EDIT: ^^ But I think there's a unanimous belief that subway is the obvious choice for the corridor. I'm sorry, but if you think that stopping 5 kilometers away from a major growth centre and then switching to a different technology for the last run is a good idea, you're sorely, sorely mistaken.
The most significant issue with transit on Sheppard today is buses backed up from Victoria Park to Don Mills in traffic.
Agreed, that's why we desperately need a subway. LRT won't be able to provide proper service to the huge number of people that exist in the NYC-STC corridor, and will be huge overkill on the rest of the route.
The most important thing for anyone should be getting construction significantly under way to resolve that problem before the next election.
Why would that be? I think one of the things that destroys the credibility of the pro-SELRT arguments is "we need it
now which we can't have with subway." It took 7 years to build the current Sheppard Subway, so I think 10 years for a subway is reasonable (it can be completed in sections as well.)
The argument that funding will suddenly disappear is moot as well. I think that everyone's still suffering from the memory of the Harris years. Harris was a totally isolated incident! No politician in their right mind, whether it be municipal or provincial, would take away funding from any of the current transit projects like Harris did. Even if a Mike Harris figure did come into the picture, I don't think there's anyone that would vote for them. Voters are smart enough to remember what Harris was like, so they'd be able to see the signs of a Harris-like platform, and wouldn't vote for them for countless reasons.
And then even if a Mike Harris
did get elected (if!!!) Metrolinx is implementing programs to secure funding independent from the government. This could amount to $1 billion/year, which could easily cover a number of transit projects, meaning government funding is just extra.
And I have doubts that the LRT is going to get built in 3 years as planned. Since they're starting it at the very eastern segment of the line, it's only going to be useful to that Don Mills-Agincourt corridor at the very end of the project, which could probably start running into 5 or 6 years.
So the logic is basically built a LRT that could get built faster but won't fulfill long term requirements of the corridor? That's really a terrible argument, especially since the LRT will be costing us a pretty $1.1 billion dollars last estimate (which'll easily go even higher.)
We have gone from a decent economy with money available to be spent, to a recession economy with money made available for stimulus, and the next government is going to be post recession dealing with little money available for anything.
Yes, it'll be horrible once we have all that extra money to spend after the recession is over! And I'm not sure, but I'm willing to guess that little of the specially designated infrastructure stimulus funds will be allocated to the SELRT, meaning they could easily be transferred to a subway instead.
Move Ontario 2020 is also in no way stimulus funding; it was designed way before the recession simply as a transit improvement plan.
Subway projects move slowly. The Spadina subway extension passed through an EA process with station concepts quite a while ago and it wont see significant construction for another year.
Yep, same thing with Sheppard. Wasn't the EA finished some time ago? And the "started construction" is things that need to happen anyways, like the grade separation of the Stouffville Line; almost totally unrelated to the LRT.