Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

narduch said:
Ford is in a lot of developer's pockets. These developers will be the ones benefitting from projects like this.
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Do we citizens really lose out with this?

Transit access expanded, and housing that I can afford is built. If the trade off is Mattamy makes a couple more bucks (really a drop in the pond for them anyway), I am not particularly bothered..
 
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Irishmonk said:
But, do they? Harris and Co. didn't build anything that I can recall, and Rob gleefully threw already fully funded projects into the bin. Doug can bellow "billions of $$$" and "mini-subways!" all he wants, but when the PC budgets come in as massively unbalanced as the previous administrations', I can easily see Thug walking those big transit promises way back. I mean, the guy has no qualms slashing public school teachers, so he'd probably enjoy scrapping big ticket Toronto transit schemes.

I can't help but imagine Premier Thug as a kind of real life Lucy continually pulling the football away from longtime Charlie Brown stand-in, John Tory..
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Do you recall the Sheppard subway - started and completed under Harris (1997 to 2002)
 
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WislaHD said:
Do we citizens really lose out with this?

Transit access expanded, and housing that I can afford is built. If the trade off is Mattamy makes a couple more bucks (really a drop in the pond for them anyway), I am not particularly bothered..
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We lose if a) land that ought to be kept as public domain is sold off for development and/or b) legitimate planning processes are bypassed or eliminated in the interests of 'cutting red tape'.

I don't mind development, if it's good. But if Ford cuts the city out of subway building, will he retain their role in the planning process? The risk with Ford is, we will get an unattractive built form because he can't say no to developer friends, and he cuts the city off at the knees when they challenge what the developer wants to build.

- Paul
 
WislaHD said:
Do we citizens really lose out with this?

Transit access expanded, and housing that I can afford is built. If the trade off is Mattamy makes a couple more bucks (really a drop in the pond for them anyway), I am not particularly bothered..
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I am all for more housing, and private sector development is an essential part of it - but I doubt the goal is to make housing affordable - because a) if that is the goal, you'd would have been living in it already and b) asking the developer to pay an additional premium for high-priced infrastructure is the surest pathway to affordability - because developers will aim their choicest offings at the lowest rung of the market that it will sustain? Unlikely, to say the least. So you're down to the argument of increasing supply will bring down prices - which is fine, but we've seen how the market had worked the past decade.

AoD
 
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crs1026 said:
We lose if a) land that ought to be kept as public domain is sold off for development and/or b) legitimate planning processes are bypassed or eliminated in the interests of 'cutting red tape'.

I don't mind development, if it's good. But if Ford cuts the city out of subway building, will he retain their role in the planning process? The risk with Ford is, we will get an unattractive built form because he can't say no to developer friends, and he cuts the city off at the knees when they challenge what the developer wants to build.

- Paul
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Thing is though what will the govt do with the land if it's not being developed? Continue to sit on it for another 40 years? They can sell it off to developers under conditions to pay for the station, build affordable housing, build a hub etc. People are just too afraid of developers these days due to the condo boom but it can he used positively if done right.

In all honesty the red tape with the endless consulting and lobbying is the major factor why these projects take so long and are so expensive. Alot of the input is legitimate, but so many are from either people who dont even take transit or live near there or just stubborn people who wont budge an inch for the betterment of society.
 
Here’s what I believe - the DRL will be built either first or second, but it won’t begin in earnest until there is some major disaster that occurs due to the overcrowding at Y/B. If somebody falls on the track and dies, or there is a stampede situation, funding will flow.

How’s that for pessimism? :)
 
Jonny5 said:
How can you be a member here since 2007 and say that? You should know by now that if you spend $15 to make a poster of a transit map and unveil it at a press conference UT members will post seven thousand comments about it in the following 24 hours; many of them even earnestly debating the details of it, totally oblivious to the reality that the plan was made up in six minutes with zero details as a fantasy purposely designed not to ever be built.
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This is one of the key advantages of using PPP...……….the plans don't and more importantly can't get cancelled.

