I'm not accusing you or any individual of racism or xenophobia.
You do in the thing I quoted. The bit about suburban cockroaches.
What I am talking about is a pervasive false dichotomy. I think I've answered all your questions in other places on this board but I'll sum up:
-This is not about who gets "the last seat," it's about a system that gets all riders to/from where they are going in an optimal fashion. No one is trying to steal anyone's seat.
The problem is, the last seat is gone. It's gone now, and to the extent it wasn't, it was given to someone who paid for it (by living in the city where the taxes for it were collected). You want to know why it was given to a Torontonian (in the form of the crosstown or SSE). I've explained why. We can't currently, get everyone where they want to go. We could, if we found more money, and built, say, the DRL, but until then, we can't. You can talk about suburban cockroaches all you want, but it is about not having the space.
-Maybe there were concerns about Eglinton and Scarborough but I didn't see John Tory and Josh Colle go on TV to talk about how those projects definitely could not proceed because of those concerns
The didn't. They should have, but they didn't. Maybe, just maybe we can squeeze those people on - opinions are divided; I think we can't, but the TTC says maybe we can. But, after squeezing them on, no one thinks we can take even more from RH. We'll try, but if we're going to spend lots of capital on extensions, it should not be there.
-The question you ask about "why we Toronto should blah blah is the crux of it and there are multiple answers. First, because Toronto and Richmond Hill share a common economic base and interest. People commute from RH to TO and vice versa, every day. People from RH go down to Toronto and work their jobs there and eat lunch there and go to theatre there etc etc.
-More to the point, as you (and most people) define it, "Toronto" is nothing more than where your taxes go. Someone drew a line. It's meaningless to most people in their day to day lives. I've made the point before but I'll make it again that if ,for argument's sake, the municipal border were at Highway 7 instead of Steeles - but a single concession north - this would all be framed differently.
Then you wouldn't have Colle and Tory on TV talking about how we can't serve the riders of North York.
I'm not sure what your point is there.
But there is a line, allowing you to say that these people are coming from "another city." If there were an actual wall, instead of an arbitrary line, the shared economic and other interests of the 905 and 416 wouldn't exist and everyone would be the worse off for it.
No. The question is, given this line exists, what should people allocate the scarce capital on? Should we shove more people onto an overcrowded line, or expand the system? Now, I think it's expand the system, but I can live with "shove more people" being a valid opinion. You, however, are accusing those who wish to relieve congestion first of being seeing suburbanites as cockroaches and levelling some charge of hypocrisy for wishing to relieve the congestion first.
I don't know what you do for a living and I don't know what Hypothetical RH Resident does for a living either but it's entirely possible that S/he lives in RH, commutes into Toronto and contributes way more to the city than you do. Maybe they're CEO of a hospital. Maybe they're a big-time lawyer who takes clients out for expense account lunches in the city's best restaurants. Maybe, for that matter, they get up early and commute to the city so they can pour your coffee at Tim Horton's, since they can't afford to live in the city but need to work there. To deny that person the right to a seat because of taxes...I don't get that.
But, I'm not denying someone a seat. You are denying me one. And you are making a lot of insinuations about me to justify taking that seat.
(And, once again, that entire point will be undermined as soon as there is regional funding, which is imminent.)
I don't think you're Donald Trump (thankfully only one man is) but you ARE creating an us vs. them thing that does not exist. Those foreigners you don't want taking up seats are already doing it - because it's a free country. They drive or bus or even cycle down to Finch and pay their fare and get on the train. That's good for them and good for you, as a tax-paying Torontonian. The question is not how to exclude them, but how to foster a system that allows you to co-exist and move through transit efficiently. ordering them onto GO is not the solution and you can't change the fact that millions of people live outside Toronto and - good news - when they come in the city they don't all want to drive. We've failed to keep pace with growth, but that's not an excuse to start pretending that we're not citizens of a single region with a common interest.
I've only posted on this thread once. You've been accusing people of seeing suburbanites as scurrying cockroaches for page after page. You are fostering an us versus them mentality. You have been doing so for pages.
Stop it, because your mudslinging undermines your argument.