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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

amnesiajune said:
A lot of people seem to conveniently forget that half of Transit City was just lines drawn on a map for political reasons. Only three of the seven new lines ever got any funding (and one of them, Finch, lost its funding while Miller was still mayor). Jane and Don Mills would've been impossible to build as proposed, nobody ever figured out if Jane was even needed south of Eglinton, and Waterfront West was (and still is) just a small expansion of the streetcar network, filling in a gap between Roncesvalles and Exhibition Loop.
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For the sake of fairness, do you have anything to say about the political lines on a map + corporate interests behind the SmartTrack plan?

I'm also interested to hear how much money John Tory has secured for Toronto after spending his entire term as mayor begging for more money. And I'm talking about new money, not recycled Transit City dollars.
 
salsa said:
Was quite amazing to watch how quickly the discussion pivoted to Miller as soon as that article was posted about a possible SRT shutdown because of SmartTrack. The left has been out of power for 8 years now, yet still some of the usual contributors here only focus on them.
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Miller is Toronto's Hillary/Obama.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
The Don Mills LRT was the dumbest, most short sighted component of Transit City
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Everyone said to build the backbone with subway - and then fill in the rest with LRT or BRT.
Transit City proposed to do only the second part - which could just deliver more people to the current subways, but offer no additional capacity to the downtown.
 
salsa said:
For the sake of fairness, do you have anything to say about the political lines on a map + corporate interests behind the SmartTrack plan?
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I don't think there's anything controversial about integrating Go Train service with the TTC network and fare system and adding more stations within the city. This is something that many of the world's best transit systems have already done (Paris and London, for example). There's no reason why someone should have to take a much longer trip when a shorter trip is available with lots of empty seats.

If you're talking about the Eglinton West spur, yeah... it was stupid and made no sense. It would make a lot more sense for the train to be available for people working around Malton, Etobicoke North, and maybe a new station at Highway 27 (which could be a good connection for Humber College as well).
 
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syn said:
Did you honestly expect them to build all of the lines at once??

Are we forgetting that the worst Mayor in Toronto's history, Rob Ford, canceled the entire thing, with Eglinton Line being the only one that made it through?
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Don Mills, Jane and Waterfront were cut because of the province.

Ford cut Sheppard and Finch to bury Eglinton and merge it with the SRT. In retrospect, that's exactly what should have happened. Eglinton would have been done right and the SRT issue resolved. Instead of the city paying for GO RER (Smarttrack scam) and the SSE, it could have used that money to accelerate the Relief Line which is way more urgent.

About Finch West, Sheppard East and Eglinton West (west of Mount Dennis)...What do they have in common?
  • No express branch
  • No dedicated/reserved lanes for buses
  • No BRT
Couldn't we start with that and allocate our funds to expedite the Relief Line post Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown? For me, a Finch and Eglinton West LRT comes after the Yonge line to Steeles and Relief Long
 
Cobra said:
Don Mills, Jane and Waterfront were cut because of the province.
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They weren't cut, because they were never funded in the first place. They never existed beyond the maps and billboards.

Cobra said:
Ford cut Sheppard and Finch to bury Eglinton and merge it with the SRT.
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Finch West actually was cut, but that was done by McGuinty's government in early 2010 (along with the western part of Eglinton). The only thing Ford cancelled was Sheppard East (and he delayed Eglinton by a year and a half).
 
Cobra said:
About Finch West, Sheppard East and Eglinton West (west of Mount Dennis)...What do they have in common?
  • No express branch
  • No dedicated/reserved lanes for buses
  • No BRT
Couldn't we start with that and allocate our funds to expedite the Relief Line post Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown? For me, a Finch and Eglinton West LRT comes after the Yonge line to Steeles and Relief Long
Click to expand...

If Ford was a competent leader, that’s the approach he should have taken. Rather, he took the approach that nowhere else mattered but this 9 km stretch of Eglinton. That commuters on the busiest bus route in the city should be denied any higher ordered improvements so this part of the crosstown could be buried.
 
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Cobra said:
Don Mills, Jane and Waterfront were cut because of the province.

Ford cut Sheppard and Finch to bury Eglinton and merge it with the SRT. In retrospect, that's exactly what should have happened. Eglinton would have been done right and the SRT issue resolved. Instead of the city paying for GO RER (Smarttrack scam) and the SSE, it could have used that money to accelerate the Relief Line which is way more urgent.

About Finch West, Sheppard East and Eglinton West (west of Mount Dennis)...What do they have in common?
  • No express branch
  • No dedicated/reserved lanes for buses
  • No BRT
Couldn't we start with that and allocate our funds to expedite the Relief Line post Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown? For me, a Finch and Eglinton West LRT comes after the Yonge line to Steeles and Relief Long
Click to expand...

Ford canceled Transit City in it's entirety, including the Eglinton LRT. He was forced to keep it because work had already begun.

His plan was actually quite foolish as Metrolinx was willing to offer $2 billion towards the Sheppard subway as long as the LRT was kept above ground east of Brentcliffe. He declined.

The 'plan' for Eglinton was entirely a ploy to appeal to his base. Everything he promised - including an extended Sheppard Subway line up and running by the Pan Am Games (2015),fully funded by the private sector, didn't come close to happening.

Ford was one of the worst things to happen to Toronto Transit, and unfortunately his successor is carrying on the tradition.
 
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amnesiajune said:
I don't think there's anything controversial about integrating Go Train service with the TTC network and fare system and adding more stations within the city. This is something that many of the world's best transit systems have already done (Paris and London, for example). There's no reason why someone should have to take a much longer trip when a shorter trip is available with lots of empty seats.
Click to expand...

It’s not about what you do, but how you do it. The idea of integrating GO Train service is, in principle, fantastic. But Tory’s proposed implementation was bullshit that had zero chance of ever being implemented anywhere near to how he has described (22 station, $7 Billion, 7 years, 25+ km).

Tory knew his plan was bullshit, but he peddled it anyways, because nothing matters more to Tory than his political ambitions. It was bullshit just like Ford’s plan to extend the Sheppard Subway through charging developers. The result is that whatever remains of SmartTrack is a minor improvement to the network at best (last projections I saw had it moving less people than the Victoria Park bus) and that the DRL implementation has been delayed. He deserves no praise for this.
 
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