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TTC: Other Items (catch all)

allengeorge said:
The public routinely votes against taxes, or policies that would increase taxes. We are at fault, both for not critically thinking, and rewarding politicians who cater to that.

FWIW, I think that our path is unsunstainable: we want to have American-level/style taxation with European-level services in a low-growth, uninnovative economy. That’s…not going to work, and clearly hasn’t been working for a while. I think that later generations (Millenials onwards - and I say this as the oldest part of that cohort) are going to have to take massive service and benefit cuts along with increased taxes to pay off our current mistakes.
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Look at it from another perspective, people would be happy to pay higher taxes if they felt they got value for it. In reality I don't know anyone who feels satisfied about any government service? 1 year wait for a passport a while back? "temporary" road fixes that last a decade or more. Some roads like Kipling have had the same stretch 3 times in 3 years ripped up repaved and repeat. Toronto hydro paying a useless ceo $6 million, I remember chow during her election race said it sucks water fountains are broken at parks yet I see so many not working.

I agree there will be a reckoning eventually.
 
turbanplanner said:
Most people I talk to were a lot happier in the past. People weren't thrilled but they felt you got more value for what you paid.
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I suspect i am considerably older than you and I can assure you that every generation looks back on the past with fondness and complains how standards have slipped, how costs have risen and how ghastly the world is now. They (we) conveniently forget the bad things in the past and the things that are clearly better now.
 
DSC said:
I suspect i am considerably older than you and I can assure you that every generation looks back on the past with fondness and complains how standards have slipped, how costs have risen and how ghastly the world is now. They (we) conveniently forget the bad things in the past and the things that are clearly better now.
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True, but at the same time some of these changes for the worse is undeniable (if not necessarily unavoidable) - e.g. housing availability and job security (post-war).

AoD
 
DSC said:
I suspect i am considerably older than you and I can assure you that every generation looks back on the past with fondness and complains how standards have slipped, how costs have risen and how ghastly the world is now. They (we) conveniently forget the bad things in the past and the things that are clearly better now.
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A lot of city services are objectively worse now.
 
turbanplanner said:
A lot of city services are objectively worse now.
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But it’s not because people aren’t getting the value for what they paid. Actually maybe they are getting exactly what they paid for because over a decade ago the promise was made to find “efficiencies” to cut taxes. Turns out there wasn’t much to be found and they cut into services like the TTC instead. So 14 years of austerity later you see the TTC in the state that it’s in now, where even the vehicles that perform maintenance suffer from maintenance deferrals.
 
APTA-2048 said:
But it’s not because people aren’t getting the value for what they paid. Actually maybe they are getting exactly what they paid for because over a decade ago the promise was made to find “efficiencies” to cut taxes. Turns out there wasn’t much to be found and they cut into services like the TTC instead. So 14 years of austerity later you see the TTC in the state that it’s in now, where even the vehicles that perform maintenance suffer from maintenance deferrals.
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And (e.g.) deferred maintenance of roads leading to more potholes. Tory used to proudly point out how many potholes the city was filling -- and that was really a sign of the rot he helped instill.
 
APTA-2048 said:
But it’s not because people aren’t getting the value for what they paid. Actually maybe they are getting exactly what they paid for because over a decade ago the promise was made to find “efficiencies” to cut taxes. Turns out there wasn’t much to be found and they cut into services like the TTC instead. So 14 years of austerity later you see the TTC in the state that it’s in now, where even the vehicles that perform maintenance suffer from maintenance deferrals.
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Just because things weren’t found, doesn’t mean there aren’t tons of inefficiencies, like the road dug up every year. I also hate how many shortsighted decisions they’ve made like building the Scarborough extension with Block signals, etc.
 
turbanplanner said:
Just because things weren’t found, doesn’t mean there aren’t tons of inefficiencies, like the road dug up every year. I also hate how many shortsighted decisions they’ve made like building the Scarborough extension with Block signals, etc.
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Oh for sure, although, paradoxically, this is likely because government is smaller (in certain respects) now. Less people with the expertise and cross department know-how to schedule these things, and outsourcing as much as possible to the private sector, which will get paid to do the same job over and over again.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
True, but at the same time some of these changes for the worse is undeniable (if not necessarily unavoidable) - e.g. housing availability and job security (post-war).

AoD
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Because someone felt they weren't getting value for their tax dollars and governments cut their ability to provide those things.
 
picard102 said:
Which road. Because roads cannot be dug up for non-emergency work for a period of five years after they have been resurfaced or reconstructed.
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Kipling between new Toronto street and Evans ave. A few years ago Horner was repaved and then immediately trenched.

And I fee like the mortarium is ignored a lot of the time, the Queensway was repaved in the right lane from east mall to ~atomic ave. within weeks multiple access holes were dug.
 
In a shocking turn of developments, LOL........

The Main Street Station bus platform reconstruction project, which nominally wrapped up last September.........

Is now complete! The fast fences were replaced this week with permanent ones.

DSC04099.jpg


Who says you can't get things done in this town............ eventually. LOL
 
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