TheTigerMaster
Superstar
I've lived most of my life in Scarborough and Ford's little extension to Scarborough Town Centre does little to nothing for the majority of the residents of Scarborough whereas the proposed LRT line (especially if it's extended to Malvern) reaches more of Scarborough and does a much better job of eliminating the lengthy bus rides you describe above. At the same time, neither the LRT plan nor the subway do a single thing for the people of southeast Scarborough trying to use transit to get downtown but only one is likely to hurt the chances for future solutions. The waste of an extra 500 million to 1 billion dollars on the subway option significantly reduces the chances of an extension of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT further along Eglinton East that would actually help the residents of southeast Scarborough get downtown faster and easier.
LRT is not a second rate technology and it is not streetcars. Many world-class cities (like Paris, Berlin & Boston) have LRT lines and so they are not an insult to Scarborough and they don't make Scarborough second class.
On the length of your journey from Middlefield/McNicoll to Union, I don't think I've ever tried it from around there but the Google maps directions for that trip suggest that in rush hour it takes about 1 hour and 16 minutes and going down to Kennedy Station isn't one of the suggested routes. The fastest is to take the 42 bus along McNicoll all the way to Finch Station and then straight down to Union from there which doesn't seem like that difficult a journey.
This is absolutely disgraceful. It's too bad that the mayor and councillors are more concerned with scoring political points (yea, Subways FTW!!! Scarborough rules!!), than actually building proper transit. The first candidate in 2014 who promises to raise the heck out of my taxes to build a proper transit network will have my vote.