GTHA Regional Transit Amalgamation Discussion: Superlinx/Subway Upload

[44 North]

Kind of rich that Miller would now come out and say that the city needs the DRL and bitches at Ford for not prioritizing it when he completely ignored it's need when he was mayor. Of all people that should shut their mouths about the DRL it's Miller.

Hm, not really. Way back in 06 the RL was in the City's master plan to be started around nowish and in place by 2030. That's what was accepted into the province's regional transit plan in 07. Under Miller, Ford, and Tory the City never really wavered on that contrary to epithets like yours.

If you want to talk ignoring it, that could more or less land at the feet of the prov during the Liberal era. Although it was accepted that RL should be in place by 2030, they then changed that to well beyond for some reason. Likely due to their new RER plan, and crippling inability to build the LRT lines they promised. Since a 2040 RL doesn't make sense they relented and 'upgraded' its priority status (literally back to where it was in the first place).

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

Kind of rich that Miller would now come out and say that the city needs the DRL and bitches at Ford for not prioritizing it when he completely ignored it's need when he was mayor. Of all people that should shut their mouths about the DRL it's Miller.

Exactly. Miller didn't even try (or care!) to kickstart the DRL. Instead, "well there's a transit problem, it can be solved with TC", and that way of thinking with Miller kind of drove us UTers nuts, and honestly, Miller doesn't even live here anymore. Like go away Miller.

 

[sixrings]

Oh please there are plenty of people on this thread who don't live in Toronto and think they know what's best. As the mayor Miller often took the subway to work.tory does too. I'll give him credit for that. But do you really think if transit city was finished (if money wasn't differed sheppard,finch,scarborough,eglinton could have been done by now) that we wouldn't be at about the same place with the drl today(plannong). Does anyone really think that once the network was done that Miller would say no drl now I'm going to put another set of lrt on places like Lawrence Wilson Kipling instead of a DRL because I don't believe Toronto needs a subway. Of course Miller would have gotten to the subway. You can argue he should have done that first which I'm fine with but ultimately his plan as being affordable and a network was a reasonable plan. The big problem with any plan is the city really doesn't want to pay into it and is reliant on the province. Even with a liberal province finds got cut. Toronto could have kick started the projects wut their own money but decided to wait for the deferred money to come in. By then there was a new mayor who had a subway plan doodled on a napkin. Now it's been 10+ years later and the only thing tangible is the eglinton LRT with promises of dream transit on April 11th. That's my birthday and I won't like being the guy saying I told you so

 

[Leo_Chan]

Oh please there are plenty of people on this thread who don't live in Toronto and think they know what's best. As the mayor Miller often took the subway to work.tory does too. I'll give him credit for that. But do you really think if transit city was finished (if money wasn't differed sheppard,finch,scarborough,eglinton could have been done by now) that we wouldn't be at about the same place with the drl today(plannong). Does anyone really think that once the network was done that Miller would say no drl now I'm going to put another set of lrt on places like Lawrence Wilson Kipling instead of a DRL because I don't believe Toronto needs a subway. Of course Miller would have gotten to the subway. You can argue he should have done that first which I'm fine with but ultimately his plan as being affordable and a network was a reasonable plan. The big problem with any plan is the city really doesn't want to pay into it and is reliant on the province. Even with a liberal province finds got cut. Toronto could have kick started the projects wut their own money but decided to wait for the deferred money to come in. By then there was a new mayor who had a subway plan doodled on a napkin. Now it's been 10+ years later and the only thing tangible is the eglinton LRT with promises of dream transit on April 11th. That's my birthday and I won't like being the guy saying I told you so

Did Miller have a phase 2/3 plan for transit?

 

[rbt]

Did Miller have a phase 2/3 plan for transit?

You mean for after the transit city network, bus express network, Spadina Extension, and DRL were complete? Not that I'm aware of, nor is it particularly useful for a mayor to make plans decades beyond their own term.

TTC staff, however, likely had some idea of what might be required after those projects were complete.

Much of Transit City fell out of a Department of Transportation report on street congestion. The LRT streets were the 7 streets with "medium" congestion at that time (~2001) which were expected to have "high" congestion by 2021.

