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Another interesting development out of the blue: Patrick Brown, leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, resigns today due to sexual assault allegations.
This should have some interesting repercussions for Toronto and GTA, as the PCs up until now have been destined to form the next government. With the PCs out of the picture for the June election, I am a little more optimistic about Toronto's future especially with regards to funding needs for transit and infrastructure (though to be frank, the Ontario Liberals have also been dragging their feet on a number of transit-related projects and have been holding back Toronto for years). Let's wait and see.
And that's all it was. I no longer have any skin in the debate, not being a Toronto resident any more (though I always will consider myself a native Torontonian). I'd be a tad disappointed if I couldn't cruise Yonge Street on Friday and Saturday nights in the future, as my buddies and I did in the past, but I'm a tad old for cruising Yonge nowadays. Heck, I'm too old for cruising Third Avenue here. Or is it Fourth Avenue that the kids use now? I have no idea.
I have seen pedestrian malls that work. Stephen Avenue in Calgary is a pleasant place, and home to one of my favourite Calgary pubs. Hay and Murray Streets in Perth, Australia are fun, with retail-lined arcades running between them, and entertaining buskers. The thing that each of these has, as an anchor, is a public square: Stephen Avenue ends at Olympic Plaza, and Hay Street empties onto a square by the big Commonwealth Bank and Post Office building. In addition, nothing blocks emergency vehicle access, and it is not uncommon to see police cars making their way down the street, avoiding pedestrians. There is no public safety issue.
Nowadays, the Yonge Street Mall might work. There is a public square to act as an anchor (Dundas Square), and if the demand is there, why not? But I would suggest that it not be delineated as, say "one lane only." So like Stephen Avenue and Hay Street, have the sidewalks slope gently towards the middle (for drainage), close it to all traffic except emergency and police vehicles, and if an ambulance needs to double-park beside a fire truck, let it, without the ambulance encountering fireplugs, trees, and benches in the middle of a former street. It's doable, if Toronto is willing to learn from other cities.
Meh you'll always be a Torontonian... To me so you'll always have skin in the game. You can't get admonish that responsibility lol..
There are different options for Yonge Street Chevy and i'm not saying it has to be a certain way but the way it is now is just not inspiring and it simply isn't safe! The sidewalks are full I mean totally and utterly full and crowded it is becoming unsafe to expect so many people to walk on such a limited space meanwhile most of the time Yonge Street isn't all that busy with traffic, presumably because people get the point that it isn't a good arterial to use for driving and they would be totally right. The DT core is expected to double in population by 2041 so this is only going to get worse before it gets better unless someone recognizes this for the problem it is. To me doing this isn't just a beautification and vibrancy project, it is every bit a safety one.
DT Toronto is also different than the 70s.. It is more gentrified so while homelessness is a problem, I think it might not be as bad as back then.
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Originally Posted by Will21st
thank you, you never know, right?
Nope and there are always different ways to skin a cat to make something a reality. Good luck!
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Originally Posted by bostonkid123
Another interesting development out of the blue: Patrick Brown, leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, resigns today due to sexual assault allegations.
This should have some interesting repercussions for Toronto and GTA, as the PCs up until now have been destined to form the next government. With the PCs out of the picture for the June election, I am a little more optimistic about Toronto's future especially with regards to funding needs for transit and infrastructure (though to be frank, the Ontario Liberals have also been dragging their feet on a number of transit-related projects and have been holding back Toronto for years). Let's wait and see.
Never count the liberals out. Hudak was ahead in the polls last election and that came tumbling down pretty spectacularly in 2014. What I am seeing now could be the start of a similar fate for the PC party. For all her faults, Wynne always seems to debate and campaign well so while I don't think it is in the bag for Wynne, If I was asked who my money would be on I'd say be ready for a Wynne government until 2022.
Never count the liberals out. Hudak was ahead in the polls last election and that came tumbling down pretty spectacularly in 2014. What I am seeing now could be the start of a similar fate for the PC party. For all her faults, Wynne always seems to debate and campaign well so while I don't think it is in the bag for Wynne, If I was asked who my money would be on I'd say be ready for a Wynne government until 2022.
To be completely frank, I think the Ontario Liberals deserve to be kicked out this upcoming June, or at the very least a minority government. They've been in power for 14 years, and on many issues, have taken center left voters' trust for granted.
1. Unwilling to fund TTC operating budget. The previous PC government defunded TTC. But that was back in 1995, so you can't continuously blame the PCs for all the ills of Toronto transit. The Ontario Liberals have had 14 years to fix this mistake, but have done nothing but pay lip service to the TTC.
