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Rob Ford's Toronto

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AlvinofDiaspar said:
If you build it now, at 50 years you will have to replace a good chunk of the original capital investment due to wear and tear, etc - so in effect you're paying for it twice - once when you didn't need it, and once when you finally do. Bit of a simplification, obviously.
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Fair enough, what I'm curious about though is whether the tunnels that will house the burried section of the LRT on Eglinton will be large enough to be converted to subways or whether at that point they'd have to bore them out even wider.
 
RichA said:
When Ontario was a "have" province it might have been. But too many years of liberal rule has wiped that out so now we are as inconsequential as British Columbia.
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Too many years of liberal rule? Bit of a partisan oversimplification there.

Ontario's sorry rustbelt issues have much to do with the urge to outsource, spurred on by surging consumerism and the rise of Walmart. The slide from being the nation's manufacturing titan to today's sputtering mess took decades to occur. There's nothing liberal - or conservative - about it. This is not an us vs. them thing. We let it happen. We were the ones who wanted more for less. The only way to get that, at least for awhile, is pay other people in distant lands to make our stuff for much cheaper than our own country could manage... until such time as our own high-wage paying industries caved in, imploded - for sheer lack of business, for being chronically uncompetitive.

This is just the chickens coming home to roost. Until we rebuild our own manufacturing capacity - and begin in earnest to buy goods made within our own borders - we're going to be stuck here, lamely pointing fingers.
 
hawc:

Fair enough, what I'm curious about though is whether the tunnels that will house the burried section of the LRT on Eglinton will be large enough to be converted to subways or whether at that point they'd have to bore them out even wider.
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I believe the width of the tunnel can handle subways cars - the stations aren't long enough to do so however, and extending the platform would cost a fortune (I have doubts about the feasibility of doing so even if the money is available, considering structural elements at both ends). In any case, a buried LRT has more than enough capacity, and it'd be cheaper and more beneficial to build a new line when the day comes.

AoD
 
spider said:
Most people I know voted for Ford because he was the 180 degree opposite of Miller.
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What a bizarre thing to do. Miller was intelligent, well-educated, competent, personable, caring, sober, unbigoted, and one of the best mayors we've had in many a year.

But I guess that would indeed make Ford the 180 degree opposite.
 
Miller was so great, they voted out his clan with a majority last election

nfitz said:
What a bizarre thing to do. Miller was intelligent, well-educated, competent, personable, caring, sober, unbigoted, and one of the best mayors we've had in many a year.

But I guess that would indeed make Ford the 180 degree opposite.
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Miller was an ass. A elitist snob who laughed when told things like businesses were hurt by his policies. Good riddance. He couldn't even run a FOOD CART program properly due to his annoying micro-management.
 
Public Health (Fillion) had his hands into the Food Cart program, I don't think Miller is directly involved. Funny thing you said about businesses - he (not Lastman) is the one who started the process of rebalancing commercial/residential property taxes. You can accuse him of many things, being a micromanager isn't one of them.

AoD
 
But I thought transit in Toronto was vastly under-funded??

denfromoakvillemilton said:
Toronto wants subways but wants someone else to pay for them.
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I was sure I read that Toronto's transit was the most poorly-funded (by public funds) of any major transit system in North America? Surely, the province and the feds owe Toronto more money for this?
 
RichA said:
I was sure I read that Toronto's transit was the most poorly-funded (by public funds) of any major transit system in North America? Surely, the province and the feds owe Toronto more money for this?
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The longer we wait for handouts from the province or feds to cover new transit expansion, the longer Toronto will go without at adequate transit system. It was irresponsible of Ford to dangle dreams of an expansive subway network in front of Torontonians without a fully fleshed out plan to fund it. Until funding is in place, the choice between building subway vs. LRT is a false choice. In reality, the choice is between an LRT and nothing.
 
Toronto's drive to get a fair share funding model from other orders of government was thrown off course when the city elected a mayor who believes the city has a spending problem and not a revenue problem.

Fun hypothetical: if the previous council hadn't secured an $8.4 billion transit investment from the province, would Ford have any interest in transit expansion?
 
GraphicMatt said:
Toronto's drive to get a fair share funding model from other orders of government was thrown off course when the city elected a mayor who believes the city has a spending problem and not a revenue problem.

Fun hypothetical: if the previous council hadn't secured an $8.4 billion transit investment from the province, would Ford have any interest in transit expansion?
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Given his personal preference, I bet you Ford would rather have expressways built than public transit. Can't recall when, but I do recall at some point during his time as a councillor, he was a big fan of the CAA's "Mobility Express" plan. Actually, much of Ford's transit vision, Sheppard subway, buried Eglinton line are part of the CAA's plans.
 
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Tulse said:
Yeah, good luck with that.
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They have a little more for the cities. It's been a while since I've read an Ontario budget (not since university) but I'm sure it's filled with stuff that most people would just as soon dispense with in favour of transit.
 
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You should reacquaint yourself with it - the lion's share of the budget is occupied by Health, Education, Colleges and University, Social Services and Justice Services. Hardly stuff they would "soon dispense with".

AoD
 
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