MoveOntario 2020: what went wrong?

[kettal]

SimonP is probably right. There were also a lot of MPPs who heard their constituents cry fearing more St Clair fiascos.

But there's still the 40 other non-TC projects which are seemingly abandoned.

 

[kEiThZ]

According to a former Metrolinx employee, Metrolinx is just "another gooey layer of bureaucracy laid on the existing anti-transit provincial bureaucracy that is MTO."

source

I would hardly call a speech writer and a dissaffected "employee" a great source on Metrolinx's thoughts. They had their viewpoints. They wanted him as their PR flack to attack other viewpoints. He disagreed. That in no way means that they are anti-transit.

Sometimes I think when people talk this way, they must have political amnesia. Does nobody remember Harris? He was anti-transit.

 

[kEiThZ]

This thread shows exactly why people don't like Toronto. The rest of the GTA is taking a bigger hit than TO. Toronto has come off must less damaged than everybody else from this round of cuts. And the GTA as a whole is still probably better off for infrastructure funding than any other part of this province. Everybody is suffering. That's the economic reality. I am grateful that we are getting some transit expansion. And I am grateful McGuinty's doing something. It would have been really, really easy to scrap all of MO2020 to shrink his deficit. You can bet that a Hudak administration would have done exactly that. McGuinty is taking a huge risk, running a massive deficit that pissess off the rest of the province to build LRTs that matter to comparatively fewer voters. So how about some support for the man?

And Toronto could have come off even less damaged had they prioritized lines that had regional implications. I am willing to bet, the province would have pitched in more money, if all the TTC had on its plate was Eglinton end-to-end, the SRT refurb and the DRL. Had we gone with Eglinton first, we would have got it. I doubt they would have cut it off, because of the regional implications. The DRL could not be cut short because it's pointless if it doesn't go from Danforth to Yonge. And the SRT would simply have to be replaced anyway. So it would have to go. This city is paying dearly for running Sheppard East up the flagpole first.

 

[kEiThZ]

I think transparency is rather critical when an unelected body is capable of steam-rolling the local, elected authorities, especially in this era of expense scandals and massive government capital projects. If Metrolinx thinks the evidence in favour of its chosen projects is compelling what reason does it have not to be open, educate the public and make those projects popular ideas?

Ask the average man what he wants, and he'll tell you he wants a subway to his door. What an authority like Metrolinx has to do is take preferences into account and develop a plan.

They also have to keep their goals in mind. For a regional transport authority, you tell me how much regional transport will have improved, even if all of MO2020 had gone through? If they really were serious about their mandate and goal (and not about just being a chequebook for municipal authroties) the very first project to be finished woudl have been Presto across the board (including the TTC).

 

[kettal]

This thread shows exactly why people don't like Toronto. The rest of the GTA is taking a bigger hit than TO. Toronto has come off must less damaged than everybody else from this round of cuts. And the GTA as a whole is still probably better off for infrastructure funding than any other part of this province. Everybody is suffering. That's the economic reality. I am grateful that we are getting some transit expansion. And I am grateful McGuinty's doing something. It would have been really, really easy to scrap all of MO2020 to shrink his deficit. You can bet that a Hudak administration would have done exactly that. McGuinty is taking a huge risk, running a massive deficit that pissess off the rest of the province to build LRTs that matter to comparatively fewer voters. So how about some support for the man?

And Toronto could have come off even less damaged had they prioritized lines that had regional implications. I am willing to bet, the province would have pitched in more money, if all the TTC had on its plate was Eglinton end-to-end, the SRT refurb and the DRL. Had we gone with Eglinton first, we would have got it. I doubt they would have cut it off, because of the regional implications. The DRL could not be cut short because it's pointless if it doesn't go from Danforth to Yonge. And the SRT would simply have to be replaced anyway. So it would have to go. This city is paying dearly for running Sheppard East up the flagpole first.

Only a short time ago, we had McGuinty telling us that the cost of doing nothing is higher than the cost of building this transit. Is that no longer true? Has GTA population stopped growing?

