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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
Interested to see how this Bloor Danforth extension to STC will play out tomorrow. If it goes, it pretty much negates any use for Eglinton East. Might as well use those funds on trenching Eglinton West. Also even if Eglinton East is at grade, would there even be enough funds to bring subway to STC?
 
Interested to see how this Bloor Danforth extension to STC will play out tomorrow. If it goes, it pretty much negates any use for Eglinton East. Might as well use those funds on trenching Eglinton West. Also even if Eglinton East is at grade, would there even be enough funds to bring subway to STC?

I dont think a Bloor-Danforth extension is on the table tomorrow. I haven't heard anyone talk about it.
 
council begins at 9:30 so expect the vote to occur sometime in the evening after every single councillor has made a longwinded speech with extensions
Oh, I expect they'll be done by lunch. They always seem to speed up as a meal or 8 pm approaches.
 
The reality is, council needs to make Rob Ford come out looking good or this isn't over. Ford's cronies on the TTC have said they will vote to block Transit City from within the TTC. Council may tell the Province to build Transit City but the TTC ultimately has control over what they want. They've ignored council before (bus route cuts vs WheelTrans) so they can do it again. Of course Metrolinx can go at it alone but not having this integrated into the TTC will slow things down considerably.

The fight for transit doesn't end tomorrow. This is going to go on for some time.
 
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The reality is, council needs to make Rob Ford come out looking good or this isn't over. Ford's cronies on the TTC have said they will vote to block Transit City from within the TTC. Council may tell the Province to build Transit City but the TTC ultimately has control over what they want. They've ignored council before (bus route cuts vs WheelTrans) so they can do it again. Of course Metrolinx can go at it alone but not having this integrated into the TTC will slow things down tremendously.

The fight for transit doesn't end tomorrow. This is going to go on for some time.

It does. They can vote to remove the Ford Cronies from their seats by voting for another votes next week. If that happens, they done. The city exists as a creation of the province and McGuinty will shut them down if they try that BS.
 
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If it is constructed deep enough, any politician wishing to cancel it would amount to political suicide. Two years is more than enough time to prevent it from being cancelled Mike Harris-style.

The mid 1990's was a bit of a strange time. Harris wanted to make cuts. Chretien realized this and saw he could cut transfers to the Provinces. The more Chretien cut, the more Harris was blamed. Harris probably want to cancel the Eglinton subway anyways due to the financial situation he inherited, but the Feds gave him little choice.

Since the mid 2000's it is a different issue. Thanks to successive minority governments, and the Conservative belief that provinces should have more control, the transfers to the provinces have been increases substantially over the past 8 years. If the source of the funding does not dry up, no provincial government of any stripe will cancel anything.
 
The reality is, council needs to make Rob Ford come out looking good or this isn't over. Ford's cronies on the TTC have said they will vote to block Transit City from within the TTC. Council may tell the Province to build Transit City but the TTC ultimately has control over what they want. They've ignored council before (bus route cuts vs WheelTrans) so they can do it again. Of course Metrolinx can go at it alone but not having this integrated into the TTC will slow things down considerably.

To get anything moving, the Council should reconstitute the TTC board.

Metrolinx will not go ahead without cooperation from TTC. They will probably continue building the western section of Eglinton that is common to all plans, but will not advance other projects unless TTC is fully onboard.
 
I really like the clause that Stintz put into her omnibus. I agree with 3 of the 4 TC lines, but I think that the SELRT is so fundamentally flawed that it should stay on the cutting room floor.

I read through the Chong report today, and I have to say that as much as I don't think there's much demand for a subway east of Vic Park, they did raise some very valid points as to why the SELRT was a flawed project from the beginning.

I think that an $800 million extension to Vic Park that can be open by 2019 is worth going for.

That makes sense, from the technical standpoint.

But they can't vote for a modified TC, because there are too many possible (and sensible) modified variants and the slim anti-Ford majority would break apart trying to pick one of those variants.

If Ford was not so stubborn, a sensible compromise plan could be easily reached; for example, 3 LRT lines as per TC, combined with a short extension of Sheppard subway instead of SELRT.

Now, it seems that SELRT will be the price for restoring two sensible lines (Finch West and the SLRT extension).
 
That makes sense, from the technical standpoint.

But they can't vote for a modified TC, because there are too many possible (and sensible) modified variants and the slim anti-Ford majority would break apart trying to pick one of those variants.

If Ford was not so stubborn, a sensible compromise plan could be easily reached; for example, 3 LRT lines as per TC, combined with a short extension of Sheppard subway instead of SELRT.

Now, it seems that SELRT will be the price for restoring two sensible lines (Finch West and the SLRT extension).

But because the bill is an omnibus, and Transit City was actually never voted on as 'a plan', but as individual lines, nothing stopping them from doing the same thing here.

It doesn't even need to be a definitive answer on Sheppard, the bill just has to say something like "commission a study to determine the best option for Sheppard East". Get the rest of the stuff moving, and let the debate centre exclusively around Sheppard East, so that it can stop holding everything else hostage.
 

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