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2018 Provincial Election Transit Promises

Cobra said:
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/onvotes/poll-tracker/

Pick Toronto and the projected seat count is 15 PC and 10 NDP. They might not win downtown Toronto but they have made gains nonetheless. Going against those gains by backtracking on the DRL would annihilate those gains.

Also, Not building Relief Line virtually means no YNSE. I will share your skepticism on Relief Long but DRL short gets built. York Region cares about YNSE (to what degree is still unclear to me) and without Relief Line, they aren't getting it...who will they blame?
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No matter who you support I hope everyone votes. It's a privilege that so many people in the world do not have.

Most of the predictive websites all concur that:

416 proper (ridings to watch are in Scarborough, Don Valley East and St Pauls)
- Etobicoke - PC sweep
- Scarborough - split between PC's and NDP
- North of Eglinton - PC sweep (other than Black Creek & Weston goes to the NDP, Maybe Don Valley East goes to Libs)
- Old Toronto/East York - NDP sweep other than maybe St Pauls going Lib

905 (all Brampton ridings to see which way they swing. NDP has to sweep to win the election)
- NDP & PC's split Brampton
- NDP gets Oshawa & Hamilton
- 100% of the rest goes PC

What does that mean for transit
- Scarborough are swing ridings so Ford will give them the 3 stop subway (and build it vs just EA it to death).
- more frequent GO for the 905 (maybe electrification)
- Brampton Zum gets lots of BRT lanes (and will be the first electrified line outside of Lakeshore)
- Hamilton LRT may no longer be a priority (they can use the detractors to cancel it)
- Yonge North extension (without the "Downtown" line...Ontario can and will overrule the city)
 
muller877 said:
No matter who you support I hope everyone votes. It's a privilege that so many people in the world do not have.

Most of the predictive websites all concur that:

416 proper (ridings to watch are in Scarborough, Don Valley East and St Pauls)
- Etobicoke - PC sweep
- Scarborough - split between PC's and NDP
- North of Eglinton - PC sweep (other than Black Creek & Weston goes to the NDP, Maybe Don Valley East goes to Libs)
- Old Toronto/East York - NDP sweep other than maybe St Pauls going Lib

905 (all Brampton ridings to see which way they swing. NDP has to sweep to win the election)
- NDP & PC's split Brampton
- NDP gets Oshawa & Hamilton
- 100% of the rest goes PC

What does that mean for transit
- Scarborough are swing ridings so Ford will give them the 3 stop subway (and build it vs just EA it to death).
- more frequent GO for the 905 (maybe electrification)
- Brampton Zum gets lots of BRT lanes (and will be the first electrified line outside of Lakeshore)
- Hamilton LRT may no longer be a priority (they can use the detractors to cancel it)
- Yonge North extension (without the "Downtown" line...Ontario can and will overrule the city)
Click to expand...
What about Stouffville GO?
 
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syn said:
Is coffey1 still running around in circles defending the Fords and their horrific transit record?
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Yes, and I think it is veering off topic. The past is an indicator of the future (hence why it is relevant in discussing Ford's transit plan), but I'd rather stay away from debating different interpretations of the past here. The Merits of the Scarborough Subway thread is the correct location for such discussions.
 
OneCity said:
Just make sure you go to the polling station and make it count. Not participating is worse than "strategic" voting as the dumbest options in our Democratic society.

https://www.cp24.com/mobile/news/20...-s-another-option-at-the-ballot-box-1.3962108
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That option has been around for the full 38 years I have been a voter and, you know what, we spend far less time discussing/focussing on the number of declined ballots than we ever spend on trying to figure out why turnout is low.

There is, in practice, no real difference between going to the polling station and declining your ballot and just not going....and, respectfully, those that think there is are just kidding themselves.
 
WislaHD said:
Yes, and I think it is veering off topic. The past is an indicator of the future (hence why it is relevant in discussing Ford's transit plan), but I'd rather stay away from debating different interpretations of the past here. The Merits of the Scarborough Subway thread is the correct location for such discussions.
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Who is off topic? Its a Political Election promises thread and I'm discussing the politics behind the actual lines which will be built. Many voters prefer and don't see the Fords transit politics as the crisis a few try to make it out to be and all opinions should be able to be discussed in a transit thread. I believe your post here and the other members are the ones that are completely off topic. Happy voting day

Streety McCarface said:
Last I checked, I supported Waterfront Transit, and that doesn't mean that I have to support one over the other.

