Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

[dusk]

This is the kind of Toronto Mans energy we need in this city..... or should I say pragmatism.

 

[kEiThZ]

You are making a lot of assumptions and taking cheap shots - and your fact base is completely off.

If only politics were about facts and not optics.....

Like I said, some folks have no idea how this looks.....

 

[MrGoose]

How about demolishing and rebuilding Line 1"s Osgoode Station in the process?

Together with an in sidewalk entrance like Waterfront's second entrance in Vancouver?
Elevator in background; stair down and escalator up. Ticketing functions on level below.
There's still a bit of sidewalk on the left.

See also:

Waterfront History Guide • The Canada Line

Waterfront History, Located on Burrard Inlet between downtown’s historic Gastown and Canada Place, Waterfront Station is the Sole Northern terminus station of Canada Line as well

thecanadaline.com

And then when the demolishing of Osgoode inevitably goes off schedule people like you decry Metrolinx’s incompetence and ask why building transit in this city takes so long and is so expensive.

Oh and not to mention the disruption that comes with cutting Line 1 in half for 10+ years and whatever work Metrolinx has to do to ensure that trains can still access the yonge branch.

 

[picard102]

But nope, let's protect old white homeowners lol

Which old white homeowner lives at Osgoode Hall?

 

[dusk]

Which old white homeowner lives at Osgoode Hall?

Did you read the bit right before this?

I wrote "I'd destroy every single family home in the city and build elevated automated rail everywhere. But nope, let's protect old white homeowners lol". It might help to read the post in full. Obviously that is not about Osgoode Hall specifically.

 

[dusk]

I don't support the tree protection side, but yeah those comments were cringe.

Even though I didn't make most of those posts i'll comment. They're cringe on purpose. They're written that way to highlight the insanity that is protection of a handful of trees in the city. We need transit, we need a lot of it, we need to start on it today.

If you look at cities that the transit community adores such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc, they would not let a few trees stop them from building useful transit for the entire city, allowing riders of all classes to get to where they need to go.

 

[dullturtle06]

You are making a lot of assumptions and taking cheap shots - and your fact base is completely off.

a) age and demographics - prove it. You have senior people showing up because they are top folks in some of the constituency and stakeholder groups and it is most appropriate that they speak for this "movement". And it's a short notice event on a particularly cold day where they may have been obliged to show up where others decided not to.
b) the grounds are public access
c) this is not the grounds of an elite law school - it's a court house. No law school on site
d) if left-leaners respect civic processes and right-leaners want to tear them down, then I guess I'm a left leaner..... but in practice all political stripes eventually try to use power to excess when they are in office ..... and the opposition of any stripe always deplores doing so.
e) how they reached OH is an assumption on your part that is again a very cheap shot

There is a valid debate going on about how much of the Anglo-Saxon Colonial Settler heritage Torontonians want to retain, and whether the effort to do so is disproportionate to all the groups whose heritage is being given low priority. Little Jamaica being pushed out by transit driven gentrification is the best example (and again, no one disputes the need for higher order transit on Eglinton.... the question is, at what cost.) There are many other ethnic and immigrant groups that have faced struggle in their joining Toronto's social structure, and all of them deserve conservation of their heritage. Not to mention Toronto's Indigenous heritage. The problem being, new immigrant groups' community halls and key locations tend to be in the most unattractive, low-rent parts of the city.... and ethnic communities tend to move around in the city as they become more established and prosperous. So they may not have the same association with particular buildings and intersections, and the buildings themselves may not lead to conservation on pure architectural grounds (unlike all the pretty Victorian mansions that Toronto's old-empire founders left us)

If an inclusive, representative consensus of younger Torontonians with a non-Anglo-Saxon heritage felt that Osgoode Hall is just a tired old building and does not resonate with them, then I can understand why ravaging this site has no concern. We wiped out the Indigenous presence in the city to build its Victorian version.... maybe the Victorian colonial version deserves to be wiped out to build a newer version of the city reflecting a new set of ethnicities and identities. Fair is fair. Sic transit gloria.

But just about every great city retains old stuff, and Osgoode Hall is about as central to Toronto's Victorian heritage as you can get. So unless you really want to cancel the Victorian heritage, it deserves civic deference.

- Paul

PS - Debating making transit better at Osgoode is really no different than debating tearing down Union Station or its parts to make a better, more functional, higher-capacity rail station. That has been proposed, and many are really glad that has never been found acceptable. There are lots of accommodations to heritage there, and I'm sure the engineers felt that razing the whole structure would have been cheaper and easier. It is the same conundrum. At Union, we spent the money and we are enduring a very long construction period. I'm not sorry we did it that way.

