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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

salsa said:
Miller and the left has been out of power for ten years now. The leaders that came after had plenty of time to move forward on the relief line and let the transit city projects run its course without the need for interference. They had an entire decade to get it started, and to prove that their overall management of the city was better than Miller's. An entire decade, and what do they have to show for it? Absolutely nothing.

So when will people like you finally give some due credit where it truly belongs? For starters,
  • The cowardice of the Wynne government in rejecting dedicated revenue tools has forever ensured that money for transit will be scarce, bitterly fought for and stretched thin between competing priorities in every budget/election cycle. We will continue to fight over which badly-needed line gets to happen first and which ones will be left to our grandkids to deal with, but it didn't have to be this way.
  • Transit City was never intended to take this long to be done and over with. But the Liberals allowed every line to be reduced in scope, delayed by many years, or eventually cancelled. Contrary to popular belief, Rob Ford never had the authority to unilaterally tear up transit plans without a council vote. Everything that he did was done with the blessing of the Liberals, and later made worse by city council's inability to stick to a transit plan for more than a few months.
  • Miller's priorities was not downtown-centric enough for you, but his successor ran on an anti-downtown platform and consumed all his political capital on suburban subway expansion. Then John Tory ran on SmartTrack which nobody asked for, attacked the business case for the relief line, diverted city resources from the planning work on the RL, and has now lost control of the whole thing to Doug Ford.
  • For a long time the TTC insisted that we didn't need the relief line thanks to ATC and new trains, while at Metrolinx the relief line was only a 25 year priority under the original Big Move plan. If the need for a relief line was so obvious back then, then maybe the technocrats should have given better advice to their political overlords.
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Millers tenure and transit plan was the cause, the aftermath was the effect.

Thankfully we will never see a political uprising of this magnitude with transit planning at the forefront again.
 
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OneCity said:
Millers tenure and transit plan was the cause, the aftermath was the effect.

Thankfully we will never see a political uprising of this magnitude with transit planning at the forefront again.
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This guy can tell the future. Why don't you provide us with useful information like the lottery numbers instead of wasting your time explaining the past and telling us our transit future.
 
sixrings said:
This guy can tell the future. Why don't you provide us with useful information like the lottery numbers instead of wasting your time explaining the past and telling us our transit future.
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Well, "we will never see a political uprising of this magnitude" is a reasonable educated guess (not necessarily 100% correct), while the lottery winnings are random by design.

If you think otherwise, i.e. that the lottery numbers can be predicted .. then you should seize the business opportunity and get rich.
 
Overall, Miller's contribution to transit was certainly positive. He brought the transit expansion back into the agenda. His priorities weren't always perfectly set, but his legacy consists of three very substantial projects: TYSSE, the Crosstown, and Finch West.

Miller should have handled certain elements differently: more priority to the Relief Line, more realistic approach to the feasibility of the Jane and Don Mills surface light rail, better network integration in Scarborough, etc. However, if he didn't do his heavy lifting then we probably wouldn't start anything at all.
 
Rainforest said:
Overall, Miller's contribution to transit was certainly positive. He brought the transit expansion back into the agenda. His priorities weren't always perfectly set, but his legacy consists of three very substantial projects: TYSSE, the Crosstown, and Finch West.

Miller should have handled certain elements differently: more priority to the Relief Line, more realistic approach to the feasibility of the Jane and Don Mills surface light rail, better network integration in Scarborough, etc. However, if he didn't do his heavy lifting then we probably wouldn't start anything at all.
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Miller was very good for transit operations, absolutely terrible at the main capital projects. Ford was the exact opposite.

The City would have been far better served with these two being Mayors in a reverse order. Get the proper plans in place for the main arteries then see greater support for public transit O&M
 
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OneCity said:
Miller was very good for transit operations, absolutely terrible at the main capital projects. Ford was the exact opposite.
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Which Ford, though?

Rob didn't manage to get any transit-related capital projects started. Doug seems to be doing better but we will only know for sure when the construction starts.
 
