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Toronto Party unveils its transportation plan (InsideToronto article)

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http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/c...toronto-party-unveils-its-transportation-plan


DAVID NICKLE

Sep 22, 2009 - 3:42 PM


Toronto Party unveils its transportation plan
The Toronto Party can't deliver tax receipts to its donors, appear beside its candidates' names on ballots, or take advantage of the other perks political parties can access at the federal and provincial levels of government.

But on Monday afternoon, the leadership of the group that would like to bring party politics to the floor of Toronto City Council laid out their first policy document: a $9-billion transportation plan that would replace the light rail vehicle network of Transit City with privately-built subways and expanded GO service, construct new highways and build new roads in the city, and expand the city's bike network off road and through parks, ravines and hydro corridors.

The plan, which they've dubbed Get Toronto Moving, is the group's first policy document since it formed in 2006. Described by founder Stephen Thiele as at this point "web-based", the party has a membership numbering in "the hundreds" and intends to run a full slate of candidates for Toronto council, as well as a mayoralty candidate.

"We've been described as being an anti-David Miller party, and yes, I guess in some respects that's true, in that we oppose the current policies that are coming from City Hall," said Thiele at the Monday news conference his group called at City Hall. "We are opposed to a government that continues to add to the tax burden and continues to spend money unwisely... So our intent is to sweep David Miller out of office and his hand-picked executive and all those other members who continue to support his policies and his agenda."

Thiele and his party will get their chance to do so in 2010, when voters go to the polls to elect a new municipal government.

In the meantime, the group is still attempting to find its legs - and the first step to doing that is to achieve an official status that will allow them to do mundane things such as issue tax receipts, and also include the party's name next to its candidates on the ballot, so that voters can cast a vote for their Toronto Party candidate.

Currently, party politics exists mainly as an undercurrent at city hall; while many councillors have party affiliations and vote accordingly, they are officially independent voices.

The Toronto Party, which Thiele described as right-of-centre, would push for a sea change in the way the city was administered - and do so using a consistent policy, that members would all support.

The transportation plan is the first example of how that might play out. The party's transportation specialist James Alcock described a plan resembling more closely earlier transit plans floated in the 1990s, with a heavier reliance on subways - and overall transportation plans that harked further back still, to the days when the provincial government considered creating a Spadina expressway through the city's west end.

While the Spadina Expressway is not to be found in the plan, the party is proposing several new highways: an extension of Hwy. 400 to the Gardiner Expressway, using an upgraded Black Creek Drive and an existing rail corridor and a new Hwy. 448 from the Don Valley Parkway at Eglinton Avenue through Hwy. 401 and Morningside Avenue and ending at the Hwy. 407 in Pickering.

The Gardiner Expressway would stay up, with a new cable-stayed viaduct above Lakeshore Boulevard.

The plan would also fill in various missing arterial road links, build multi-storey garages at transit hubs.

The big ticket item - costing, the group estimates, about $8 billion - would be a new network of subway lines, to replace the transit city lines.

The Spadina and Yonge subways would extend northward as planned; the Sheppard subway would travel east to Malvern, and west to Downsview; the Bloor-Danforth subway would go west into Mississauga via Sherway Gardens and east to Malvern, replacing the Scarborough RT.

The group also supports a U-shaped downtown relief line along Queen Street, and an Eglinton subway from Pearson International Airport to Union station.

The Toronto Party members were optimistic they could convince Metrolinx, the provincial planning body, to scrap its Toronto transit plans and transfer provincial funding to the new project.

As well, they said that private-sector investors in India and the Middle East had expressed interest in the plan.

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Is this a joke?
 
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I like the sound of this.

I want to be opposed to highways, but extending the 400 to the Gardiner will be so, so good. So I like this transit plan a lot.
 
This thread goes like this:

Some posters
Is this a joke? Hahaha.

Other posters
Why are you laughing at a transportation plan for the city that is so much better than the proposed TRANSFER CITY?

