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Ontario Budget Cut and Transit Expansion

I just sent an email to Glen Murray, my MPP, and included: ...instead, you repeated the mistakes of Mike Harris and gutted green transit desperately needed by Toronto and eliminated much needed construction and manufacturing jobs. I believe your government has demonstrated an appalling lack of vision. If you vote for this budget, you are voting against Toronto and you will not get another cent or vote from me.

Let's not just vent here; please contact your MPP and make your voice heard.
 
Forget TC for a minute; think about projects a little further down the pipeline that are now in peril:
- Hurontario LRT
- Hamilton LRT
- Waterloo LRT
- Ottawa LRT Subway
- Durham Highway 2 corridor
- Lakeshore "Super-GO"

And I was hopeful that once we got past the 3 funded TC routes plus SRT replacement, the DRL would be finally going forward.

We're stuck with Sheppard, very little can be done about that, and the current plans couple SRT replacement to Sheppard East because of the shared carhouse. Finch was a good route, Eglinton-Crosstown was the best, and I hate to see Eglinton through this yet again.
 
mgl said:
If you vote for this budget, you are voting against Toronto and you will not get another cent or vote from me..
Click to expand...

Believe me, I understand and share your frustration, but I don't think we are well served by making idle threats about not gettign "another cent". Unless you are proposing that you are prepared to go to jail for tax evasion, of course they will get money from you.
 
mgl said:
I just sent an email to Glen Murray, my MPP, and included: ...instead, you repeated the mistakes of Mike Harris and gutted green transit desperately needed by Toronto and eliminated much needed construction and manufacturing jobs. I believe your government has demonstrated an appalling lack of vision. If you vote for this budget, you are voting against Toronto and you will not get another cent or vote from me.

Let's not just vent here; please contact your MPP and make your voice heard.
Click to expand...

Governments do not create jobs: for every job they "create", they destroy one in the private sector. Moreover, unintended consequences arise and resources aren't allocated as efficiently.

Checkout the broken window fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
 
Eug said:
BTW, I wonder if there is any significance to the $4 billion number. If it were $4.6 billion, we'd know exactly what they meant.

The original announced numbers were:

Finch: $1.2 billion
Eglinton: $4.6 billion
SRT: $1.4 billion
Sheppard: $0.95 billion
Viva: $1.4 billion

Finch + SRT + Viva = $4 billion. Hmmm.... Nah, doesn't really make sense according to Steve Munro and others here, but nonetheless I find that curious.
Click to expand...
This article states:

"Among the projects that will be delayed are the 30-kilometre Eglinton line from Kennedy Station to Pearson International Airport, the 17-kilometre Finch line from Yonge Street to Humber College and improvements to the Scarborough LRT and the York Viva bus system."

? That's basically all of them, except Sheppard. So what's the $4 bil gonna be for then? Probably just speculation as to which ones I guess, on the part of the reporter.
 
This is very disappointing. Being of the pessimistic bent, I read it as the end of TC pretty much entirely. It shows that Ontario/Toronto continues it's 30 year experiment with now-here-now-there-now-nowhere transit planning. Or transit planning that doesn't actually lead to transit, just to transit planners. I guess I am not completely surprised, given the state of the economy, but this is an area where we have really fallen down.

This morning is one of those rare times where I really do despair of the future of the city. It's fine, and fun, to have these massive condo towers going up, but we need infrastructure, and as a society we are not willing to pay for it. It's going to bite us in the end.
 
I e-mailed my MPP today. Wonder what sort of reply I will get.

The other parties should send a direct mail piece to everyone who lives within a km of Eglinton and let them know that the Liberals have just canceled their subway. There are 9 ridings along Eglinton:

*Etobicoke Lakeshore - Laurel Broten - Liberal
*York South—Weston - Laura Albanese - Liberal
*Eglinton—Lawrence - Mike Colle - Liberal
*St. Paul's - Eric Hoskins - Liberal
*Don Valley West - Kathleen Wynne -Liberal
*Don Valley East - David Caplan - Liberal
*Scarborough Southwest - Lorenzo Berardinetti - Liberal
*Scarborough Centre - Brad Duguid - Liberal
*Scarborough—Guildwood - Margarett Best - Liberal

Everyone of them is Liberal. If you want to get this reversed, you have to convince these members that this decision will cost them on election day.
 
Archivist said:
This is very disappointing. Being of the pessimistic bent, I read it as the end of TC pretty much entirely.
Click to expand...
Well, they're removing $4 billion, which is less than half the funding. It's gutted TC, but maybe it's still alive...
 
Eug:

Yeah, but what's left might make even less sense than the worst part of TC - like orphaned systems that goes nowhere, connects to nowhere, or have the least economic worth but gets saved because ______ howled the loudest or ______ have links to whomever in the government and there is payback to be had.

AoD
 
Which this announcement, and the anti-transit rhetoric of the mayoral election, it looks quite possible that the only thing that will be built is the SELRT. It is odd that for two transit planned transit overhauls everything has died except for a less than ideal section along Sheppard.

Thus based on past events, here is my prediction for the future of Toronto transit:

*In 2025, after going through another Transit dark age under a Rossi or Hudak government, an NDP linked municipal or provincial government will propose a new transit initiative
*It will use ART, which will be the 'in' mode then
*The plan will have lines along a number of major streets that desperately need new transit
*It will also include a new line that will run from the SLERT into Durham region
*By 2030 work will have begun on the Eglinton and Sheppard lines
*But that year government belt tightening means work on Eglinton and all lines other than Sheppard are stopped
*We end up with nothing except a new ART along Sheppard running to Ajax
*This sets us up for the next round of transit expansion that will begin in 2045, but unfortunately that one will produce nothing except a Maglev that connects the Sheppard ART to Oshawa
 
http://mikecolle.com/Contact.aspx EGLINTON WEST MPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

I just called Mike Colles office... and talked to someone there. And they assured me on this issue they have recieved countless emails and phone calls in the last few hours. They agree that this makes no sense and they will fight for the lrt aas they have promised.

Constituency Office
2882 Dufferin Street
Toronto , ON M6B 3S6
Tel: 416-781-2395
Fax: 416-781-4116
Email: mcolle.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org


Queen's Park Office 0 Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services
18th Floor, George Drew Building
Toronto, ON M7A 1Y6
Tel: 416-325-4091
Fax: 416-325-4136
Email: mcolle.mpp@liberal.ola.org
 
sixrings said:
http://mikecolle.com/Contact.aspx EGLINTON WEST MPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

I just called Mike Colles office... and talked to someone there. And they assured me on this issue they have recieved countless emails and phone calls in the last few hours. They agree that this makes no sense and they will fight for the lrt aas they have promised.

Constituency Office
2882 Dufferin Street
Toronto , ON M6B 3S6
Tel: 416-781-2395
Fax: 416-781-4116
Email: mcolle.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org


Queen's Park Office 0 Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services
18th Floor, George Drew Building
Toronto, ON M7A 1Y6
Tel: 416-325-4091
Fax: 416-325-4136
Email: mcolle.mpp@liberal.ola.org
Click to expand...

Well done sixrings!

This is excellent news.
 
DavidH said:
Believe me, I understand and share your frustration, but I don't think we are well served by making idle threats about not gettign "another cent". Unless you are proposing that you are prepared to go to jail for tax evasion, of course they will get money from you.
Click to expand...

I presume he meant campaign donations.
 
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