Whose vision of transit in Toronto do you support?

[nfitz]

Remember that there was no debate...Transit City was simply announced one day and funding was promised immediately ...

Your forgetting that David Miller campaigned on exapnding surface LRT in 2006; and explicity discussed LRT instead of subway on Sheppard East during the election. Isn't a mayoral election exactly the place to debate it?

The Waterfront West LRT was discussed long before Transit City, and the Don Mills EA started in ... what ... 2002? 2003? Eglinton isn't exactly a new concept. The election was in fall 2006; after being re-elected on this issue, he moved in early 2007 to start the process. Would you have preferred he would have simply have studied it for five years, and built nothing?

 

[Northern Magus]

Actually, you're right, they would be bias. In fact, anyone that agrees with the SOS plan would be bias too! I guess you'd just better subtract all the votes for B then

Yawn. Back to building straw men, huh?

 

[Northern Magus]

Would you have preferred he would have simply have studied it for five years, and built nothing?

Given scarberiankhatru's membership in SOS, do you need an answer?

 

[Northern Magus]

Would you have preferred he would have simply have studied it for five years, and built nothing?

Given scarberiankhatru's membership in SOS, do you need an answer?

 

[Second_in_pie]

Yawn. Back to building straw men, huh?

Yep. Actually, while we're at it, the people who voted for option A probably had some sort of inclination to TC instead of SOS... THEIR OPINIONS SHOULD BE NEGATED TOO!

Or perhaps they're all part of the big "anti-SOS" group, and therefore bias due to their group membership. It's still their opinion, and it's still valid, that's the point I was trying to make

 

[kettal]

Is anybody surprised at what this discussion has become?

 

[TrickyRicky]

I voted A. I'll give you my reason although I think many will find it unstatisfying. Basically, I really like this city and it is where I am choosing to make my future. However, my strategy in business and life assumes that transit expansion will be completely inadequate to meet the needs of the city and that even the modest proposals moving forward will cost double the amount of money and twice or triple the amount of time. In other words I am moving forward indifferent to the outcome. I chose A because there are forces pushing this plan forward and I support their initiative even if I do not support their proposal based on it's technical merit.

 

[kEiThZ]

So in other words, you and your Save our Stubways friends are simply trying to waste our time in order to indulge in pointless fantasy? Or ... are you really trying to get at something more?

Why would we be doing this if we didn't believe in change.

Ah, allegations of corruption and malfeasance in the mayor's office and city bureaucracy?

Can you explain how the estimate went from $6 to nearly $15 billion before the first shovel hit the ground? And it's hardly an accusation of corruption. I didn't say Miller took a bribe. But I do think he was tactfully deceitful on the full cost of Transit City.

All about Scarborough huh? Oh and btw ... do you know what a budget deficit is?

That's where the priority is. In case you hadn't noticed Transit City also has 4 lines (Sheppard, Morningside, Eglinton and Kingston) and the SRT rebuild going on in Scarborough as well. I don't see you complaining about that.

So Metrolinx are moronic puppets who'll throw cash at anything we ask for? Really?

Did I say Metrolinx were a bunch of moronic puppets? I just find it surprising that Metrolinx's RTP was basically an approval of every municipalities individual transit plans and a few GO upgrades. It was hardly very 'regional'. Their solution to a northern cross-town route was to join Finch West and Sheppard East via Don Mills. Do they really expect people to give up their cars for a 1hr+ LRT ride across north Toronto?

Wow. If you're trying to make yourself look like a kooky conspiracy theorist, you're succeeding admirably. The ignorance behind your post is actually pretty breathtaking: before any funding is committed, all transportation projects are analyzed and vetted by the Ministry of Transportation's Policy and Planning division, which includes specialist branches in strategic policy and transit policy.

A few years ago they showed that subways worked with RTES. Now they show that LRT works with Transit City. And until a few months ago the TTC was adamant that nothing but an ART Mk II would suffice as a replacement for the SRT, until Metrolinx and the Scarborough community Council pushed for a change to LRT (something I personally support by the way). You tell me how such thorough analysis can yield such widely varying results.

So ... you're actually alleging that the planning departments at the TTC, City, Metrolinx and Province are simply rubber stamping robots who are too incompetent in their areas of expertise to even do proper due diligence?

Yeah. Something like that. Even Transit City fans didn't agree with all of Transit City. The fact that Metrolinx didn't really object to anything shows they're a rubber stamp.

So stop wasting people's time and do something constructive: walk your talk and run for office.

We are doing something constructive in case you hadn't noticed. When was the last time you got off and did something you felt strongly about?

And it shouldn't require running for office just to get something implemented. That's what specific issue advocacy is about. Steve Munro's been advocating for an LRT network for years. Did he run for office? Do you think less of him because he didn't run? There are various folks who care about various issues in this city. Do they only matter if they run for office?