For all of Patrick Brown's faults, at least he's got the balls to guarantee operating funding for the TTC should he be elected. That's already more than anything the Liberals have provided for the TTC in the last 14 years.
2. Mismanaging and delaying major transit initiatives in Toronto - transit is probably the most important issue in the GTA, the economic engine for the whole province, yet the Ontario Liberals treat this issue like promising candies to a child where the candies never materialize.
- Full funding for the Scarborough subway: a colossal waste of money just to pander to Scarborough suburban voters
- Refusing to allow Toronto to toll the Gardner: another vote pandering to the 905 suburbs while letting Toronto to bleed money to keep up this aging infrastructure
- Union Station Revitalization Project: 4 years late and $800 million over budget. The revamped Union Station was supposed to open in 2015. Now it's 2019, and an absolute mess to the tens of thousands of commuters who have to endure it day in day out.
- Unwilling to fund Downtown Relief Line: the only funding Toronto's received for DRL has been from the Federal Liberals. Wynne hasn't said a word on it.
All the while, the Ontario Liberals have been floating fanciful campaign bull**** about "London to Toronto High Speed Rail" - throwing $20 million just for a feasibility study.
Great - I see their logic - instead of focusing on funding the downtown relief line or the RER electrification, let's build the High Speed Rail first to London! Btw, it'll cost about $25 billion. Give or take another $10 billion. And it won't be in service till 2047.
^^^
I certainly don't disagree with the notion that the DRL takes more precedence over a high speed rail line between Toronto and London. The DRL is singularly imo the most important transit initiative in the entire GTA. That said, you have left me a bit confused with your posts. Earlier you said you have more faith in the Liberals with respect to transit initiatives yet you are also saying in your latest post you would prefer either the NDP or Tories over the Libs. There seems to be some dissonance there.
Wynne is a politician so she is going to pander to the outside GTA vote so her decisions aren't always going to lie with what is in the GTA's best interest. She has become arrogant and takes the GTA for granted which may be her undoing. In reality though and it is sad but they are all out for their own best interest and especially given what has happened on the PC side, i'm not convinced any alternative is better than Wynne right now.
What I will say is based on Horwath's response about Patrick Brown and her general men suck women rule narrative (read what she said about Jian Ghomeshi) - I could never see myself voting for Horwath - i'd vote any PC leader or Wynne over her for the rest of eternity. It is too bad because while I think Jagmeet Singh is out of his element in fed politics, he would have been a very good Ontario NDP leader and infinitely better than Andrea Horwath. Seriously if she loses in June as I suspect she will and yet again come in 3rd place, she should simply step down and hopefully her incessant whining will come to an end.
^^^
I certainly don't disagree with the notion that the DRL takes more precedence over a high speed rail line between Toronto and London. The DRL is singularly imo the most important transit initiative in the entire GTA. That said, you have left me a bit confused with your posts. Earlier you said you have more faith in the Liberals with respect to transit initiatives yet you are also saying in your latest post you would prefer either the NDP or Tories over the Libs. There seems to be some dissonance there.
Wynne is a politician so she is going to pander to the outside GTA vote so her decisions aren't always going to lie with what is in the GTA's best interest. She has become arrogant and takes the GTA for granted which may be her undoing. In reality though and it is sad but they are all out for their own best interest and especially given what has happened on the PC side, i'm not convinced any alternative is better than Wynne right now.
What I will say is based on Horwath's response about Patrick Brown and her general men suck women rule narrative (read what she said about Jian Ghomeshi) - I could never see myself voting for Horwath - i'd vote any PC leader or Wynne over her for the rest of eternity. It is too bad because while I think Jagmeet Singh is out of his element in fed politics, he would have been a very good Ontario NDP leader and infinitely better than Andrea Horwath. Seriously if she loses in June as I suspect she will and yet again come in 3rd place, she should simply step down and hopefully her incessant whining will come to an end.
I do have more faith in the Ontario Liberals in terms of transit build. However, their foot dragging on a number of high priority transit initiatives is getting tiresome.
For example, RER is an awesome project, but completion by 2025? C'mon. That's equivalent of saying "if you want better transit in the GTA you have to continue reelecting us for the next 2 elections June 2018 AND June 2023, or else". In a number of NA municipalities, electrification has been done at a much quicker pace, maximum 2-3 years from planning until completion (the VIA Rail electrification program projects maximum time of 4 years between Toronto and Quebec City).
And DRL won't come online until 2031 at the earliest, while Scarborough Subway to nowhere is given priority and a near blank cheque (ballooning from the initial $1.5 billion to $1.5 billion to $3.66 billion+ now).
