A major mode with what, 234,000 people. What would you call Mississauga then with over 500,000 people? TTC should be providing service for Toronto citizens first. I don't approve of the Scarborough subway but i do not blame people there for wanting a subway when they see one go into Vaughan that has 1/3 of the population Scarborough has
I don't think you know the difference between a node and a municipality. Try Dictionary.com or wikipedia. Or you could look up "mobility hub" on Metrolinx's site. Or read Places to Grow...Really, there's lots of places you could start. The subway isn't designed to serve all of Vaughan; it's designed to serve VMC.
Also, your numbers are off.
But, yeah, sure. Let's go back to talking about who DESERVES subways based on something arbitrary.
Right now, the TTC is entirely funded by the city of Toronto, and will continue to be so after the Vaughan extension is built. Regional thinking = Regional Payment. Or provincial payment.
Yeah, that's what I said, isn't it? That's RIGHT NOW. There's no reason that has to be the case even this time next year. As I said, neither the current governance, nor the fare structure, nor the funding system is currently scaled to what we have in operation. So, we agree. But extrapolating from what we have now - which is what Munro does - is pointless because it absolutely has to change, and it will. (And if TTC had implemented Presto earlier, we might be further along on some of this discussion, but maybe not. We're behind on just about everything else...)
They are little more then vote buying exercises. Will the Bloor Danforth meet capacity withing the next 25 years? No. Will VCC? No. Will Richmond Hill to Finch? No.
You could also have mentioned the original Spadina line which, as we all know, was stupidly stuck in the middle of a highway, killing development potential. I'd only dispute RH to Finch because of the development already on Yonge and the fact so many people are already just driving/busing from the north down to Finch. I think it's probably the safest bet in the whole Big Move in that respect, irrespective of the capacity issues. If you don't have faith in Yonge Street, it's hard to get too excited about, I dunno, Hurontario. But I agree that politics has driven where the new lines are going far more than it should. It's part of the reason I don't trust TTC (which is political AND terribly parochial) to do its job right. Metrolinx has yet to show it's much better, but it's how it is supposed to operate, in theory.
Downtown has the most subways because it's the densest part of the region. These places are all suburban office parks or malls which may or may not succeed. The Big Move may be a regional plan, but I'm guessing Munro being a Toronto proper blogger wanted to talk about Toronto.
I understand why downtown has subways, I thought I made clear. As for Munro, that's fine but then he should make that clear. If I want to evaluate the Constitution of Canada writ large, that's one thing. But if I want to evaluate it in terms of how it affects cities or Aboriginal people or whatever, that's another. Munro implied he was doing a general assessment and I think we agree it's really a Toronto assessment. He's entitled, of course, but it leads to some apples/oranges problems because he is evaluating something in a different context than the report he is criticizing.
Again it's not about throwing the walls up at Steeles, it's about funding extensions for political gain and money loss. You say city borders should not matter because all of a sudden RH and Vaughan are growing and should demand and get everything. That's not how it works, especially when some of those people ran away from Toronto in the first place. The subway is supposed to be for those south of Steeles, because they pay for it. Right now, in 2016, the fare system will not change when VCC opens. It should be if you want the subway, you should live south of Steeles. That's completely fair right at this second.
a) It's not "all of a sudden" unless we're in 1992 and the lack of awareness about growth spilling beyond Toronto's borders is clearly part of the problem, as is the legislative attempt (and market success) at intensification. (I'm not saying with YOU but more generally, which is related to larger arguments from people who complain about gridlock while rejecting revenue tools that would help alleviate it....)
b) The point is NOT that Vaughan and RH should "get everything." The point is that the province LEGISLATIVELY REQUIRES them to intensify and you can't require them do that without providing them with tools to it; like, say building a transit line and stopping 2 km from their growth nodes. This seems self-evident to me. If they don't get the transit they will not intensify the way we hope and you get more traffic and more sprawl; we have to be consistent in our approach and it's a 2-way street, is my point.
c) Assuming people in the suburbs "ran away" from Toronto is....yeah, I don't know what to even say to that. Check real estate listings and get back to me on that.
d) Unless you are Kreskin (and your name suggests otherwise) you don't know what the fare structure will be in 2016 or 2017 or 2023. That said, we're talking around each other, to a point. Obviously RIGHT NOW the TTC is funded by Toronto so you can cry foul if someone talks about building TTC lines beyond the municipal border. The difference is you're saying, "That's the situation," and I'm saying, "The situation does not recognize on-the-ground realities and has to change and will change." Building a subway or two that crosses the border could and should force the issue for the higher-ups to reconsider how the fund TTC and transit in the GTA in general. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that the people behind the Big Move fully understood that new governance, funding and fare models would have to come online to build it. And yet you (and Munro) proceed from the assumption that this stuff will get built without that stuff changing; not possible.
So, we agree on basic premises but I'm saying that if Munro or someone else is going to evaluate The Big Move (which is what this thread is about!) they have to look at its entirety and not pick apart this line or that line and say why it won't work or can't be funded. Obviously the TTC can't be expected to extend its lines infinitely beyond 416 without some change. It's a glass half-full thing, really. You're saying (I think) "don't do the extension because right now it's not fair" and I'm saying, "do the extension because soon it will be fair." You're saying, "If you want a subway, live in Toronto!" and I'm saying, "If you want to build a subway, build it to where people are (and where they're going) and fund it accordingly, and have people pay accordingly."
but there's a reason that these are the places we're building them too now and it's partly because we left them too long without transit already.
