Toronto Eglinton Line 5 Crosstown West Extension | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

[MrGoose]

The difference in population and the need for greater investment in places like the GTA vs much lower populated areas was covered in the article. He was not arguing these projects are a waste of money, but how they're being implemented wastes money that could be allocated to areas that desperately need the investment.

Investing in the taiga of Ontario for anything other than resource extraction and general good repair is throwing good money after bad.

No amount of money thrown into Kenora and Thunder Bay will ever make it somewhere where jobs will naturally grow or where human capital will want to move to. Will smart young people ever want to move out into the middle of nowhere? What kind of jobs will they have? Who will they date? What quality of education can they have?

it’s not just the difference in population. It’s the difference in economic output.

 

[ARG1]

The difference in population and the need for greater investment in places like the GTA vs much lower populated areas was covered in the article. He was not arguing these projects are a waste of money, but how they're being implemented wastes money that could be allocated to areas that desperately need the investment.

Except that's not how it works. SSE and EW aren't being buried at the cost of Northern Infrastructure, if the choice was one or the other, then that would be a different argument. However this isn't the case. The pool of money that would be used for northern infrastructure is completely independent from SSE and EW.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Except that's not how it works. SSE and EW aren't being buried at the cost of Northern Infrastructure, if the choice was one or the other, then that would be a different argument. However this isn't the case. The pool of money that would be used for northern infrastructure is completely independent from SSE and EW.

That doesn’t make it any less of a slap in the face.

 

[MrGoose]

That doesn’t make it any less of a slap in the face.

What insult is there?

 

[MisterF]

Pretty sure I've heard this saying here as well for a long time.

It's a saying in pretty much every city that experiences cold winters.

 

[allengeorge]

Investing in the taiga of Ontario for anything other than resource extraction and general good repair is throwing good money after bad.

I’m actually fine with investing in the North. There is a national sovereignty issue at play too. That said - of course we shouldn’t overbuild. And, we shouldn’t overbuild in the GTA either!

 

[kamira51]

I’m actually fine with investing in the North. There is a national sovereignty issue at play too. That said - of course we shouldn’t overbuild. And, we shouldn’t overbuild in the GTA either!

Yeah let's extend the Barrie GO line to Thunder Bay.

 

[MrGoose]

I’m actually fine with investing in the North. There is a national sovereignty issue at play too. That said - of course we shouldn’t overbuild. And, we shouldn’t overbuild in the GTA either!

overbuilding in Toronto is futureproofing. Overbuilding in Timmins is wasteful

 

[rbt]

overbuilding in Toronto is futureproofing. Overbuilding in Timmins is wasteful

Overbuilding in Toronto prevents additional useful projects from being funded within Toronto due to local and provincial governments running into their debt limits.

Consider we're using about 20% of Sheppard's built capacity during rush-hour (pre-covid); also consider many of those components are approaching or already past mid-life and replacing them isn't cheaper than the original. A surface-mostly Sheppard route would have been 90% as effective and would have allowed a surface Eglinton West to also be built in the 90's. 30 years of buses on Eglinton happened, in part, because we insisted on over-building Sheppard (and intended to overbuild Eglinton too).

That said, I'm in favour of a significant tax bump to enable transit over-building and operations subsidies; but without a tax bump it just means other useful things get ignored and much of what we do over-build will be replaced at least once before ridership grows into it. G-Line in NY is 87 years old with ridership still well under capacity.

 

[syn]

Investing in the taiga of Ontario for anything other than resource extraction and general good repair is throwing good money after bad.

No amount of money thrown into Kenora and Thunder Bay will ever make it somewhere where jobs will naturally grow or where human capital will want to move to. Will smart young people ever want to move out into the middle of nowhere? What kind of jobs will they have? Who will they date? What quality of education can they have?

it’s not just the difference in population. It’s the difference in economic output.

How do you think that feels to people who actually live there?

How do you think they feel when the government throws good money after bad in implementing expensive transit projects to make people in other areas of the province feel better?

