll have to try somewhere else. So I went to a hardware store, and then another hardware store, and then another hardware store, and I could not find anyone who had that key. So I decided, the next time I'm in Europe, I'm taking this key with me and I'm going to find a European key maker, especially if I'm in Germany. That's how I'll get it fixed.

So sure enough, along comes a trip to Germany. I can't remember which one. I love going to Germany. And so I took the key with me. And you know what? I went to, I don't know, three or four different places that made keys. No key for this. Sorry, we don't have that. I said, come on, you've got to be kidding. It's just a key. Nope. Can't just a key. Nope. Can't make that key. So here we are all these years later.

It's like 40 years since I built that place, and I still only have one key, which is not a good position to be in. However, that is not why I was telling you this story. I was telling you this story about thinking the other day about what's happened to those guys who on the main floor of those big buildings, like First Canadian Place, like even the Royal York in downtown Toronto, who fix shoes. in place, like even the Royal York in downtown Toronto. Who fixed shoes? All these big office buildings are basically empty, right?

The offices are closed. People are working at home and have been for nine months, 42 weeks, as we say here at the Bridge Daily. So while I was thinking about that on the weekend, I guess last week, suddenly, what happens? This was NBC News again. They do a little feature on exactly those kind of guys.

So what happened to them? I'm assuming what's happened to these fellows in New York is pretty much the same as what's happened to similar people, similar old guys, and then they're mostly old guys in the core buildings in downtown Toronto. So here's how this story starts by Ben Kesslin on NBC. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday to Friday, David Yushabayev sits in a chair at Markel's Shoe Repair with the door open, waiting for customers to pick up the shoes they left behind in March.

Shoes in plastic bags lined the walls behind the desk of the tiny shop nestled in a corner of a midtown Manhattan office building. For four hours I stay here, then I go home, Yushababaev, 67, said. In November, the business that did well for 35 years had no clients at all. Put plainly, business is dead, Yeshabaev said. Few need repairs of a shoeshine anymore. Sometimes a person will pop in, ask a question, and leave. But I still keep the shoes. When New York City mostly shut down in March

as COVID-19 surged, office workers who could work from home did so. They swapped out dress shoes for slippers and wondered if the plants on their office desks would die. You know, when I read that sentence, I thought, when's the last time I wore dress shoes? I think I've worn dress shoes twice, maybe three times since last March. That was for, I had to give a speech.

It was virtual, but I had to do it standing. And so I, you know, wore a suit and everything. That was the first time I'd worn a suit in months. And a few other, a couple of other occasions like that. But for the most part, I'm not a big slippers guy, but I do like sneakers. So I have outdoor sneakers and I have indoor sneakers. And that's what I've been wearing.

I've got far too many dress shoes, but they're sitting there in the closet as if they were in David Yoshebaev's shoe repair shop in Midtown Manhattan. They're just sitting there. But workers like Yoshebaev, who lives in Queens and whose business is meant to serve the people now attending meetings, from their couch, still comes in every day into Midtown. Their office workers, however, have yet to return. They got pictures of David and a couple of other guys in similar stores in the

paper. And they're, they're really sad pictures to look at. Cause these guys are all alone and they're surrounded by bags of shoes that haven't been picked up. So there we go. Another casualty of the pandemic, one that we, you know, we don't tend to think of. And there are hundreds, if not thousands, of professions which kind of fit the same bill.

How long can they hold out? And when they do hold out, and when this is over, what are the odds of it being anything like it was? All right, that's it for today. A couple of reminders of what's coming up tomorrow. Bruce joins us for Smoke Mirrors and the Truth, and what we're doing was kind of having a little bit of a game. You may well have seen on Twitter and on Instagram Bruce's tweet about,

and I then retweeted it, about the questions we're going to be asking tomorrow of each other, but some of you have already, or quite a few of you actually, have already sent in potential answers. No prizes on this, by the way. Running out of books. Certainly running out of book plates. Man, those requests never stop. But here are some of the questions.

If I can find Bruce's tweet. Here it is. What Canadian story do you most hope to read in 2021? What's the story you want to read this coming year? Canadian and also an international. What about a sports story that you want to read? And you can't do the Leafs win the cup because that's mine. What entertainment or art story?

There's some funny ones in the suggestions already. You can be funny on this. You don't have to be serious. It is, after all, you know, approaching New Year's Eve. the suggestions already. You can be funny on this. You don't have to be serious. It is, after all, you know, approaching New Year's Eve. What entertainment or art story?

Where will you go when travel is allowed again? What's your number one destination that you want to go to when we're allowed to move around again? And what will be

the word or phrase that defines 2021? You know, two years ago, the word was, I believe, 2019, the word was impeachment. 2020, the word was pandemic. What's it going to be next year? What's the word going to be that describes 2021? Anyway, that's tomorrow's show.

Bruce will be on with us, as is usual for Wednesdays. And on Thursday, special guest Amber Mack. Now, if you're a podcast listener, if you listen to SiriusXM, you know and have heard of Amber Mack. She's great. I'm a fan. and have heard of Amber Mack. She's great. I'm a fan. She's, you know, there's any number of ways to describe her,

but she knows her tech. And we're going to talk kind of year end, year ahead tech. You know, what worked this year, what didn't work, what was developed this year because of the situation we were in, what's on the horizon? Okay. So there you got the next couple of days of your week planned already. I mean, what more could you ask for?

I'm Peter Vansbridge. This has been the Bridge Daily, Tuesday of week 42. Thanks for listening. We'll be back in 24 hours. Thank you.