Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

We should tell Zucks to ban all political advertising from Facebook and Instagram. If Twitter can ban all political advertising (albeit beginning in late 2019 before the British election), why can't Facebook (and Instagram)?

While we're at it, we should tell Google to ban political advertising from YouTube, especially on videos that don't pertain to politics.

It is for the best for Western democracy to prohibit political advertising (and political advocacy advertising) on an increasingly antisocial social media. It's not really free speech when money is involved and social media isn't the government (therefore, laws that protect free speech don't apply to non-government platforms).
 
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Streety McCarface said:
...This is an extremely dangerous precedent for any western democracy, especially Canada.
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I wouldn't say this particular instance is a danger to democracy (we should be more worried about China's Communist Party in terms of dangers to democracy) but it is completely out of line for a government run agency to do something like that. From how this line is hyped up by Metrolinx and the provincial government, I'm starting to get a sneaking suspicion that Metrolinx will purposely rig demand numbers to justify downgrading the line's long-term capacity. Since they are essentially an extension of the provincial government at this point, its likely the government would try and force them to keep costs down even if it means cannibalizing capacity. If the line has an expandable capacity to 40 000 pphd, than I'm not too worried about whatever initial capacity the line will be running at on opening day. Also, since this is a multi-billion dollar project that will go over-budget inevitably, its not too hard to imagine them siphoning money away from other transit projects for this line. The Eglinton West LRT will probably be on the chopping block first if they have to resort to that.

With the noise issue on the elevated section, I will be curious to see if Metrolinx will offer to build another station (possibly next to the Distillery District) to compromise with residents. They did this for the Davenport Grade Separation project with them building a GO station at Bloor - Lansdowne as a compromise with residents who, similarly, were adamant of having a tunnel instead of a bridge.
 
ViveleCanada said:
From how this line is hyped up by Metrolinx and the provincial government, I'm starting to get a sneaking suspicion that Metrolinx will purposely rig demand numbers to justify downgrading the line's long-term capacity
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I mean, are there any members of this form that didn't expect Metrolinx to rig of the numbers? I sincerely hope not. The Business Case Analysis numbers are already suspect as is.
 
tiffer24 said:
Metrolinx paying Instagram influencers to promote Ontario Line, prompting concerns ads are "premature"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toro...prompting-concern-ads-are-premature-1.5369895
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Most interesting insight from this campaign might be that Metrolinx finds it necessary to shore up public support for the proposal in the first place. The coverage in the news media and on social media of the proposal has been overwhelmingly negative, and I suspect Metrolinx has some internal numbers indicating that the Ontario Line has not been well received by the public at all. Unfortunately for Metrolinx, basically anything Doug Ford touches will be tainted by association, so they're fighting an uphill battle to get the public to support this proposal.

Public perceptions really matter at this point because Queen's Park absolutely needs the support of the Federal Liberals and City Council to get this thing built. And despite City Council and the Federal Liberals begrudgingly "committing" funding to the project, those commitments are conditional and non-legally binding. Either City Council or the Federal government can trivially kill the Ontario Line by sitting on their hands and doing nothing until a new government comes into power in two and a half years. Furthermore, now that City Council has called Ford's bluff on the subway upload threat, he cannot threaten that again if Council refuses to release funding; it's inconceivable that this government could proceed with the subway upload with such little time remaining the PC's term. Ford now has no mechanism to force the City to fund the Ontario Line, other than the public demanding City Council support it.

City Councillors and Liberal MPPs, including Adam Vaughan (Minister for Urban Affairs) have made quite clear that, despite their reluctant endorsement of the Ontario Line, they are very suspect of the proposal.. Unless Metrolinx and Queen's Park can demonstrate serious public support for the project, its likely that the Federal Liberals will move to kill the proposal through non-action. Furthermore, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Federal Liberals are coordinating with the Ontario Liberals on this matter (who may or may not desire to kill the Ontario Line; we'll see).

Ironically enough, thanks to the PC government's bully tactics to get this thing built, they seem to have lost control of the Ontario Line/DRL file. Whether or not this thing ever gets completed is squarely up to Toronto City Council, the Liberal government and whichever NDP or Liberal government replaces the PC government in 2022. Ford wouldn’t be in this position right now if he had taken a more diplomatic approach from the start.
 
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TheTigerMaster said:
Public perceptions really matter at this point because Queen's Park absolutely needs the support of the Federal Liberals and City Council to get this thing built. And despite City Council and the Federal Liberals begrudgingly "committing" funding to the project, those commitments are conditional and non-legally binding. Either City Council or the Federal government can trivially kill the Ontario Line by sitting on their hands and doing nothing until a new government comes into power in two and a half years. Furthermore, now that City Council has called Ford's bluff on the subway upload threat, he cannot threaten that again if Council refuses to release funding; it's inconceivable that this government could proceed with the subway upload with such little time remaining the PC's term. Ford now has no mechanism to force the City to fund the Ontario Line, other than the public demanding City Council support it.