Like seriously, stop playing games. GTA is the largest municipality in the nation, and the ON Liberals have been playing a "transit lip service" game with us for the last 14 years. Just look at the insane amount of photo-ops that the ON Transport Minister Del Duca has attended over the last 4 years. I mean, the dude literally showed up for a photo-op whenever a new streetcar is delivered, or when a new escalator was installed at Union Station. Facepalm.
I do have more faith in the Ontario Liberals in terms of transit build. However, their foot dragging on a number of high priority transit initiatives is getting tiresome.
For example, RER is an awesome project, but completion by 2025? C'mon. That's equivalent of saying "if you want better transit in the GTA you have to continue reelecting us for the next 2 elections June 2018 AND June 2023, or else". In a number of NA municipalities, electrification has been done at a much quicker pace, maximum 2-3 years from planning until completion (the VIA Rail electrification program projects maximum time of 4 years between Toronto and Quebec City).
And DRL won't come online until 2031 at the earliest, while Scarborough Subway to nowhere is given priority and a near blank cheque (ballooning from the initial $1.5 billion to $1.5 billion to $3.66 billion+ now).
Like seriously, stop playing games. GTA is the largest municipality in the nation, and the ON Liberals have been playing a "transit lip service" game with us for the last 14 years. Just look at the insane amount of photo-ops that the ON Transport Minister Del Duca has attended over the last 4 years. I mean, the dude literally showed up for a photo-op whenever a new streetcar is delivered, or when a new escalator was installed at Union Station. Facepalm.
Yeah I do question the priorities because obviously the logical decision on transit build would have been the DRL. A lot of money is being pumped into Transit in the region and a lot of it Is good but DRL should have been priority 1. Of course, decisions aren't always made by people who are operationally minded more than politically. I'm open-minded about the election in June. I know I WILL NOT vote Doug Ford if he wins P.C but i'm open to other candidates and if they win - i'll look at their platforms honestly.
1. Unwilling to fund TTC operating budget. The previous PC government defunded TTC. But that was back in 1995, so you can't continuously blame the PCs for all the ills of Toronto transit. The Ontario Liberals have had 14 years to fix this mistake, but have done nothing but pay lip service to the TTC.
For all of Patrick Brown's faults, at least he's got the balls to guarantee operating funding for the TTC should he be elected. That's already more than anything the Liberals have provided for the TTC in the last 14 years.
Where's the money coming from? PC can promise to fund the TTC all they want, but the money has to come from somewhere, most likely from taxpayers.
Quote:
2. Mismanaging and delaying major transit initiatives in Toronto - transit is probably the most important issue in the GTA, the economic engine for the whole province, yet the Ontario Liberals treat this issue like promising candies to a child where the candies never materialize.
- Full funding for the Scarborough subway: a colossal waste of money just to pander to Scarborough suburban voters
- Refusing to allow Toronto to toll the Gardner: another vote pandering to the 905 suburbs while letting Toronto to bleed money to keep up this aging infrastructure
- Union Station Revitalization Project: 4 years late and $800 million over budget. The revamped Union Station was supposed to open in 2015. Now it's 2019, and an absolute mess to the tens of thousands of commuters who have to endure it day in day out.
- Unwilling to fund Downtown Relief Line: the only funding Toronto's received for DRL has been from the Federal Liberals. Wynne hasn't said a word on it.
While I agree transit is important, I'd say reducing crime and violence from certain groups of people in the city among other things is as important if not moreso.
But back to the topic:
- I agree that the Scarborough subway is useless if its just one stop. I really wish they could just make several stops to Scarborough town centre or not do it at all.
- I'm COMPLETELY AGAINST placing tolls on the Gardiner. You already have the gas tax being charged towards drivers so why charge them again with a toll especially when the gas tax has increased since last year? I think instead of looking at it as 905 vs 416, downtown vs suburbs, why not simply recognize that different people living in different areas have different needs that cannot be completely solved with one single solution? Namely better transit WILL NOT be the golden solution to traffic problems everywhere in the city.
I use to live in Scarborough relatively close to a subway station. I had a 5 minute walk to the bus stop and then a 10-15 minute ride to the station which isn't bad. I use to take transit all the time because it made sense to do so and it was relatively convenient. Then I got a car and then all of a sudden it felt like a new world was opened up to me. While I still used transit to go downtown, the area around my house was now unlocked and places that might take only 10-15 to drive to might take triple or more time by TTC. Then I moved farther out into the suburbs where buses ran much fewer each hour and the closest subway was at least 30-45 mins away by bus including needing to make one switch from a north/south to east/west bus. Why go through that when I could drive to where ever I need to go and be there in much less time than taking a bus/subway? It made no sense to do so anymore.