SP
Because it's a pie-in-the-sky plan with a completely unworkable budget?

OP
It'd be completely feasible if we got rid of those clowns on council and replaced our socialist mayor and his union friends.

And so on.
 
^Seconded

Although I think the Front Street extension needs to be revived and the DRL needs to be in place before any sort of Gardiner teardown/tunneling/magical space bridge scheme commences.
 
^^ Seconded. Or thirded, I'm not sure.

A Front Street extension would actually do wonders.

But actually, I wouldn't consider the DRL a prerequisite to tearing down the Gardiner. DRL might entice some downtowners to take transit (those that don't already,) but my prerequisite for tearing down the Gardiner is just lower automobile use in general. Get more people on GO, subways and busses. Isn't Toronto basically at par with other US cities in rush hour transit usage? Seriously, we could do so much better than that.
 
Actually, upon looking at this further, this plan seems to be rather holy. I mean holey.

Eglinton subway from Pearson to Union? Sheppard and Bloor subways to Malvern?
QUEEN STREET DRL?!!

So they're going to reroute Eglinton so it follows the Georgetown Corridor, then possibly merge it into the West Toronto railpath? It'll be interesting to see how that plan unfolds.
And suddenly Malvern requires several subway connections? Okay maybe this plan is a tad bit unrealistic.
 
$9 billion won't replace Transit City with LRT and expand GO service. These guys just lust for the highway expansion in Toronto, which would be so costly and potentially congested that it would be foolish to build, rather than build a world renowned transit system for the money to move people more efficiently.

Utilitarian cyclists don't want to take the "scenic route" through ravines, because streets provide more direct and hence faster routes. Streets are generally flatter too.
 
The group also supports a U-shaped downtown relief line along Queen Street
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Makes rough sense (maybe not Queen per se, but the intention is right)
...and an Eglinton subway from Pearson International Airport to Union station.
Click to expand...
I can't help but feel that is the reporter misinterpreting something...
The Spadina and Yonge subways would extend northward as planned; the Sheppard subway would travel east to Malvern, and west to Downsview; the Bloor-Danforth subway would go west into Mississauga via Sherway Gardens and east to Malvern, replacing the Scarborough RT.
Click to expand...
Subway to Malvern? Idiotic. I'm increasingly thinking Spadina & Yonge subway extensions are a waste of money, but they aren't specific to the Toronto Party
The plan would also fill in various missing arterial road links, build multi-storey garages at transit hubs.
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That makes a good deal of sense, dunno what arterial road links they are specifically talking about though (FSE?). Multistory parking=smart.
An extension of Hwy. 400 to the Gardiner Expressway, using an upgraded Black Creek Drive and an existing rail corridor
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A good idea. Could be developed privately, so there is little downside.
A new Hwy. 448 from the Don Valley Parkway at Eglinton Avenue through Hwy. 401 and Morningside Avenue and ending at the Hwy. 407 in Pickering.
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I thought a busway might make sense along that hydro corridor, not a full 400 series highway though.


Nitpicking aside though, it is nice to have a group of (hopeful) politicians put out their vision of what they think transport here should be. It is productive to have (pseudo) parties hitch their name on (sort of) real plans. Even if you disagree with them, it helps the debate.
 
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Anyone who wants to ram expanded expressways (400, Allen, Crosstown, Gardiner East, etc) through established residential neighbourhoods in the city's core should be ... (use your imagination). The days when those type of projects were considered positive are long gone and those previous battles should remain in the past.
 
Not to mention that the price of just expropriating these neighbourhoods, with the current state of downtown house prices, is astronomical.

Maybe the Toronto Party think they're in People's Republic of China, where the government can leave a notice on your door: "Your house will be bulldozed next week to make room for the new Allen Expressway, it is suggested you vacate the premises."
 
Underground sections of new highways could work, including burying the Gardiner, and maybe an electronic tolling system could recoup the costs, with the countless number of vehicles passing through them everyday.
 
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