How Toronto Lost Its Groove

[freshcutgrass]

The GTA needs better governance. Amalgamation was stupidly executed. That's the problem. Instead of merging the boroughs in the 416, the province should have merged the regional governments in the GTA.

That would never work, as they were not compatible....Toronto's upper tier was the dominant one, while the 905 is dominated by the lower tier.

This would have yielded one police force (no more competing wages between services), one ambulance service, one fire service, and most importantly one transit service.

Transit would be the worst one to merge, as the challenges of the 905 would sink the TTC.

The 905 would be an albatross around the 416's neck. If you think the "Old" City of Toronto suffers from suburban pressure of the former boroughs...think what it would like if you threw in the 905, which is larger than the entire 416.

Let the 905 sort their own mess out (and pay for it). They made their bed...let them lie in it.

 

[jaycola]

Like it or not Toronto is more than just the old city or even the amalgamated city. It is the entire city region and ignoring the impact of growth in the suburbs and the exurbs does nothing to improve the conditon of people living in the city proper. In my opinion this map is a pretty fair representation of the Toronto urban region.

Metrolinx, wisely in my opinion, has been given the task of coordinating public transportation throughout this vast urban area with a stated goal of improving mass transit-public transportation throughout the urban region. Helping people get into and out of the city for both work and play, in a cost effective and timely way helps both the citizens and economy of the city.

Integrating other agencies such as development, roads, emergency services could provide efficiencies without the need of adding another tier of government in the region.


Places to grow, as mentioned in above posts, has a lot going for it. Encouraging growth in urban centres throughout the city region will do much to reduce traffic, increase density and to help urbanize the entire region.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Like it or not Toronto is more than just the old city or even the amalgamated city. It is the entire city region

In one way it is I guess. But in reality, they are completely separate entities, with some vast differences between them based on very different policies of independent municipal governments.

ignoring the impact of growth in the suburbs and the exurbs does nothing to improve the conditon of people living in the city proper.

It isn't a case of "ignoring" them...it's a case of it isn't our business. The 905 is what it is based on the policies of its elected municipal governments, which has nothing to do with Toronto.

They've made some mistakes in how they decided to build their cities (and someone should inform Milton that it isn't 1955). And yes, in many ways Toronto has to deal with those problems whether we like it or not, because of the integrated nature of the greater urban region we are a part of.

But Toronto's success is because of our own policies, and it is not in our best interest to bail out the 905....especially when it comes to public transit. The 905 purposely designed their cities without regard to public transit, so it's never going to work no matter how much money you throw at the problem. This imaginary GTA transit system would be devoting the vast majority of its resources trying to inefficiently move people around the 905, leaving the City of Toronto with even less than it has now.

Toronto is a manageable independent municipality. Let's not dilute what we have by becoming part of a much larger, less efficient entity. I'm ok with regional bodies like GO Transit, which is strictly a suburban commuter service. But the TTC is a completely separate animal, which should not try to over-extend itself. Aren't things challenging enough the 416 as it is?

Toll every road entering the 416 (and let them toll every road entering the 905 if they wish). Just like you have to pay an extra fare when entering TTC jurisdiction from a 905 transit vehicle.

Nothing changes unless you hit the pocketbook.

Those who made wise choices win....and those who made poor choices lose. What you are proposing is that we all lose instead by sharing the pain.

 

[Tewder]

... yet expansion of the TTC within the old city is as much an asset to the residents there as it is to the hundreds of thousands of commuters who work there. I mean, how do all those commuters get around the city once off the Go Train? Instead, many of them continue to take the car which only continues to contribute to gridlock everywhere.

I agree with Jaycola that we cannot balkanize our response to the need for effective mass transit in this region. The old city, the new city and the surrounding burbs are all economically linked, symbiotic parts of the same whole, whether you like it or not.

 

[Anth]

But Toronto's success is because of our own policies

Sorry, but this idea is laughable, not to mention smug. The city wasn't founded in 1998, nor does it exist in a vacuum. How built up was Toronto's downtown core when most of today's GTA was countryside?

As others are trying to point out, the city-region is an organic, interdependent urban whole that rapidly grew out and swallowed up surrounding towns, constantly redrawing municipal boundaries in the process.

Blaming the suburbs for their policies is like blaming water in a flood; the GTA you see today is more the product of larger global forces pouring people and investment into the region. Municipal governments have a lot less power to shape things with policy than committed urbanists like to believe.

In simpler terms: it is what it is and we have to work with what we've got.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Effective regional governance will require annexation of the exurbs and hinterland to the extent that will contain every reasonable scenario of urban expansion - without that, you'd end up with a situation just like the old Metro.

AoD