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Transit City Plan

Which transit plan do you prefer?

  • Transit City

    Votes: 95 79.2%

  • Ford City

    Votes: 25 20.8%
  • Total voters
    120
Yeah, I feel completely ripped off and lied to by our premier.

Yet again. Dalton has to go and we are in desperate need of getting some government with long term vision for transit and I just don't see it happening in my lifetime. It's beyond embarassment at this point.

I lost hope for transit in this city years ago and news like this drive home the point that decades from now, we'll still be going in the same circle with nothing happening.

What a joke...
 
Depending on which lines end up getting cancelled (i.e. if they cancelled the SRT and SELRT I'd be happy, but it doesn't look like that'll happen), this will probably be the one thing Dalton has done over the years that has really upset me. I've supported him 100% since he was elected. But this is just wrong.
 
The cancellation of these lines is just another lie Dalton has fed to us. I know we're being told it's just a delay but do we seriously think that several years down the road, someone won't find some excuse to keep these projects on hold indefinitely?
 
I have to think the loss of Bryant and Smitherman in cabinet is the reason for this about-face. Little else has changed in a year since the funding was announced. Most of the funding was announced in spring 2009. The recession was already well underway at that time; the implications on the provincial budget were quite clear. If anything, the provincial situation looks a little brighter (or at least clearer) than it did back then.

So the deficit is being used as a scapegoat, to cover the changing priorities in cabinet, because of a loss of Toronto influence.

In the big picture, no one really should be surprised. The Ontario government has done this time, and time again over the years.

If nothing else, this and the cancellation of provincial funding for TTC operations, clearly demonstrates why the province shouldn't be running local transit; as they won't provide the stable funding it needs. No rational person would now argue that TTC should be taken over by Metrolinx! And I guess it pulls the rug out of the feet of those who think we should be spending so much more money by building subways instead.

Who would have though McGuinty would have pulled the Harris move of both cancelling provincial operating funds for TTC and killing capital projects!
 
Sadly, there's nothing new about this latest abandonment of transit. The Liberals are only doing what Mike Harris did 15 years ago, albeit more mildly. Better to abandon transit than roads, daycare, etc. Fewer votes lost. If we believed otherwise for 3 years, that was the triumph of hope over experience. The sad thing is that the Liberals have little to lose here. The environment, transit, etc. aren't going to get anyone elected these days. And yes, we slip that much further behind Asian and European cities. But no politician in Canada seriously considers the long term; what constituency in our country would elect such a fool?
 
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The other thing that bugs me is how shrewdly political this move is. It's not a cancellation or a cut - it's just a delay. Except that this is a clear demonstration that the politicians have no real interest in transit and it seems inevitable now that most of these projects will just simply fade away from existence.

At least Harris had the balls to come right out and say he was cancelling things.
 
From Transit City to Transit Shitty


By Enzo Di Matteo

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Read More: http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.cfm?content=174275

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The Libs have all but killed Toronto’s dream of becoming a truly global city with news in the budget that billions for a citywide light rail network will have to wait. All of which in reality means we can relegate this baby, so nicely incubating in our visions of a clean, green future world, to that dusty shelf of good intentions left unrealized. Can we imagine the plan being revived now?

And all for the sake of tired old economic thinking that the deficit, above all else, needs to be slain. For those who want to give up control of the TTC to the province, take note.

When pushed comes to shove, Queen’s Park, and the feds to for that matter, will do what government’s facing re-election a little more than a year down the road always do: hang T.O. out to dry. Will Toronto voters remember this day come the 2011 provincial election?

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transitshitty_lrg.jpg
 
Will Toronto voters remember this day come the 2011 provincial election?

Yeah right! Toronto will quickly open up the archives, go on and on about the mess Rae and Harris created, and then re-elect the Liberals. Toronto bitches and then does nothing in the end to change things
 
You know what, things like this were bound to happen because we aimed our stars too high. Had Toronto been modest and looked into developing a Bus Rapid Transit network system that only costs a few million dollars per kilometre to implement, construction could be going on right now and within a year or two we'd have citywide mass transit that would not have broken the bank and can always be expanded into higher forms of transit in the future... when there's actual money for it. Every argument there ever was for Transit City was subject at best and can easily be attributed to buses. But no, our egos got in the way and now we have nothing to show for it. Does it really matter that in 40-50 years from now LRT might have saved Toronto some money in operational and maintenance costs when we don't even have the money to construct it in the first place without pandering to several levels of government? I think not. BRT plus modest subway extensions is all the 416 really needed but unfortunately everyone has gotten swooped up into the pratfalls of LRTitis, which may forever postpone another km of metro from ever being built in this region. I hope y'all are happy.
 
Fresh Start said:
BRT plus modest subway extensions is all the 416 really needed but unfortunately everyone has gotten swooped up into the pratfalls of LRTitis, which may forever postpone another km of metro from ever being built in this region. I hope y'all are happy.
Click to expand...

How would BRT help Eglinton??????
 
Fresh Start said:
You know what, things like this were bound to happen because we aimed our stars too high. Had Toronto been modest and looked into developing a Bus Rapid Transit network system that only costs a few million dollars per kilometre to implement, construction could be going on right now and within a year or two we'd have citywide mass transit that would not have broken the bank and can always be expanded into higher forms of transit in the future... when there's actual money for it. Every argument there ever was for Transit City was subject at best and can easily be attributed to buses. But no, our egos got in the way and now we have nothing to show for it. Does it really matter that in 40-50 years from now LRT might have saved Toronto some money in operational and maintenance costs when we don't even have the money to construct it in the first place without pandering to several levels of government? I think not. BRT plus modest subway extensions is all the 416 really needed but unfortunately everyone has gotten swooped up into the pratfalls of LRTitis, which may forever postpone another km of metro from ever being built in this region. I hope y'all are happy.
Click to expand...

Good lord....

Transit is dead in Toronto, and you think it was because of LRT. First it's Miller's fault, now LRT. You just can't stop making crap up, it's amazing.
 
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In the 1940's, the federal and provincial government promised to help build the Yonge and Queen subways. The money never came. The result was that only the Yonge subway was built and the Queen subway was forgotten.

Déjà vu.
 
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