City Councillors and Liberal MPPs, including Adam Vaughan (Minister for Urban Affairs) have made quite clear that, despite their reluctant endorsement of the Ontario Line, they are very suspect of the proposal.. Unless Metrolinx and Queen's Park can demonstrate serious public support for the project, its likely that the Federal Liberals will move to kill the proposal through non-action. Furthermore, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Federal Liberals are coordinating with the Ontario Liberals on this matter (who may or may not desire to kill the Ontario Line; we'll see).
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Be careful what you wish for. First of all, Ford will not be desperate to push his Ontario Line through if the Federal government and / or the City Council are sitting on their hands. On the contrary, Ford will happily proceed with his other 3 selected projects (or maybe 2 of them), which will harvest him more votes than Ontario Line. He will say publicly that Ontario Line faces delays because issues need to be sorted out with other partners, while being secretly happy that he doesn't need to spend much on this project.

The Ford government may or may not fall in 2022, but if it does fall, it won't be due to Ontario Line or any other transit related issues.

Finally and most importantly, there is no guarantee that a new provincial government will proceed with a speedy construction of DRL. Another round of studies, with unknown construction start date, is a likely outcome.
 
Rainforest said:
Be careful what you wish for. First of all, Ford will not be desperate to push his Ontario Line through if the Federal government and / or the City Council are sitting on their hands. On the contrary, Ford will happily proceed with his other 3 selected projects (or maybe 2 of them), which will harvest him more votes than Ontario Line. He will say publicly that Ontario Line faces delays because issues need to be sorted out with other partners, while being secretly happy that he doesn't need to spend much on this project.

The Ford government may or may not fall in 2022, but if it does fall, it won't be due to Ontario Line or any other transit related issues.

Finally and most importantly, there is no guarantee that a new provincial government will proceed with a speedy construction of DRL. Another round of studies, with unknown construction start date, is a likely outcome.
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Oh yea, the Ontario Line should not be opposed just because Ford proposed it. There's clearly a lot of good in the proposal, but its obviously heavily flawed. If the flaws are worked out by 2022, I see no reason to not proceed. However, that is a big if. The timelines for the Ontario Line are incredibly aggressive, and even some messaging coming from Metrolinx indicates that they don't believe that they'll be able to get this thing ready quickly enough. Whether or not the next government proceeds with the OL is probably most dependant on how willing the current govenment is wiling to put together a genuinely fesable plan, and how far OL planning has progressed.

It's very much in the government's interest to be amenable to public criticism, and to put together a proposal that works for everyone. Anything less than that would likely see City Council, the federal government or the incoming provincial government moving to kill the proposal. But the PC government has become a lot more diplomatic after the CPC got spanked in the federal election, so maybe they've finally learned that they'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar. I'll stay cautiously hopeful.
 
I'd like to be optimistic, but sometimes I have a lingering feeling that we are at a crossroad where every possible path leads to a cliff. A "cliff" doesn't mean a complete failure of TTC, but rather an ultimate inability to meet the peak-hour demand. It could get silly to a point where measures like forcing the downtown employers to alter / stagger their business hours might become necessary.

Entrust the task to the PC government, and they will either under-build or just drag their feet. Stall the PC government, they will build anything else but a downtown relief line. Boot that government, and then the job of stalling the downtown relief will be happily taken over by the next government, that will be pointing to Ford as an excuse.
 
Rainforest said:
I'd like to be optimistic, but sometimes I have a lingering feeling that we are at a crossroad where every possible path leads to a cliff. A "cliff" doesn't mean a complete failure of TTC, but rather an ultimate inability to meet the peak-hour demand. It could get silly to a point where measures like forcing the downtown employers to alter / stagger their business hours might become necessary.

Entrust the task to the PC government, and they will either under-build or just drag their feet. Stall the PC government, they will build anything else but a downtown relief line. Boot that government, and then the job of stalling the downtown relief will be happily taken over by the next government, that will be pointing to Ford as an excuse.
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Or we could get on with it and stop being so defeatist. That is a very bad habit. Life is full of obstructions. And then there are our heroes who right the wrongs, blaze a path and get it done.
 
Rainforest said:
I'd like to be optimistic, but sometimes I have a lingering feeling that we are at a crossroad where every possible path leads to a cliff. A "cliff" doesn't mean a complete failure of TTC, but rather an ultimate inability to meet the peak-hour demand. It could get silly to a point where measures like forcing the downtown employers to alter / stagger their business hours might become necessary.
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I think we should seriously consider implementing free TTC fares before 7AM. Incentivize more early birds to reduce peak hour.
 
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