He was the one who had to delay any discussion of investment strategy to 2013.

He chose to go forward with Sheppard & Finch. IIRC, Sheppard's funding announcement came after Eglinton's. All of them came after the economic crisis.

Tell me you're not wishing right now that you voted for John Tory in 2007.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

No one's disputed ssiguy2's wacky claim that the Spadina line is costing $3.1B per km....so I'll do it.

When the province announced this there was, I think, a sincere hope/belief/expectation the feds would chip in $6B and it never happened. If it had, we wouldn't have the current delays and the Yonge subway extension likely would have gone forward. Move2020 was literally announced the day York Region was voting to approve expropriations for the Viva lanes on Yonge Street; they slammed on the brakes, threw all their efforts into the subway, completed the EA....and now we have no idea how long it will sit. That's a failure on somebody's part.

Another thing McGuinty and Metrolinx did, somewhat understandably, was say: "We're going to start building these priority projects and then come back to you in a few years with some ideas, cuz we don't know how to pay for all of it. But if you see the transit going in, you'll probably understand when we say we want to introduce tolls etc."

It would have been a harder sell to unveil The Big Move and make road pricing or other revenue programs a part of it at startup, but now things AREN'T getting built and road tolls are becoming a municipal election issue and it's starting to look like the Big Move COULD just fall by the wayside. I don't think they "completely backtracked" as said upthread, but the recession and lack of fed co-operation have made it difficult to proceed at full-speed. They just never had the money to start with...

And as someone who once respected Miller I'm getting very tired of his Transit City posturing. He knows what the situation is and IMHO is just using it to preserve his "legacy." If TC won't be his legacy, he'll sure make it clear that his legacy was to fight for it with his dying breaths and it wasn't HIS fault it didn't get built. He's making this all about Toronto and it's not all about Toronto. It's about a REGIONAL network that's not coming together as hoped and while TC may be the biggest single piece of that network, the slowdown - despite Miller's ranting - has implications well beyond the timeline for the napkin-drawn 416 plan.

 

[kEiThZ]

Tell me you're not wishing right now that you voted for John Tory in 2007.

I did vote John Tory. I sympathized with the hometown boy. And I think John Tory would have had a better vision for the GTA then McGuinty did, despite being a Conservative. And he would have been more restrained in management, so that he didn't overpromise and under-deliver.

As for Sheppard. That was Miller's priority. McGuinty gave it to him. You can thank Miller for that one. Regardless of when they made the funding announcements, it was quite clear from the beginning that Sheppard was the most important. Eglinton appeared to be next, but I'd argue that it was starting to be apparent that Finch West was starting to creep up the priroities list for some reason.

I'll bet that when the province approached them and gave them a choice of where to cut, that Miller chose to keep Sheppard and Finch over Eglinton. Without LRT on Sheppard, the door was left open to subway expansion, both to replace the SRT and on Sheppard itself. Finch, I don't understand why though. Personally, I would have given up all that for an Eglinton Crosstown.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The issue to me is scale - at a fundamental level Metrolinx is beholden to the province, which frankly is not the level at which regional transit policies, much less the even more salient issues of funding and the methods by which to obtain them, should draw from. Transit is far too much of an urban (read Toronto) issue to compete with more provincially scaled ones like health and education for attention and funding. No one will cut those two given the relative importance of that to all Ontarians.

Keithz:

I highly doubt one can "choose" to keep Eglinton at the given cost envelope - not all the lines are created equal when it comes to the cost department. In a sick way, at least that leaves room for Eglinton and SRT to be done properly. No offense, but Sheppard is the least relevant line in comparison to the other two. And you know what, people are going to hate Toronto just because it is the only city that really requires significant local transit to function properly. The economic argument for that just doesn't exist elsewhere to the same degree.

Besides, just how much provincial public money is spent on highway constructure outside the 416? Perhaps they should remind themselves of that first before whining about Toronto.