By going with PPP on the Canada Line it guarantees that the line came in on time and on budget as any cost overruns would be paid 100% by the private company and they would face EXTREMELY high and on-going penalties for every day they were late. Needless to say the CL came on in on-budget and opened 4 months AHEAD of time. Conversely it also tied the governments to the project. They too were going to be hit with very heavy and on-going penalties if they decided to back out......….they were guaranteed to get every penny they expected to get from the line over the entire course of repayment. This offered then the assurance that it couldn't be started by one government and cancelled by the next.

As far as running lighter, thinner trains I think you guys are being a bunch of drama queens and picking holes in the plan strictly because Ford is the one that is proposing it. These trains would probably have the same dimensions as a standard Vancouver MK111 and those damn things can turn on a dime as exemplified by the Expo line which basically makes a 90 degree turn at Main Street station. They also can climb higher inclines which is essential for a system running in tunnels and elevated. They also save money needed fewer and smaller supports which also makes them far more appealing in the urban environment. In short this line can be built with the thinner, lighter trains and could never be with the monsters the TTC currently uses.
 
ssiguy2 said:
This is one of the key advantages of using PPP...……….the plans don't and more importantly can't get cancelled.

By going with PPP on the Canada Line it guarantees that the line came in on time and on budget as any cost overruns would be paid 100% by the private company and they would face EXTREMELY high and on-going penalties for every day they were late. Needless to say the CL came on in on-budget and opened 4 months AHEAD of time. Conversely it also tied the governments to the project. They too were going to be hit with very heavy and on-going penalties if they decided to back out......….they were guaranteed to get every penny they expected to get from the line over the entire course of repayment. This offered then the assurance that it couldn't be started by one government and cancelled by the next.
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Not necessarily for or against P3 in this instance - but you obviously need to check out Confederation Line or even Crossrail. All it takes is one negative example to disprove your claim. Canada Line is a very good case study of both the good AND bad of the kind of P3 envisioned.

AoD
 
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crs1026 said:
We lose if a) land that ought to be kept as public domain is sold off for development and/or b) legitimate planning processes are bypassed or eliminated in the interests of 'cutting red tape'.

I don't mind development, if it's good. But if Ford cuts the city out of subway building, will he retain their role in the planning process? The risk with Ford is, we will get an unattractive built form because he can't say no to developer friends, and he cuts the city off at the knees when they challenge what the developer wants to build.

- Paul
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I don't think the concern are the lands that are in public domain. Ford's "developer buddies" benefit because the privately-owned land that they invested in will increase in value when the subway stations are opened.

As for unattractive built form, I'm not sure whether that is a Ford-specific complaint. For instance, those "developer buddies" of Ford, also happen to be the very same developers which the previous Liberal government sold the Seaton lands to, for the purpose of expanding urban sprawl. With all things being equal, I would wager that the Seaton Lands are worth waaaay more in profit than a couple of condos downtown.

AlvinofDiaspar said:
I am all for more housing, and private sector development is an essential part of it - but I doubt the goal is to make housing affordable - because a) if that is the goal, you'd would have been living in it already and b) asking the developer to pay an additional premium for high-priced infrastructure is the surest pathway to affordability - because developers will aim their choicest offings at the lowest rung of the market that it will sustain? Unlikely, to say the least. So you're down to the argument of increasing supply will bring down prices - which is fine, but we've seen how the market had worked the past decade.

AoD
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I am ineligible to "affordable housing".

I look forward to expansion of working class housing, which is only really achieved by the expansion of housing supply argument.

The market price going up-and-up signals that market supply isn't increasing quick enough to keep up. I am cognizant that Toronto's ever-increasing attractiveness as an international city, the city's rapid population growth, the use of housing as investment and storage of wealth by the market, and the trades labour shortage means that a millennial like myself is unlikely to ever own in this city, but sitting on our hands and doing nothing is hardly an appropriate response. Building transit and expanding access to a greater part of the city, resulting in large-scale residential development and intensification of areas such as the Eglinton Golden Mile on the other hand? That is a government-led, private sector delivered response that I am all for.
 
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