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Metrolinx: Other Items (catch all)

I was just curious about the similarities/differences between the 3 major transit authorities in Canada, Metrolinx,
The Société de transport de Montréal, and Vancouver's Translink. Does one have better governance or plan and operate better than another?
I look forward to the discussion.
 
DSC said:
In Star today:

Past delivery delays tank Bombardier’s bid for New York City subway contract


In a letter sent to employees, the president of the company’s Americas division said past poor performance and delays “sealed the fate of our bid.”
Click to expand...

Metrolinx caused this.
 
Fritter said:
I was just curious about the similarities/differences between the 3 major transit authorities in Canada, Metrolinx,
The Société de transport de Montréal, and Vancouver's Translink. Does one have better governance or plan and operate better than another?
I look forward to the discussion.
Click to expand...
If you want a rational discussion you need to define what you mean by 'better'. Larger? Cheaper? More frequent service? Better disabled access and service? Fewer accidents? Less subsidy? etc etc.
 
DSC said:
If you want a rational discussion you need to define what you mean by 'better'. Larger? Cheaper? More frequent service? Better disabled access and service? Fewer accidents? Less subsidy? etc etc.
Click to expand...

What I was looking for, was more governance issues. Which of the 3 has more arms length independent transit planning, and operation? I could be wrong, but I believe Vancouver and Montreal have just the one agency owning and operating all transit including, subway, urban and suburban bus routes and commuter heavy rail. I just wanted to compare the other two, with the mish mash that is Metrolinx, TTC, GTA transit systems and the MTO.
 
Aug 30
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Evidence-based planning in Toronto is dead

Any thoughts on this article?

...All of this makes sense in theory. However, in practice, it is hopelessly naïve. To think that planning is a rational exercise separate from politics is itself irrational. In recent years we have seen many ways that evidence-based planning can be misused and abused.
​
    • Decision-makers can disregard the evidence collected when it contradicts their views and politically favoured alternative.
    • The findings of technical studies that challenge the preferred option can be contested as incomplete or wrong.
    • Pressure can be exerted on the analysts and civil servants conducting the evidence-based studies to skew the results towards a favoured option.
    • The results of a technical study can be reported without sufficient context, so that it is not clear if the benefits of one project outweigh spending the money on other more worthy projects.
    • Finally, decision-makers can brashly marshal support for projects based on claims of fulfilling the “will of the people” in the absence of any evidence.
It is bad enough that public money is being spent on wasteful mega-projects. But the studies themselves are costing millions of dollars, which is wasted if the reports are not being used to inform decisions.


So, what to do? At the very least, all of the technical studies that form the evidence base for a mega-project should be publicly available for review and scrutiny at the time the approval decision is made. An expert panel could also be struck to provide a peer review of the quality of evidence in the business cases produced.

Prof. Bent Flyvbjerg at Oxford University has a more radical solution: make it a criminal offence to knowingly manipulate the technical studies analyzing the merits of a mega-project. This may sound harsh, but these studies are being used to justify decisions that will have financial and planning implications for generations to come.​
 
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TheTigerMaster said:
Evidence-based planning in Toronto is dead

Any thoughts on this article?
Click to expand...

My thought is "duh". Where has his writer been? Politics-based planning has been the modus operandi in the GTA for decades, be it building the then handicapping the Shepard subway, starting to dig then filling in the tunnels for the Eglinton West subway only to years later re-open the work as the Crosstown, to the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension, and to the Granddaddy of all boondoggles, the Scarborough Subway Extension.

How many billions have been wasted over the decades of political interference? How many new transit lines could we open with that wasted money? It's disgusting.

It is time to clamp down on this foolish waste of taxpayer dollars. I'm sick and tired of this. For politicians to waste our hard-earned income on idiocy like the SSE should be criminal, as was suggested in the article.

It's time for the people to rise up against this. I for one will vote for any politician that supports a massive restructuring of Metrolinx with the aim of removing any and all political interference.
 
Specifically, what do you think of Flyvbjerg's suggestion that it becomes a criminal offence to "knowingly manipulate the technical studies analyzing the merits of a mega-project"?

This sounds like a harsh measure, but one I agree with. It doesn't make it an offence to advocate for a project not supported by technical studies, but rather to manipulate those studies.

This would prevent a lot of the nonsense we saw with the Scarborough Subway, Sheppard Subway and these two GO Stations, where municipal and provincial politicians were either directly manipulating what was included in the technical reports, or taking measures to prevent the release of unfavourable information. This is also a measure that I believe the public would universally applaud, which would make it difficult for future governments to remove the restrictions.

Beyond this, there does need to be a fundamental restructuring of Metrolinx. This agency was supposed to usher in a new era of fact-based transit building. However, Metrolinx has just become another vehicle for politicians to interfere with transit expansion.
 
pstogios said:
It is time to clamp down on this foolish waste of taxpayer dollars. I'm sick and tired of this.
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How exactly do you propose to do that? Where are transit planners going to find the money to build their politically-unpopular projects?
 
Leo_Chan said:
Win the lottery. But unfortunately, it's not that simple.
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You know that saying about how everybody wants a dictatorship that aligns perfectly with their views? This is a great example of this. "Leave it to the experts" is great, until the day the experts do something you don't like. If we'd left everything to the experts in the 1960s and 70s, we wouldn't have any streetcars left and we'd have a six-lane freeway cutting the Annex in half. Those proposals were stopped because people demanded that their elected representatives interfere with "the experts".
 
amnesiajune said:
You know that saying about how everybody wants a dictatorship that aligns perfectly with their views? This is a great example of this. "Leave it to the experts" is great, until the day the experts do something you don't like. If we'd left everything to the experts in the 1960s and 70s, we wouldn't have any streetcars left and we'd have a six-lane freeway cutting the Annex in half. Those proposals were stopped because people demanded that their elected representatives interfere with "the experts".
Click to expand...
The democracy should not be between politicians, it should be between politicians AND experts, where voters can vote for the experts to veto the politician's specific decisions.
 
Leo_Chan said:
The democracy should not be between politicians, it should be between politicians AND experts, where voters can vote for the experts to veto the politician's specific decisions.
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So, referendums? Are we going to take every single issue to the poll box? Why don't those experts just run for public office?
 
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