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MoveOntario 2020: what went wrong?

kettal

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2007: McGuinty Government Action Plan For Rapid Transit Will Move The Economy Forward

McGuinty claims that over 900 km of new or improved rapid transit can be build and in service by 2020...

How will he pay for it? Oh, that's easy: "Costs will only begin once construction has been completed, similar to a homeowner's mortgage. This means the cost will be spread over 50 years."

So why is it that now that is no longer an option? Now, the money has to be found before the shovel gets in the ground, and projects have to be delayed? What's changed?
 
The Global Economic Recession of fall 2008 which Canada, Ontario in particular, has still not fully recovered from? We're literally on the verge of becoming a have-not province.
 
We're not on the verge, we are already a benefactor of equalization payments. But that's not an excuse as BC has been for years, and they haven't been stagnant as a result of it.

But I don't buy the excuse. Interest rates are lower than they've ever been. Ontario can issue bonds for under 2% today, while it would have been 5%* in 2007 conditions.

*totally made up number
 
The problem is dragging your feet seems to be the MO of late. If the plan was to have it done in 6 instead of 13 years then maybe we'd see results, but that would deprive the government the 5 years of sitting on their hands so they can pull out.
 
The government said they didn't have a limit. They did.

MO2020 should have been completely planned by Metrolinx. I fully believe they should have set the priorities and steamrolled the local transit authorities. Want the money and/or the improvements? Here's what we have for you. Take it or leave it. This way they could have used their intended budget to achieve their transit goals.

Instead they doled it out to the transit authorities who ran off with their pet projects. Now we don't have great regional transit or great intra-region/local transit.

Some may disagree with me. Steve Munro was uber-critical of the "closed" nature of Metrolinx. But I don't fault them one bit. I really believe that sometimes leadership requires some hard-nosed and unpopular choices.
 
In 2007 I don't think the Ontario provincial government had any idea that, in 2010, a) they'd still be facing an uncooperative Conservative federal government with no interest in transit funding, or b) that they would still themselves be in power.
 
The government said they didn't have a limit. They did.

MO2020 should have been completely planned by Metrolinx. I fully believe they should have set the priorities and steamrolled the local transit authorities. Want the money and/or the improvements? Here's what we have for you. Take it or leave it. This way they could have used their intended budget to achieve their transit goals.

Instead they doled it out to the transit authorities who ran off with their pet projects. Now we don't have great regional transit or great intra-region/local transit.

Some may disagree with me. Steve Munro was uber-critical of the "closed" nature of Metrolinx. But I don't fault them one bit. I really believe that sometimes leadership requires some hard-nosed and unpopular choices.


I think transparency is rather critical when an unelected body is capable of steam-rolling the local, elected authorities, especially in this era of expense scandals and massive government capital projects. If Metrolinx thinks the evidence in favour of its chosen projects is compelling what reason does it have not to be open, educate the public and make those projects popular ideas?
 
In 2007 I don't think the Ontario provincial government had any idea that, in 2010, a) they'd still be facing an uncooperative Conservative federal government with no interest in transit funding, or b) that they would still themselves be in power.
Too simple; they have completely backtracked on funding announcements made less than 12 months ago, when it was quite clear the Conservatives had no interest in this, and would likely still be around. And when the budgetry situation was also quite clear. This is a change in direction ... and I can only put it down to the loss of two prominent Toronto cabinet ministers - Smitherman and Bryant (not saying that's the reason ... can't think of anything else).
 
So why is it that now that is no longer an option? Now, the money has to be found before the shovel gets in the ground, and projects have to be delayed? What's changed?

The US real estate market crashed. Many major financial institutions went belly-up. The rest became more restrained and less willing to give loans at good interest rates. In the meantime, the Ontario auto industry crashed and burned with mass factory closures and layoffs.
 
Curious, where is the $3 billion Toronto said they had for their part of TC? All the province really did was go back on their promise of making Toronto pay it's one third contribution.
Toronto made it sooooooooooooo easy to back out. Look at how long it's taking them to build a tiny little 8km Spadina ext.......from funding to completion 7 years and at a tidy little sum of $3.1 billion per km. ANY other city on the planet would build it for a max of $200 million per km but not in Toronto. ALL of the line should have been elevated/at grade and saved themselves a cool billion to connect the line with the Sheppard at Yonge all using elevation. If I was the Primier I wouldn't have funded it at all at that price.
Some times you need someone to take the bull by the horns, announce projects that are truly mass/rapid and tell them that shovels are to be in the ground with 6 months. This is what Clarke did the MLine. It's the same as what Klein did for Calgary's CTrain.
 