 

[nfitz]

Exactly. Miller didn't even try (or care!) to kickstart the DRL. Instead, "well there's a transit problem, it can be solved with TC"

Not sure why you are ignoring that he pushed the Spadina extension and the DRL, with a lot of pressure from city coucil to accelerate the DRL in the Regional Tranportation Plan (Big Move) where it was initially proposed to be in the 25-year plan rather than the 15-year plan. By the time Miller left it was in the 15-year plan on, on everyone's radar, and in the city's plans.

iller doesn't even live here anymore. Like go away Miller.

Since when? His profile page at WWF says he lives and works in Toronto - http://www.wwf.ca/about_us/experts/davidmiller.cfm

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Not sure why you are ignoring that he pushed the Spadina extension and the DRL, with a lot of pressure from city coucil to accelerate the DRL in the Regional Tranportation Plan (Big Move) where it was initially proposed to be in the 25-year plan rather than the 15-year plan. By the time Miller left it was in the 15-year plan on, on everyone's radar, and in the city's plans.

He PUSHED the Spadina Extension? No one wants to turn this into a Miller-bashing thread - as I said, I basically like the guy - but that's revisionist nonsense. The Spadina extension pushed HIM.

The DRL got moved up in The Big Move? Yes, after the fact.
After which fact?
After the fact of him realizing that the Yonge extension was getting pushed on him, just as the Spadina extension had been. I'll give you dollars to donuts that IF Miller had run and been elected for a third term and IF the Yonge extension hadn't been pushed by York Region and the province, that the DRL would still be in the 25-year section of The Big Move. He was anything but pro-active there and, really, his anti-subway rhetoric is occasionally as galling as Ford's anti-LRT rhetoric.

To listen to the Toronto Urbanist Crowd, you'd think DRL has been their priority forever. No one in the city had ever heard of the darned thing - aside from the nerds who hang out on boards like this one - until the Yonge Extension EA put it on the spotlight in 2009. And that IS on the Miller/Giambrone regime (among others).

But, hey, what's done is done. Miller isn't perfect, as I said, but I still think it's a good thing that (as he told Paikin) he came out of the woodwork here, given what the province appears to be doing. But all this stuff cuts both ways. The "disaster" building the St. Clair streetcar allowed Ford to poison the well on LRT and it would be a damned shame if the "disaster" Ford II is now proposing allowed Miller and the proverbial downtown NDP crowd to poison the well for a true regional system. That is not what Ford is doing, I happily admit, but it's not something Miller seems to grasp the need for either.


(And I'm assuming the reference above to Miller not living here anymore was based on him having taught at Harvard for a bit but, yeah, he's been back for a while.)

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

Not sure why you are ignoring that he pushed the Spadina extension and the DRL, with a lot of pressure from city coucil to accelerate the DRL in the Regional Tranportation Plan (Big Move) where it was initially proposed to be in the 25-year plan rather than the 15-year plan. By the time Miller left it was in the 15-year plan on, on everyone's radar, and in the city's plans.

Well, Miller may have been been the one to push it, but neither he or Ford started it, and Tory is trying to obviously.




Since when? His profile page at WWF says he lives and works in Toronto - http://www.wwf.ca/about_us/experts/davidmiller.cfm
[/QUOTE]

Well, I thought he may have left us.

 

[salsa]

Seems like everyone has a different version of history when it comes to Miller. I don't know who to believe anymore.

 

[steveintoronto]

In an effort to find reference to Miller and DRL, I tripped across a link now dead, but it was referenced in this string ten years ago! (And the link was for the National Post of all sources!)

As Spadina expansion begins, David Miller pushes for Downtown Relief Line

As dignitaries broke ground on a $2.6-billion Spadina subway extension into Vaughan today, Toronto Mayor David Miller said he thinks the next subway expansion should come with the Downtown Relief Line ...

Also occurs here:

74Hanes, Allison. "As Spadina Expansion Begins, David Miller Pushes for Downtown Relief Line." National Post. Web. 11 May 2010.

http://www.drlnow.com/references.html

But it could be a while before Toronto sees another costly subway project, whether a Yonge line extension, as the province favours, or, as Miller prefers, a downtown relief line.

https://www.thestar.com/news/ttc/2009/11/28/subway_to_transform_gta.html

 

[robmausser]

Seems like everyone has a different version of history when it comes to Miller. I don't know who to believe anymore.

I think that points to the fact that Miller was only firm on his Transit City plan. Whether he supported the DRL or Spadina extension or what, it seems like this was less of a concern to him.