The point is the way Toronto/GTA has been constructed it doesn't promote the use of transit the farther you are from downtown and it will ALWAYS be less efficient and more time consuming than driving even when you include the time you spend sitting in traffic. If you live downtown or at least relatively close to a subway station, then transit is a good or great option for people, but if you live in the suburbs it will always be a worse option no matter how much you improve GTA transit simply because of low density in housing and businesses.
Even if we were able to build amazing transit in the suburbs, it still wouldn't change the fact that everything that you might be interested in going to is spread out a ton and if you want to go to more than one thing its going to be a major pain in the ass to wait for the bus/subway multiple times and therefore making trips much more time consuming than simply going to those same destinations much more quickly by car. Right now its just too late to turn things around when you've built the GTA to be so spread out that even costly transit that tries to reach more people won't ever be enough to convince people like me to take transit again when driving is so much more efficient where I live. And all this doesn't even include winter weather which completely doesn't promote transit use.
I've mentioned it before, but I'd say a more efficient and much cheaper way to help with reducing traffic is to repave suburban sidewalks to become dual use pedestrian/bike and now small electric vehicle pathways and create a bike highway that connects the city. I think that would have a much better chance of getting people out of their cars than simply building more expensive transit. The sidewalk infrastructure is already in place and is EXTREMELY underutilized even in perfect summer weather so why not do the conversion and get some use out of it?
Espeically now when small electric vehicles like hoverboards, electric unicycles, electric skateboards and ebikes are slowly becoming more popular, having a bike highway stretching throughout the city would allow people to move around without the use of a car, but without having to walk which most people hate. I think this would cut down at least some traffic where instead of using your car you can now make short to medium trips in your area and not have to worry about getting run over by fast moving cars.
Anyways this post is getting way too long, so bottom line is more transit doesn't fix everything and there are other ways to reduce traffic and/or get traffic to move more efficiently especially downtown core where they should've implemented many more scramble intersections a long time ago.
The point is the way Toronto/GTA has been constructed it doesn't promote the use of transit the farther you are from downtown and it will ALWAYS be less efficient and more time consuming than driving even when you include the time you spend sitting in traffic. If you live downtown or at least relatively close to a subway station, then transit is a good or great option for people, but if you live in the suburbs it will always be a worse option no matter how much you improve GTA transit simply because of low density in housing and businesses.
Even if we were able to build amazing transit in the suburbs, it still wouldn't change the fact that everything that you might be interested in going to is spread out a ton and if you want to go to more than one thing its going to be a major pain in the ass to wait for the bus/subway multiple times and therefore making trips much more time consuming than simply going to those same destinations much more quickly by car. Right now its just too late to turn things around when you've built the GTA to be so spread out that even costly transit that tries to reach more people won't ever be enough to convince people like me to take transit again when driving is so much more efficient where I live. And all this doesn't even include winter weather which completely doesn't promote transit use.
.
Remember that since 2005 the places to grow act has changed the nature of sprawl in favour of densification and intensification. Sure there is still sprawl in the burbs but there are quite a few more areas ripe for subway dev and LRT's. Eglinton Crosstown should have been a subway but a largely underground LRT with good headways is a much better than nothing. Queen or King street should have a Subway line for sure, not to mention the desperately required DRL. What we have is streetcars on some arterials that should be full fledged subway lines or at least underground LRT.
I can think of at least a half dozen other arterials in the city that should have LRT and that is just in the city limits and there is more than enough demand for these projects. Also, Regional heavy rail is doing quite well and GO expansion is a reflection of regional demand. The GTA is growing by about 100K people per year consistently. We need to be looking 20 and 30 and 40 years from now. The days of SFH development in our metro is over. All new development is mid-high rise so no, not everywhere is in need of subway or even LRT dev but there are more than enough arterials that need a combination of subway and LRT development within our city limits now, let alone a half century from now. As expensive as these projects are, imagine how much they will cost in a half century. So now is definitely the time to fill in all the gaps where demand certainly exists. Nobody is saying build Subway and LRT lines where demand doesn't warrant but we sure do have many other arterials and high enough density areas where demand is either there or very much will be there in our lifetime.
Where's the money coming from? PC can promise to fund the TTC all they want, but the money has to come from somewhere, most likely from taxpayers.
While I agree transit is important, I'd say reducing crime and violence from certain groups of people in the city among other things is as important if not moreso.
But back to the topic:
- I agree that the Scarborough subway is useless if its just one stop. I really wish they could just make several stops to Scarborough town centre or not do it at all.