Curious, where is the $3 billion Toronto said they had for their part of TC?
Curious - what $3-billion contribution are you talking about?

All the province really did was go back on their promise of making Toronto pay it's one third contribution.
The province never promised to make Toronto pay one third. Why are you saying this?

ANY other city on the planet would build it for a max of $200 million per km but not in Toronto.
Good grief - have you seen the per kilometre cost of New York's Second Avenue subway or London's Crossrail? Both are using similar diameter tunnels and are much more expensive. Why have you made such a baseless claim?
 
Under funded from Day One, Cost was under estimated, unwilling to look at funding options until after 2011 election, recession, lack of real vision, no real priority which should get built first based on needs, want to do P3 deals with no idea how to do it or unwilling to do it when the price is right to do it, too many back room deals, ETC.

Trying to build a $140 Billion plan with $11B and no support from the Feds is a joke.

PPL who think subways is the way to go and refused to look at LRT or give up road space for transit.

Poor planning and PR.
 
Too simple; they have completely backtracked on funding announcements made less than 12 months ago, when it was quite clear the Conservatives had no interest in this, and would likely still be around. And when the budgetry situation was also quite clear. This is a change in direction ... and I can only put it down to the loss of two prominent Toronto cabinet ministers - Smitherman and Bryant (not saying that's the reason ... can't think of anything else).

One of the main causes is the loss of Miller's political capital. Miller had really high popularity numbers in Toronto during his first four years in office. He was quite a bit more popular in Toronto than McGuinty. This gave Miller a lot of political capital. He could be a powerful friend to the provincial Liberals, and also a powerful potential enemy. McGuinty was thus quite prepared to work closely with Miller, and support things like his transit initiatives.

Miller's approval rate began to slide after the land transfer tax, and then collapsed after the garbage strike. Miller's ability to influence Toronto voters evaporated. When Miller announced that he wasn't going to run for reelection, his stock fell even further. It was no longer in the Liberal interest to send resources his way. Why would McGuinty spend billions of dollars to build the vision of an unpopular lame-duck mayor? Thus goodbye Transit City.
 
The government said they didn't have a limit. They did.

MO2020 should have been completely planned by Metrolinx. I fully believe they should have set the priorities and steamrolled the local transit authorities. Want the money and/or the improvements? Here's what we have for you. Take it or leave it. This way they could have used their intended budget to achieve their transit goals.

Instead they doled it out to the transit authorities who ran off with their pet projects. Now we don't have great regional transit or great intra-region/local transit.

Some may disagree with me. Steve Munro was uber-critical of the "closed" nature of Metrolinx. But I don't fault them one bit. I really believe that sometimes leadership requires some hard-nosed and unpopular choices.

According to a former Metrolinx employee, Metrolinx is just "another gooey layer of bureaucracy laid on the existing anti-transit provincial bureaucracy that is MTO."

source
 
One of the main causes is the loss of Miller's political capital. Miller had really high popularity numbers in Toronto during his first four years in office. He was quite a bit more popular in Toronto than McGuinty. This gave Miller a lot of political capital. He could be a powerful friend to the provincial Liberals, and also a powerful potential enemy. McGuinty was thus quite prepared to work closely with Miller, and support things like his transit initiatives.

Miller's approval rate began to slide after the land transfer tax, and then collapsed after the garbage strike. Miller's ability to influence Toronto voters evaporated. When Miller announced that he wasn't going to run for reelection, his stock fell even further. It was no longer in the Liberal interest to send resources his way. Why would McGuinty spend billions of dollars to build the vision of an unpopular lame-duck mayor? Thus goodbye Transit City.
So it's simply politics.

But how does antagonizing Toronto voters play into the hands of the Liberal party. They holds most of the Toronto seats ... and I can't be the only voter who has changed his mind about voting for the Liberals in the next provincial election (didn't vote for them in the last one ... they had convinced me their practical-minded MoveOntario scheme, as well as the elimination of that messed up PST).
 

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