 

[nfitz]

He PUSHED the Spadina Extension? No one wants to turn this into a Miller-bashing thread - as I said, I basically like the guy - but that's revisionist nonsense. The Spadina extension pushed HIM.

He was asking the province for money for both extending the Sheppard subway further east and Spadina to Steeles right from the beginning. After that was getting little traction, he pushed Transit City.

I don't recall any attempts from Miller to slow down the Spadina extension, once the province suddenly took up the cause unexpectedly, with the city budgeting a lot of support for it, and Miller supporting it in council. Recall all the money that the city spent on the 4-station EA and public consultation for the 4-station extension from Downsview to Steeles West back in 2004/2005, long before Transit City discussions started in 2005.

I don't think he was the biggest cheerleader, especially north of Steeles, but surely suggesting that Miller was LRT only is not only revisionist nonsense, but blatantly false.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I think that's a fair summary: he wasn't entirely against the Spadina extension but he was certainly not particularly happy with the North-of-Steeles aspect.
I never said he tried to slow it down or that he opposed subways but they were not his priority and he certainly didn't say, "I'd really like to do my city-wide LRT plan but clearly the priority is to first alleviate this huge crush at Yonge-Bloor and get the DRL built." I think the record clearly shows the DRL was a long-term project until the city made it a pre-requisite for the Yonge Extension. If you just turned on the news today you'd think the DRL had been the #1 priority forever. It wasn't for Miller, it certainly wasn't for Ford and kind of belatedly for Tory. I think it should have been built in the 80s, all things being equal, but whether it's Sheppard/Eglinton or Transit City or Scarborough or SmartTrack, Toronto's mayors (and the province) have always found something more important to do first.

If we're ranking recent mayors on transit, I still put Miller near the top (I mean, there's not a lot of competition...) but I guess all I'm saying is we shouldn't beatify him just because of how ghastly Ford was. He had his blind spots too.

 

[ssiguy2]

The north of Stelles aspect was none of Toronto's business because they weren't paying for it. Anyway, we will find out in a week's time what all of this means. Hopefully RER wins the day for a downtown tunnel with a subway frequency.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

He was asking the province for money for both extending the Sheppard subway further east and Spadina to Steeles right from the beginning. After that was getting little traction, he pushed Transit City.

I don't recall any attempts from Miller to slow down the Spadina extension, once the province suddenly took up the cause unexpectedly, with the city budgeting a lot of support for it, and Miller supporting it in council. Recall all the money that the city spent on the 4-station EA and public consultation for the 4-station extension from Downsview to Steeles West back in 2004/2005, long before Transit City discussions started in 2005.

I don't think he was the biggest cheerleader, especially north of Steeles, but surely suggesting that Miller was LRT only is not only revisionist nonsense, but blatantly false.

I think that's a fair summary: he wasn't entirely against the Spadina extension but he was certainly not particularly happy with the North-of-Steeles aspect.
I never said he tried to slow it down or that he opposed subways but they were not his priority and he certainly didn't say, "I'd really like to do my city-wide LRT plan but clearly the priority is to first alleviate this huge crush at Yonge-Bloor and get the DRL built." I think the record clearly shows the DRL was a long-term project until the city made it a pre-requisite for the Yonge Extension. If you just turned on the news today you'd think the DRL had been the #1 priority forever. It wasn't for Miller, it certainly wasn't for Ford and kind of belatedly for Tory. I think it should have been built in the 80s, all things being equal, but whether it's Sheppard/Eglinton or Transit City or Scarborough or SmartTrack, Toronto's mayors (and the province) have always found something more important to do first.

If we're ranking recent mayors on transit, I still put Miller near the top (I mean, there's not a lot of competition...) but I guess all I'm saying is we shouldn't beatify him just because of how ghastly Ford was. He had his blind spots too.

There’s something tremendously ironic about LRT-cheerleader Miller getting more subways built than any other mayor. Meanwhile his two pro-subway successors have failed to even add a single subway stop to the network.

I really wish that Miller had ran again in 2010. I don’t know that he would’ve won, but if he did, TYSSE, SELRT, FWLRT, SLRT would all be completed by now, and ECLRT would be on the verge of completion. And then consider the opportunity costs: if the SLRT had been completed, we could today focus our time and money on more pressing needs, like the DRL, rather than debating the same projects over and over and over again.

I wonder if he regrets not running again. He’s still very engaged in municipal politics to this day.