sixrings
Senior Member
I voted for Tory even though he was pro subway conversion because he had the best chance to beat FORD. I am pro LRT and will be sad if it has to die in order to get rid of FORD.
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picard102
Senior Member
Of which he still had not entered. Hypothetical support isn't support.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
almost every time pollsters have asked "do you prefer a subway on x route for $y, or a LRT on x route for $z, people have favoured the LRT.
jeffreym
Active Member
Support is support. It means that people liked the guy. Sure, you might argue that support might not translate into votes if David Miller theoretically ran again back in 2010, who knows, but I was responding to Burloak's post where he said "[Transit City] was so hated that it helped get Ford elected Mayor."
The way he phrased that he made it seem like so many people were pissed off about TC that they were looking to vote for anyone not like David Miller.
The poll I mentioned suggests that isn't true. There may have been some people who felt that way - but there was no mass outrage like he's suggesting. Heck, they noted that there was a contingent of people who were thinking of voting Ford who would have been interested in voting for Miller if he ran again.
On the flip side, some of the people who would've voted for David Miller might not have liked TC, I'm sure those people existed too, but again, there was no mass outrage as Burloak suggested.
jeffreym
Active Member
Even then I'd argue that that doesn't represent the number of people who "hated Transit City".
Think of it this way: imagine if someone offered you an LRT and you thought 'Great!'. Then they came along and asked you, okay, how about a subway? You like the existing ones right? Would you like a subway instead of an LRT? 'Sure!' you might say.
That doesn't mean you disliked Transit City. It just means you were familiar with a subway and would take it if you were offered one.
Electrify
Senior Member
Wasn't the only subway that Ford wanted in 2009 the Sheppard one? As far as he was concerned, the rest of the TTC's infrastructure was good enough, except for streetcars which he also was supposed to remove.
WislaHD
Superstar
Tory's bus plan was superior to Chow's bus plan, if you actually looked at what each was proposing. It still behooves me why the Tory campaign didn't popularize Tory's bus plans during the election.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Does is really matter? If people hated TC as much as BurlOak asserts, you wouldn't have polls showing public support for the Transit City LRT lines vs. the alternatives. We would't see a majority of people, including a majority of residents in Scarborough, supporting the Scarborough LRT over the Line 2 extension. And we definitely wouldn't have polls showing that 2/3 of people would prefer to spend money on completing the Transit City LRT network over the Line 2 extension.
And please, nobody reply with by saying "people voted for the subway in the provincial election". It's not as if people had a choice. All the parties that had a chance of winning jumped on the subway bandwagon. But even if the Liberals didn't jump on the bandwagon, they likely would have won the seats. They were simply hedging their bets by jumping on the subway bandwagon. Furthermore, it's not as if the people were voting exclusively because of the subway. There are far more important issues than this $3.something billion hole. I voted Liberal. I would have voted Liberal if they were the one party supporting the subway. Does that now mean I'm ecstatic about the subway and a Transit City hater? Of course not.
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jeffreym
Active Member
True. You make a good point.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
The Liberals winning the Scarborough seats means nothing RE public support of the Line 2 extension.
The PCs announced their support for the subway. The NDP, who didn't have much of a chance of winning, were wishy washy about their position. The Liberals revealed their support of the subway soon after the PC did. There was literally zero risk to the Liberals doing this. Nobody was going to switch their vote to NDP because LPO supported the subway, and doing this prevented a small number of voters from switching their vote to PC. This promise required no financial commitment from the province and had no impact on the budget. Either way the Liberals were going to win the ridings, but this just made their victory a more sure thing.
Similar could be said about John Tory as well. What we had in the muni election was a relatively small, but important voting block controlling the agenda. I think it's reasonable to say that most JT supporters were not going to vote Doug Ford, regardless of their positions on the subway. However there were probably a small number of voters who would have voted for Doug if Tory dropped his support of the subway. Given how close the race was, even 5% of voters switching over could have propelled Doug into the mayor's chair. Tory needed to appease this tiny percentage of voters to win, so that's what he did. Now that JT is mayor, we see that (according to Steve Munro) he hasn't attended any of the meetings regarding the Line 2 extension (it's typical for mayor's to be involved in projects they support) and that the studies for his SmartTrack plan have been designed in such a way that they will discredit the Line 2 extension. It's not hard to read between the lines...
Now that election season is over, Council is moving to kill the project. In the next few weeks if this $85 Million issue doesn't kill it, then SmartTrack very likely will.
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GenerationW
Senior Member
It pretty much means everything RE Liberal support, since they were the party in power when the switch was made from LRT to subway, and they haven't wavered since.
You mean by doing absolutely nothing to kill it? Great strategy!
aquateam
Active Member
I think you mean befuddles. If something behooves you then it is personally beneficial or necessary for you.
I think that in municipal campaigns there is a strong need to be original, and not be seen as copying other candidates. You're not supposed to support other candidates' good ideas, just try to shoot them down so they don't look good.
WislaHD
Superstar
That's right, odd word choice in my part.
Still though, Tory announced his bus plan back in May, looooong before Chow announced hers.
Still though, Tory announced his bus plan back in May, looooong before Chow announced hers.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Well yeah... but if you reread my comment I was talking about public support. Because a lot of people here claim that the Liberals winning must mean that the public supports this thing.
What are you talking about? Be sure to pay attention to Council this week.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
I don't even remember a bus plan from him. He should have mentioned it more.