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Finch West Line 6 LRT

I was there this evening. Lots of people aged 60+ who were against the LRT, things got heated real quick. Some highlights:
  • Metrolinx and BIA presenters couldn't get their clickers working properly for their presentations. Wasn't a great start for them in a room full of people already struggling to comprehend how LRTs work.
  • Mammoliti painfully cut the Metrolinx presenter off 5 minutes short of his allotted time, saying he had already gone over his 15 min limit (he didn't) and wanted to save time for Q&A, then proceeded to waste the next 10 minutes reassuring everyone how much more Q&A there's going to be after.
  • Following this, some members of the crowd began barking at Mammoliti for his fascist attitude towards the discussion
  • We hear some concerns from business owners along Finch West, who bring up Eglinton and St Clair as examples of what they fear. Mammoliti does not allow the Metrolinx rep to answer the question in full, instead assuring them that subways do not disrupt surface traffic whatsoever and that their businesses would be unhindered by its construction (this one made me laugh).
  • For the remainder of the forum, Mammoliti dismissed any question or comment from people living outside of ward 7, as soon as they mentioned they were in favour of LRTs. He allowed comments from outsiders that served his arguments.
  • Mammoliti also acted as chair and (feudally aggressive) comptroller the entire evening, preferentially selecting people in the audience who he knew would bring up things that played well in to his agenda. I felt bad for the poor folks who were trying to get microphones to all the people he was just cherry picking out of the crowd.
  • After a crowd wide bark-fest concerning adding more buses to FW, a man stands and asks the crowd (who are 90% seniors, in case you forgot) "who here actually takes the Finch bus?". Only a handful of hands raise out of the 200+ in attendance.
  • Mammoliti straight up gas lights the only person attending in a wheelchair, who raised concerns about the accessibility of the forum. Mammoliti's response was "this was the only place, next question"
  • Oh, and I can't forget these hilariously narcissistic signs literred all over the St. Basil campus
    IMG_20180621_192703.jpg
He's essentially a thinner, more narcissistic Doug Ford. Total asshat. I can't stand populism.
 

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I was there this evening. Lots of people aged 60+ who were against the LRT, things got heated real quick. Some highlights:
  • Metrolinx and BIA presenters couldn't get their clickers working properly for their presentations. Wasn't a great start for them in a room full of people already struggling to comprehend how LRTs work.
  • Mammoliti painfully cut the Metrolinx presenter off 5 minutes short of his allotted time, saying he had already gone over his 15 min limit (he didn't) and wanted to save time for Q&A, then proceeded to waste the next 10 minutes reassuring everyone how much more Q&A there's going to be after.
  • Following this, some members of the crowd began barking at Mammoliti for his fascist attitude towards the discussion
  • We hear some concerns from business owners along Finch West, who bring up Eglinton and St Clair as examples of what they fear. Mammoliti does not allow the Metrolinx rep to answer the question in full, instead assuring them that subways do not disrupt surface traffic whatsoever and that their businesses would be unhindered by its construction (this one made me laugh).
  • For the remainder of the forum, Mammoliti dismissed any question or comment from people living outside of ward 7, as soon as they mentioned they were in favour of LRTs. He allowed comments from outsiders that served his arguments.
  • Mammoliti also acted as chair and (feudally aggressive) comptroller the entire evening, preferentially selecting people in the audience who he knew would bring up things that played well in to his agenda. I felt bad for the poor folks who were trying to get microphones to all the people he was just cherry picking out of the crowd.
  • After a crowd wide bark-fest concerning adding more buses to FW, a man stands and asks the crowd (who are 90% seniors, in case you forgot) "who here actually takes the Finch bus?". Only a handful of hands raise out of the 200+ in attendance.
  • Mammoliti straight up gas lights the only person attending in a wheelchair, who raised concerns about the accessibility of the forum. Mammoliti's response was "this was the only place, next question"
  • Oh, and I can't forget these hilariously narcissistic signs literred all over the St. Basil campusView attachment 147626
He's essentially a thinner, more narcissistic Doug Ford. Total asshat. I can't stand populism.
What a complete and utter disaster. CTV News just reported the same thing as what you've outlined here, and it's a crime that the meeting was hijacked by this delusional clueless councillor.

And the sad thing about all of this is that he will still get re-elected somehow. I can guarantee you at least 60% of the people in the meeting will end up voting for him yet again.
 
Just curious, why was those clickers not working properly? It seems strange that they failed at such an important meeting.
 
Just curious, why was those clickers not working properly? It seems strange that they failed at such an important meeting.
None of them realized that you needed to point the clicker at the receiver on the computer and not directly at the projected screen. I also think they were hitting the wrong button several times, making the show advance instead of go backwards.
 
This is John Tory’s pitch for re-election. Anybody notice a missing project in his transit plan? Context: this was issued after Tory’s meeting with Ford. Oh oh...

01D6B8BA-7F56-4753-B201-352CAD34F0C0.jpeg
 

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This is John Tory’s pitch for re-election. Anybody notice a missing project in his transit plan? Context: this was issued after Tory’s meeting with Ford. Oh oh...

Thanks for the image.

I expect it's because it's already effectively under construction. I believe, optimistically, this because the next statement about secured dollars is forward looking and does not talk about current spending.

Current spending would also include Crosstown, Union Station, and possibly bus capacity as non-trivial projects underway.
 
This is John Tory’s pitch for re-election. Anybody notice a missing project in his transit plan? Context: this was issued after Tory’s meeting with Ford. Oh oh...

View attachment 149540

Meh. I wouldn't read too much into it, for reasons discussed already.

Also, canceling this project at this stage would damn close to infeasible. At least $300 Million has already been spent, the $2.5 Billion design, build, finance and maintenance contract would have to be canceled (presumably costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars), and the $400 Million Alstom vehicle order would also have to be canceled. To put that in perspective, construction costs for this were estimated to be $1 Billion, so canceling it at this point could very well cost as much as just building it. Further, if the contractor is continuing work to this day, it's unlikely that the government has signalled their intention to end the project.
 

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