No one want to destroy old buildings here. Toronto has already lost way to many. However trees are not heritage, I could not care less about 5 trees. This is Nimbyism run-a-muck. All the arguments have be disproven already.

200 year old trees, nope. Oldest is 100.

This is a public park. Only technical, the fences makes it look private. And I have never seen people using the lawn for recreation. So not used as a public space.

Move to to university. Nope you have the current station box under the street. Doing so would involve rebuilding the entire station and having substantial impacts on its current use for transit riders. Plus if you are doing cut and cover in the road, it doesn't make sence to tunnel so deep. The deep tunnels were designed so they can mine the station and limit construction Impact. So well now you might a well completely redesign that section to make the tunnel shallower causing more delays.

Move the key hole to Campbell house. Great job nimbies, you saved 5 trees but oh now Campbell house has to be demolished to build a key hole there. But of course trees are so much more important to Toronto heritage than a beautiful building.

So ya, your solutions are worse and it's over 5 trees. This is worse than the royal orchard nimbies, Congratulations

 

[interchange42]

For anyone who is confused about how to conduct themselves on UrbanToronto, read the Rules of Conduct thread please. This thread is locked for a couple hours so that you can calm down in the meantime.

42

EDIT: Thread reopened. Please enter with caution.

 

[Cobra]

I see both sides but here's my annoyance with Matlow. Where's the talk about the city bringing it share of the funding to change the plans? After years of transit debates and city councillors ripping their shirt on social media, the topic of "paying for transit" seems to rarely get discussed. After a while, it gets tiring.

 

[christiesplits]

While I understand why people could be frustrated by the group, I don't consider them "NIMBY," at least not in a traditional sense. There are hardly any dwellings near the intersection of Queen & University and I suspect most of the supporters reside a far distance away.

 

[duffo]

While I understand why people could be frustrated by the group, I don't consider them "NIMBY," at least not in a traditional sense. There are hardly any dwellings near the intersection of Queen & University and I suspect most of the supporters reside a far distance away.

Would NIABY (Not in Anyone's Backyard) be more appropriate?

 

[dusk]

While I understand why people could be frustrated by the group, I don't consider them "NIMBY," at least not in a traditional sense. There are hardly any dwellings near the intersection of Queen & University and I suspect most of the supporters reside a far distance away.

Doesn't that make it even worse?

 

[ARG1]

While I understand why people could be frustrated by the group, I don't consider them "NIMBY," at least not in a traditional sense. There are hardly any dwellings near the intersection of Queen & University and I suspect most of the supporters reside a far distance away.

It's not that simple. Many of the people in this protest are people would be affected by the line in their own ways. I think there are several Save Jimmie Simpson and Small Creek folks in there. These people are either people that are affected by other parts of the Ontario Line, or are impacted by other Metrolinx projects. If you noticed, much of the rhetoric spouted by the group is on the evils of Metrolinx as a whole. It's basically a group of various different NIMBYs using the trees as a soapbox to cancel transit projects.

 

[T3G]

Doesn't that make it even worse?

No, it shows that they care about things beyond saving their own skin, and want the notoriously corrupt and mismanaged Metrolinx to be taken to task.

 

[kEiThZ]

While I understand why people could be frustrated by the group, I don't consider them "NIMBY." There are hardly any condos at the intersection of Queen & University and I doubt many of the organizers live within a 500 metre radius.

That only makes it worse. So these people aren't personally impacted, but think their opinion should be able to hold a major regional transit project hostage? Imagine the precedent of giving into this now, with this viewpoint...... And you can bet that everybody in government, outside of a few city councillors is thinking this too.

I see both sides but here's my annoyance with Matlow. Where's the talk about the city bringing it share of the funding to change the plans? After years of transit debates and city councillors ripping their shirt on social media, the topic of "paying for transit" seems to rarely get discussed. After a while, it gets tiring.

Same lot fought the Scarborough subway for years. Whatever the merits of that argument (and there are many), at a certain point it starts to look less like genuine concern for public well-being than broad based opposition to development. The time to argue about Metrolinx's design was 1-2 years ago. Not when they're preparing the site for construction.

Has Marlow ever put forward a motion in council to request Metrolinx move their station box, with an offer of city compensation? If not, how is this any different than Brampton throwing a hissy fit on surface running of the LRT? Unfortunately, not building here is not an option, as it was in Brampton.

On a wider level, when we're facing a housing crisis and homelessness is at somewhat unprecedented levels, to have people get passionate over 5 trees, is not going to win any friends. There's going to be a lot of conservatives who will point to this as evidence that the left has lost the plot.