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SmartTrack (Proposed)

I don't recall honesty coming up during the election.

Is this a codeword for ethnicity or gender?

No. No idea why you'd make that kind of assumption.

She was honest about the implications of cancelling the LRT and going with the Ford "plan".
 
Plan? What plan? Investing 15 million/year into improving bus services. That's not a plan.

Smart Track wasn't a plan either though. If it was a light metro/sky train type of service than that would've been a great idea. SmartSpur would've been the only good idea, unfortunately I never heard one politician even suggest it.

View attachment 280174
This really would be a way better solution than the Line 2 extension. It takes people downtown faster, properly replaces the SRT, and adds Malvern to the rapid transit network. But the city stubbornly decided the only answer was the subway network, rather than being in any way innovative.
 
Plan? What plan? Investing 15 million/year into improving bus services. That's not a plan.

Smart Track wasn't a plan either though. If it was a light metro/sky train type of service than that would've been a great idea. SmartSpur would've been the only good idea, unfortunately I never heard one politician even suggest it.

View attachment 280174

SmartSpur, and some very similar proposals, were discussed in the forums. Unfortunately, none of them was seriously considered by those in the position to decide.
 
By the way, Scarborough Subway is not Ford's plan. The plan was presented and advanced by Karen Stintz and Glenn De Baeremaeker. Stintz pushed the province (Wynne) and the Feds to commit to their shares of the funding.

After the plan was introduced, (Rob) Ford reluctantly supported it.
 
By the way, Scarborough Subway is not Ford's plan. The plan was presented and advanced by Karen Stintz and Glenn De Baeremaeker. Stintz pushed the province (Wynne) and the Feds to commit to their shares of the funding.

After the plan was introduced, (Rob) Ford reluctantly supported it.
Wasn't ford's plan to have the Eglinton Line be a continuation of the Scarborough RT?
 
Wasn't ford's plan to have the Eglinton Line be a continuation of the Scarborough RT?

That's the MOU with the province, but his own original subway plan actually dropped Eglinton entirely in favour of Sheppard and BD extension.


AoD
 
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Wasn't ford's plan to have the Eglinton Line be a continuation of the Scarborough RT?

(Rob) Ford's plan changed a few times.

Pre-election in 2010, he wanted to do BD extension and Sheppard subways and drop the Eglinton, as Alvin mentioned.

Then he got elected, and signed MOU with the Province (McGuinty). The MOU included the combined Eglinton + SLRT, all completely grade-separated (funded by the province), plus Sheppard subway (funded entirely by development charges, the City's responsibility).

Soon it became clear that development charges alone cannot pay for the Sheppard subway. The City Council did not like that both Sheppard and Finch are left with no transit funds at all. The council took the control of transit file away from Rob Ford, and reverted to the previous Transit City plan (4 separate LRT lines: SLRT, Eglinton, Finch West, and Sheppard East).

After that, Stintz and De Baeremaeker came up with the idea to upgrade that plan replacing SLRT with the subway extension, retaining the other 3 LRT lines. The City Council voted in favour of that. Rob Ford was hesitant because the new plan involved a dedicated transit property surtax, and he did not want any new taxes. But at the end, he voted for the plan. Stintz and De Baeremaeker got the additional federal finding commitment, too.

So, essentially the SSE plan currently on the books is authored by Stintz and De Baeremaeker. Rob Ford, John Tory, and Doug Ford made varying amount of efforts to execute it, but neither of them authored the plan.
 
That's the MOU with the province, but his own original subway plan actually dropped Eglinton entirely in favour of Sheppard and BD extension.


AoD

"Complete by 2015"

Brilliant planning. :p
 
That is the real issue. SmartTrack (5 minute frequencies on mainline GO track with TTC fares) could have largely been a reality with a ~6% 30-year special capital levy. That would have let the city contribute about $4B toward capital and $100M/year toward operations for that project in addition to likely matching capital provincial and federal contributions.

Ignore Eglinton West portion entirely (terminate at Eglinton on the west) and the rest could have been very useful.

Of course, Toronto could still do that kind of thing.
So what is the status of Smarttrack? Why the cloak and dagger routine from Metrolinx? Strive Munro couldn't find answers. The only explanation for the silence from Metrolinx relates to the fact that ST has been federally funded rather than provincially funded. Okay, then we should know the status of the ST stations if some form of it is going forward. Is it still six stations? Are the planned stations such as Liberty Village going to be built? That kind of RER, TTC fare-integrated line will give Toronto a relatively cheap, decent new subway-like line that compliments and somewhat completes downtown rapid transit coverage west of Bathurst. With ST and the Ontario Line, and future fare-integrated RER stations to follow, we'd have a pretty impressive downtown transit system. I don't think the public should let ST fall off the radar. John Tory, the feds, and even Metrolinx should revive interest in and accountability for its implementation, especially as hundreds of millions of public dollars have already been committed to it.
 
So what is the status of Smarttrack?

Nothing process wise has changed since the agreement putting Toronto in the driver seat (see Gating process; all decisions are with city council until it's fully designed, funded, and ready to tender). Steve can't get answers out of Metrolinx because they're not driving it; Metrolinx doesn't really want it at all despite agreeing to it so I'm not surprised they refuse to acknowledge existence of the funded plan.


Page 22 to 24 has the latest status.


Put pressure on Council/Tory to provide a status update.
 
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Nothing process wise has changed since the agreement putting Toronto in the driver seat (see Gating process; all decisions are with city council until it's fully designed, funded, and ready to tender). I'm not sure what stage they're at. Steve can't get answers out of Metrolinx because they're not driving it (IMO, they don't want it but agreed not to be a block it if the city proceeds).


So, could this be something that could be funded from the federal government as a stimulus package?
 
So, could this be something that could be funded from the federal government as a stimulus package?
My understanding is about half a billion federal dollars were already committed to it. It's irritating how big announcements are made followed by years of silence. The obfuscation by Metrolinx feels intended to mollify Queen's Park. I guess they're trying to stay focused on building RER without political interference and they probably don't want to speak to federally and city-funded projects, but I thought the purpose of Metrolinx was to bring all GTA transit projects/systems together so that they could be carefully coordinated and integrated, ultimately into a single system. Why are they, the TTC, and Toronto City Council so silent on what is a very sensible, cost effective transit project?
 
My understanding is about half a billion federal dollars were already committed to it. It's irritating how big announcements are made followed by years of silence. The obfuscation by Metrolinx feels intended to mollify Queen's Park. I guess they're trying to stay focused on building RER without political interference and they probably don't want to speak to federally and city-funded projects, but I thought the purpose of Metrolinx was to bring all GTA transit projects/systems together so that they could be carefully coordinated and integrated, ultimately into a single system. Why are they, the TTC, and Toronto City Council so silent on what is a very sensible, cost effective transit project?
SmartTrack? Sensible and Cost Effective? ye no. Smart Track at best is a pointless and redundant project which would basically be better served by GO RER (which it will be).
 

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