AoD

 

[kEiThZ]

AOD,

I completely agree with you that Sheppard isn't relevant. And of course, I actually think it's worse because the SELRT messes up transit in the North-East.

And like I said earlier, I don't think it's all necesarily funding envelopes. If Eglinton was priority and it was running from the airport to Kennedy station, what do you cut without making the line useless? And given that it was connecting with Peel Region transit services, would they really cut a line that impacts other municipalities too? The sad reality is that Sheppard and Finch are easy to cut because they are 416 exclusives.

As for anti-Toronto attitudes. I didn't say there were right or justified. But they are a political reality for our provincial politicians. McGuinty has to get re-elected at the end of the day. If he gave billions to Toronto and the cupboard was bare for everybody else that would be the end of him. Just look at the testy relationship between the Premier and his hometown right now. They are feeling they got screwed because Toronto gets all their TC lines paid for while Ottawa has to pitch more than a third of the cost.

 

[kEiThZ]

One question I have is why the city isn't stepping up to the plate and paying for the truncated bits on Finch and Sheppard. If LRT is so apparently cheap, surely the city can fund the rest by itself.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Keithz:

Actually what will really mess up transit in the NE is SRT - E-W movement along Sheppard just isn't that important a matter at a regional level (like, really, the whole point of riding Sheppard is going to and from YUS...and when extended, to the SRT - transit mode doesn't really matter that much either way).

But that's why I am saying - at the end of the day, complaining and NOT complainting really doesn't make a difference in the political calculus - and I highly doubt that people in Ottawa will vote on the basis of what transit funding is given to Toronto vis-a-vis what they have gotten, in comparison to new hospitals, schools, the debt, etc.

AoD

 

[GraphicMatt]

Canada seems reluctant to really acknowledge its urban centres unless the Olympics are going on or whatever. The economic and social importance of transit in Toronto as compared to every other place in Ontario was best demonstrated by the OC Transpo strike. It lasted 51 days. Ottawa has not reached the tipping point where transit becomes an integral part of the city's day-to-day economy.

If Toronto struggles economically over the next decade it will be in large part due to the lack of investment in transit infrastructure.

That's why this move is so disastrous and why I won't vote for this provincial Liberal party again unless they change gears.

 

[GraphicMatt]

One question I have is why the city isn't stepping up to the plate and paying for the truncated bits on Finch and Sheppard. If LRT is so apparently cheap, surely the city can fund the rest by itself.

The city has made an offer to finance the costs themselves so the construction schedule can continue as originally planned. The province has declined. I think a big issue at the moment is that these were to be provincially-owned transit lines.

 

[toraerach]

What went wrong is that people who should be acting like allies (transit advocates and users) are too divided to stand up to the province with one unified voice. Instead of demanding funding, we argue ad nauseum about technology choice, we allow ourselves to get divided into 416 and 905, TTC users and GO users, etc. The limited funding historically available for transit projects has turned us into cannibals preying on our own kind. Witness the amount of people filled with glee now that TC is threatened, the ones who fool themselves into thinking that somehow Rob Ford will scrape together enough money to build subways everywhere, or for that matter the amount of people who cheerfully point out the Sheppard subway's perceived failure.

No one wins when money for transit suddenly dries up, and it would be helpful if we could all put this LRT vs. subways thing aside right now and stand up together for an investment in transit. It's all too easy for politicians to cancel funding when half of the people who would be advocating for transit are cheering on the cuts hoping that their pet project might have a chance now, not realizing that a lack of funds means nothing is going to get built at all.

Obviously this isn't the only thing that went wrong, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who's starting to get really irritated with every thread in T&I turning into an LRT vs. subway argument (with the same people making the same points over and over again). When transit funding gets cut, we to put these relatively minor differences to the side and work together.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Keithz:

If a tax hike of what, 40M per year resulted in the howls of protests, why would one think it would be politically opportune to use this method to raise funding locally for transit? Personally I think that's a preferred route, unfortunately I believe this view is in the minority.

AoD