Rainforest said:
Which Ford, though?

Rob didn't manage to get any transit-related capital projects started. Doug seems to be doing better but we will only know for sure when the construction starts.
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Robs plans were conceptually the same, the major difference was he was politically stonewalled on City council and Doug now has ultimate power to deliver. Whether it was a BDL extension, or his agreement with the Province to build the connected ECLRT to SCC, and the Sheppard subway all were reasonable solutions to connecting Scarborough Centre on the main arteries that were promoted or agreed to.

Basically the same conceptual plans most residents and even most UT posters expected from day one in this thread, unfortunately we got a poorly integrated Transit City instead.

But it was the aftermath that became really unfortunate and confirmed why we have such large apathy in certain parts of our City. We had politically motivated special interest and union groups ramp up acting as the local residents main voice in the Left wing media basically to attack any ideas of the plans being fixed. Really a political take down the Fords at all cost over even considering respecting the voters who were already asking to start being heard. From the 'evidence-based' BS signs, to the polls that never made any reasonable sense, to the far outside politicians from subway filled riding campaigning directly on our issues and even coming to our townhalls in some of the lowest income and racially diverse areas of the City to tell the, what is best for them. This was some really divisive, unhelpful, and bizarre chit to see voters of all stripes drown out on this scale.

Just really glad this crap no longer can impact the main transit plans in the City moving forward with some form of unity at all Provincial parties. The City has also made reasonable strides to be more geographically respectful potlcially under Torys leadership so hopefully it remains going forward.
 
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OneCity said:
to the far outside politicians from subway filled riding campaigning directly on our issues and even coming to our townhalls in some of the lowest income and racially diverse areas of the City to tell the, what is best for them.
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You've mentioned this many times, but no matter how many times I remain unconvinced that this is a big deal at all. Rob Ford lived in northern Etobicoke and I'm sure he never commented on the needs of downtown transit riders, right? Oh no wait, he constantly, endlessly campaigned for the permanent bustitution of streetcar lines. And you know what? Fine. That is his right. Because:

1) Etobicoke North taxpayers still fund the TTC including the streetcars.
2) People travel outside of their neighbourhood on transit.
 
OneCity said:
Robs plans were conceptually the same, the major difference was he was politically stonewalled on City council
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Mainly because he had no actual plans other the say Subway Subways subways and basically say that places "deserve a subway" We had a fully-funded plan in place fro the LRT in Scarborough that was going to start construction fater the pan am games until he cancled it nad said that a subway that hadn;t been planed out was better.
 
Just a little refresher on Rob Ford's subway 'plans'. This is the Rob/Doug Ford transit plan from their 2014 Mayoral campaign:

rob-doug-ford-subway-map.jpg


32km of subway extensions and new lines.

Total cost?

$9 billion dollars. Canadian dollars. And no way to pay for it.

Rob Ford didn't have any real transit plans. Just lines on maps and appealing numbers. His antics postponed any real progress by at least a decade.
 
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syn said:
Just a little refresher on Rob Ford's 'subway' plans. This is the Rob/Doug Ford transit plan from their 2014 Mayoral campaign:

rob-doug-ford-subway-map.jpg


32km of subway extensions and new lines.

Total cost?

$9 billion dollars. Canadian dollars. And no way to pay for it.

Rob Ford didn't have any real transit plans. Just lines on maps and appealing numbers. His antics postponed any real progress by at least a decade.
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I did like that the Sheppard Subway was going to be connected to Downsview (Now Sheppard West) and the extension east and he did try to bring back the Etobicoke RT.
 
Coolstar said:
I did like that the Sheppard Subway was going to be connected to Downsview (Now Sheppard West) and the extension east and he did try to bring back the Etobicoke RT.
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I think people need to be clear on the reasons they disagree with the "plan".
1) technology choice (light rail, heavy rail, tram, metro)
2) routing
3) funding (or lack of) model
4) drawn by Ford
 
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