TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
Per above, yeah, Detroit is not a world-class city, I'm sorry to say. Baltimore even less so - and I say that as a big fan of The Wire. Indeed, both are prime examples of post-industrial cities being "left behind."
New York, Chicago, Paris, London - all the cities we aspire to be included with - have regional transit authorities.
And as Mr. F says, we're just so used to our system we don't see the flaws, though we do like to complain about how cities like NYC and Montreal have so much more subway than we do. Our system was designed primarily in the middle of the last century and it worked as long as most of the urban growth was in Toronto; the flat fare, the transfer system, all the commuter trains piling in and out of Union at rush hour, satellite systems in Markham and Mississauga and whatnot serving their limited islands in isolation etc. But too many other suburban centres have grown around the core, there's too much population growth there and too little new infrastructure was added within the core. The model we built to perfection in the 70s, which was at that time a model others studied, is now obsolete. Has been for close to a generation, arguably (its end accelerated by the Harris-era cuts).
I've outlined my thoughts on appropriate threads but in short:
-Metrolinx should be a proper arms-length authority with a reconstituted board that includes a mix of experts, community members and politicians
-It should be funded directly through tolls and other revenue tools and accordingly not answer to any single city, nor the provincial government
-Regional funding and representation gives it a proper mandate to fund both operating (ie fare integration) and capital aspects of transit and to properly prioritize projects (e.g. solicit Toronto's opinion on a LRT or subway for a given corridor but then make the decision based on a combination of that input and hard data, unswayed by what people think they "deserve." I don't mean to slag Scarborough specifically; merely the process.)
-I'm not enough of a governance expert to suggest precisely how the local agencies should work but I see no reason something akin to the MTA shouldn't work here, with local agencies all operating together under a single, larger umbrella. But funding and governance are key to it having a legitimate and functional mandate. Today's Metrolinx goes maybe 40% of the way there.
So,to come back on thread, it might seem "unfair" to Toronto taxpayers they're building this subway to Vaughan, because it's a TTC project. But if you look at the Big Move map, none of the cross-border projects (including the Yonge subway and RER) seem nonsensical or unfair. It's only when you zoom in and see the little lines we've drawn for municipal borders (mostly in the 1970s) that the problems arise. Establish a governing body with pooled funding and those lines disappear again. That's my 5 cents.