- I'm COMPLETELY AGAINST placing tolls on the Gardiner. You already have the gas tax being charged towards drivers so why charge them again with a toll especially when the gas tax has increased since last year? I think instead of looking at it as 905 vs 416, downtown vs suburbs, why not simply recognize that different people living in different areas have different needs that cannot be completely solved with one single solution? Namely better transit WILL NOT be the golden solution to traffic problems everywhere in the city.
I use to live in Scarborough relatively close to a subway station. I had a 5 minute walk to the bus stop and then a 10-15 minute ride to the station which isn't bad. I use to take transit all the time because it made sense to do so and it was relatively convenient. Then I got a car and then all of a sudden it felt like a new world was opened up to me. While I still used transit to go downtown, the area around my house was now unlocked and places that might take only 10-15 to drive to might take triple or more time by TTC. Then I moved farther out into the suburbs where buses ran much fewer each hour and the closest subway was at least 30-45 mins away by bus including needing to make one switch from a north/south to east/west bus. Why go through that when I could drive to where ever I need to go and be there in much less time than taking a bus/subway? It made no sense to do so anymore.
The point is the way Toronto/GTA has been constructed it doesn't promote the use of transit the farther you are from downtown and it will ALWAYS be less efficient and more time consuming than driving even when you include the time you spend sitting in traffic. If you live downtown or at least relatively close to a subway station, then transit is a good or great option for people, but if you live in the suburbs it will always be a worse option no matter how much you improve GTA transit simply because of low density in housing and businesses.
Even if we were able to build amazing transit in the suburbs, it still wouldn't change the fact that everything that you might be interested in going to is spread out a ton and if you want to go to more than one thing its going to be a major pain in the ass to wait for the bus/subway multiple times and therefore making trips much more time consuming than simply going to those same destinations much more quickly by car. Right now its just too late to turn things around when you've built the GTA to be so spread out that even costly transit that tries to reach more people won't ever be enough to convince people like me to take transit again when driving is so much more efficient where I live. And all this doesn't even include winter weather which completely doesn't promote transit use.
I've mentioned it before, but I'd say a more efficient and much cheaper way to help with reducing traffic is to repave suburban sidewalks to become dual use pedestrian/bike and now small electric vehicle pathways and create a bike highway that connects the city. I think that would have a much better chance of getting people out of their cars than simply building more expensive transit. The sidewalk infrastructure is already in place and is EXTREMELY underutilized even in perfect summer weather so why not do the conversion and get some use out of it?
Espeically now when small electric vehicles like hoverboards, electric unicycles, electric skateboards and ebikes are slowly becoming more popular, having a bike highway stretching throughout the city would allow people to move around without the use of a car, but without having to walk which most people hate. I think this would cut down at least some traffic where instead of using your car you can now make short to medium trips in your area and not have to worry about getting run over by fast moving cars.
Anyways this post is getting way too long, so bottom line is more transit doesn't fix everything and there are other ways to reduce traffic and/or get traffic to move more efficiently especially downtown core where they should've implemented many more scramble intersections a long time ago.
No one said and will ever say that "more transit will fix everything".
My post was more on the Ontario Liberals' spotty track record when it comes to prioritizing transit funding and construction. During this whole time, they have prioritized projects like Spadina extension to Vaughan and Scarborough Subway while ignoring the real bottlenecks in the TTC system:
- Bloor Yonge Station reaching 150% of peak capacity today
- Overcrowding on Line 1 south of Bloor
Both of the above can be solved by prioritizing the Relief Line, but the Ontario Liberals and our spineless Mayor John Tory would rather build a $4 billion, 1-stop, vote buying subway to Scarborough Town Centre than addressing overcrowding first one the existing system. One of these days, when Yonge Bloor reaches 200%+ of its built capacity (almost weekly nowadays even with crowd control measures in place), there will be an accident when someone gets pushed over the platform. And when that happens someone - Tory or the Ontario Liberals - will have to deal with fallout. When you keep extending subways into the suburbs while refusing to build new capacity on the existing lines, it's just a matter of time when that fatal accident occurs due to platform overcrowding.
And yes, I agree with you that there should be alternative solutions to address transport in the suburbs - bike lanes, wider side walks, and even electric bike lanes along side existing roads. All of those are good solutions that should be combined with existing transit infrastructure.
Also, the current Regional Express Rail upgrade of GO Transit will more than triple capacity and service on GO Transit service to the suburbs. That's a huge deal for those living in places like Hamilton or Mississauga and commuting to Toronto in an expedient manner. Once again, the Ontario Liberals have been promising to do this for well over a decade (they published the RER plan back in 2005) but have yet to start construction. More photo ops and no real action.
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so you'll always have skin in the game. You can't get admonish that responsibility lol..