Also, if we're going to talk about priorities, in terms of ridership, Yonge North is far ahead of Waterfront transit.

However, in terms of densification, Waterfront, DRL West, and the crosstown come out on top. It depends on your priorities, that doesn't mean one is inherently better than the other. Having 2000 buses a day travel on one corridor is extremely stupid, that's about 1 bus per minute per direction all day, or at least 2 per minute per direction during peak hours. The number of buses that is displacing from the rest of the system and the amount of money it costs to run those buses is astounding, at least 30K in drivers salaries and 12K dollars in fuel per day, or almost 15 million dollars annually, on just one section of line (this doesn't include ancillary costs like maintenance). Over the course of 30 years, that's 460 million dollars. Doesn't that seem a little wasteful? What about environmental costs?

Spoil your vote, or vote for the rhinoceros party.
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TOareaFan said:
Is that from department of redundancy department? ;)

Kidding aside, I made the decision not to vote about a week ago. Since I shared the decision with people (people I am close to and people I chat with on twitter and here) I have been inundated with people telling me how to handle my vote. The vote belongs to me and it is my right to do with it what I choose. It is a right, not an obligation, and with each right to do something comes an equal right to not do it. In fielding the number of "instructions" I have been getting about my vote, I realize that I can proudly say that I have never told anyone what to do with their vote.....and I think less people should have an opinion about what others do with theirs. /rant.
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Moved here to be a bit more on topic. Most people that don't vote are not even aware of their options or unfortunately as engaged as you certainly are. You are absolutely correct you should always do what you feel is best. That's the beauty of democracy, while its not perfect in any way at least we have some choices we can make on our own
 
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OneCity said:
Moved here to be a bit more on topic. Most people that don't vote are not even aware of their options or unfortunately as engaged as you certainly are. You are absolutely correct you should always do what you feel is best. That's the beauty of democracy, while its not perfect in any way at least we have some choices we can make on our own
Click to expand...

I respect the right of the people who run these boards to move things as they see fit. I would suggest, however, that if you are going to move my post you would have the common decency to also move the post I was responding to? It now looks like I started randomly commenting on my voting position in some other inappropriate thread. The truth is, I was really surprised to get an alert that my voting discussion was now part of the other thread....and all I did was respond to someone telling me to vote Rhino!
 
All I'll say is that I've always maintained that improving commutes was a priority over local transit for so many voters. Planners and politicians not understanding this has fueled frustration in the suburbs and Fordism as a result. Those residents saw subways as their solution to fast, reliable and comfortable transit. And they saw only one politician willing to deliver.

This push for subways is a direct result of a terrible commuter rail system which does nothing for the 416. Instead of addressing the actual problem, Miller decided to use LRT as a gentrification tool and the Fords responded by taking advantage of the public's belief that subways were faster. And here we are.

If you dismissed those concerns (and so many transit advocates, including the likes of Steve Munro did) as trivial or derided those voters as unconcerned about transit, then you have played a role in Ford's rise.

We could have and should have had a discussion on how to improve inner suburban commutes. With everything from GO-TTC integration to suburban rail, to subway and LRT extensions where appropriate. Instead, we got a ridiculous discussion on subways vs. LRTs, where each side only had one artificial metric. For the LRT side, km/$ and for the subway side end number of transfers. Neither of which actually addresses what voters care about. And since the Fords were better at the rhetoric game, they've prevailed.

It's there's to be any actual change of tenor of this debate, we need to start addressing the actual concerns of voters, not deriding them as ignorant.
 
WislaHD said:
That lesson is not going to be learned here, just as it hasn't in the United States in the wake of 2016.
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Sadly, true.

And the result is going to be transit getting truly f----d for a generation, after Ford blows pretty much all of it on subways and GO.

With the PCs pledging to take over the subway network, including its operation and maintenance, there's not going to be much room for debate at City Hall over where they want to expand. The only leverage will be control of the purse.
 
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