Given scarberiankhatru's membership in SOS, do you need an answer?

He isn't in SOS.

 

[kEiThZ]

The question I pose to everybody here who believes that TC should go forward because that's what the pols are backing right now is this: if the next mayor and council decide to can TC and put up subways instead, are all of you going to start fighting for TC or will you decide since that's the new direction that's where your support will lie?

 

[Northern Magus]

Or perhaps they're all part of the big "anti-SOS" group, and therefore bias due to their group membership.

Grasping at straws, huh?

The fact is that there's no TC special interest lobby group that organized itself, started its own threads, set up a website, and actively promotes its own agenda. It's therefore unreasonable to treat the Option A data as if it has the same bias.

It's still their opinion, and it's still valid, that's the point I was trying to make

Nope, you weren't making a point but throwing a lame tantrum. And your point, unfortunately, is irrelevant: you don't try to determine Michael Ignatieff's popularity by polling outside a Liberal convention. The fact is that including the SOS votes distorts the data, especially when the sample size is only around 60 and riddled with self-selection bias. Probably the most realistic way to correct the distortion is to calculate what percentage of active UT members are part of the SOS team, and reduce the SOS voting bloc proportionately.

Nonetheless, the fact remains that outside of SOS members, their plan appears to have little traction.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Given scarberiankhatru's membership in SOS, do you need an answer?

I have nothing to do with SOS, twerp. It's not the plan I'd build.

Your forgetting that David Miller campaigned on exapnding surface LRT in 2006; and explicity discussed LRT instead of subway on Sheppard East during the election. Isn't a mayoral election exactly the place to debate it?

The Waterfront West LRT was discussed long before Transit City, and the Don Mills EA started in ... what ... 2002? 2003? Eglinton isn't exactly a new concept. The election was in fall 2006; after being re-elected on this issue, he moved in early 2007 to start the process. Would you have preferred he would have simply have studied it for five years, and built nothing?

You're.

Studied what for five years? What a stupid statement. No, I'd rather they study "it" for 10 years and then build nothing.

Why would nothing have been built? Even if we ended up with only half the funding that was announced, that could build an entirely different set of projects. Jane sure could have used more analysis than drawing a line on a map through priority neighbourhoods, and resources could have expended elsewhere, including places where LRT makes sense without multi-billion dollar tunnels. Why Sheppard and not one continuous line across Finch? Why Morningside and not Wilson? Because politicians chose them. Even if a plan to "give LRT a chance" simply had to get built, there were easier and more suitable places for LRT lines that would have helped just as many people and done as much for the city. We didn't get this debate then and we're not getting it now. A plan that made sense from the start might not be getting ripped to shreds today by budget fiascos and electoral politics.

There's a difference between throwing out some ideas during an election and having a plan pop up without public input that even surprised some people that work for the city. There's maybe 10 people today who know what Miller said during the election without needing to search google for evidence (and a city-wide scheme that stated what was to be built, and where, and when, and for what reasons was not at stake then), but you'll surely respond with "well, people should have been paying attention to theoretical musings." If he had presented the Transit City plan a year earlier, maybe it would have been an actual election issue.

Even as late as 2007, The Don Mills EA was a study asking questions about what was needed on Don Mills, not a study to formulaically justify a decision already made.

 

[Northern Magus]

The question I pose to everybody here who believes that TC should go forward because that's what the pols are backing right now is this: if the next mayor and council decide to can TC and put up subways instead, are all of you going to start fighting for TC or will you decide since that's the new direction that's where your support will lie?

Actually the next mayor and council don't have the power to do this, unless they plan on funding it all by themselves.

 

[kEiThZ]

Actually the next mayor and council don't have the power to do this, unless they plan on funding it all by themselves.

And you don't think they could re-negotiate with the feds and the Province?

 

[GraphicMatt]

The question I pose to everybody here who believes that TC should go forward because that's what the pols are backing right now is this: if the next mayor and council decide to can TC and put up subways instead, are all of you going to start fighting for TC or will you decide since that's the new direction that's where your support will lie?

If someone came up with an alternative plan and a means for that plan to be implemented within a similar timeframe to Transit City then I'd certainly be interested in it. But generally all politicians mean when they say they'll 're-evaluate' a plan at this point is that they'll put it on hold indefinitely because, hey, it's a lot easier to balance a city's budget when you're not expanding transit.

This, I think, is the most likely outcome should SaveOurSubways' plan gain traction with the media.

 

[Northern Magus]

And you don't think they could re-negotiate with the feds and the Province?

"Renegotiate" what? The money's committed, work has started, and tens of millions of dollars are currently being spent. If you actually think that the province would just throw away the tens of millions it has already invested and go straight back to the drawing board, you're dreaming in technicolour.

The sheer scale of wastage you're contemplating here has only one precedent.