That was really the point being made. On a basic level your argument makes sense, the problem is that reasoning isn't being applied by the government to all projects and areas. Two of their big Toronto transit projects could be implemented far more sensibly in terms of cost.

Given that reality, why shouldn't people up north feel the government isn't doing enough?

 

[ARG1]

How do you think that feels to people who actually live there?

How do you think they feel when the government throws good money after bad in implementing expensive transit projects to make people in other areas of the province feel better?

That was really the point being made. On a basic level your argument makes sense, the problem is that reasoning isn't being applied by the government to all projects and areas. Two of their big Toronto transit projects could be implemented far more sensibly in terms of cost.

Given that reality, why shouldn't people up north feel the government isn't doing enough?

You should be the last person to start with emotional arguments.

How do you think the people of Scarborough feel after getting a horrible RT line, that apparently they don't deserve rapid transit access without a Linear Transfer? Stuff like this have been on the minds of Scarberians (yes I'll call them that, I think its a cool name) for decades, yet when a populist appears promising a subway, somehow anyone who complains about this stuff is a filthy ford supporter who invents issues to "overpay" for Rapid Transit projects.

There is a reason why appealing to emotions is a bad form of debate, and why its considered a fallacy.

 

[MrGoose]

How do you think that feels to people who actually live there?

How do you think they feel when the government throws good money after bad in implementing expensive transit projects to make people in other areas of the province feel better?

That was really the point being made. On a basic level your argument makes sense, the problem is that reasoning isn't being applied by the government to all projects and areas. Two of their big Toronto transit projects could be implemented far more sensibly in terms of cost.

Given that reality, why shouldn't people up north feel the government isn't doing enough?

What more is there to do? These are communities of 5000 with no economic output because quite frankly, they’re in the middle of nowhere.

You’re talking about QP making Torontonians feel better except for the fact that an extra billion dollars spent in Toronto benefits nearly 5 million people and 500 million dollars spent in the forest benefits 5000.

The reality is that spending big money on improving the roads up north is far more wasteful than spending bigger money in Toronto. 500 million dollars on a road that gets 5 people per hour vs 1 billion in transit line that will carry 15000 people per hour is not wasteful.

There are more people in the 36 sqkm of Etobicoke Centre, just one of the several ridings that Crosstown West will pass through, than both Kiiwetinoong and Mushkegowuk—James Bay combined at nearly 550000 sqkm.

Overbuilding in Toronto prevents additional useful projects from being funded within Toronto due to local and provincial governments running into their debt limits.

Consider we're using about 20% of Sheppard's built capacity during rush-hour (pre-covid); also consider many of those components are approaching or already past mid-life and replacing them isn't cheaper than the original. A surface-mostly Sheppard route would have been 90% as effective and would have allowed a surface Eglinton West to also be built in the 90's. 30 years of buses on Eglinton happened, in part, because we insisted on over-building Sheppard (and intended to overbuild Eglinton too).

That said, I'm in favour of a significant tax bump to enable transit over-building and operations subsidies; but without a tax bump it just means other useful things get ignored and much of what we do over-build will be replaced at least once before ridership grows into it. G-Line in NY is 87 years old with ridership still well under capacity.

The converse applies here too. Overbuilding for 60000 people is far more wasteful than overbuilding for 5 million. Same debt accumulated, orders of magnitude less benefit.

 

[allengeorge]

Yeah let's extend the Barrie GO line to Thunder Bay

I mean...that’s a straw man. In literally the same post you quoted I pointed out that I was against overbuilding - regardless of location.

So, if your point was “bad transit decisions are bad” - yeah, absolutely.

 

[north-of-anything]

This is starting to sound like "inner suburbs vs everyone else", and that's not a productive discussion to be having here. Did the TVO article reveal anything new with regards to the Eglinton West extension?

 

[allengeorge]

Did the TVO article reveal anything new with regards to the Eglinton West extension?

No. The author simply pointed out that the cost for the EWLRT and SSE could pay for all-weather Northern roads. And points it out as a tradeoff the government is implicitly making between Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario.