[Greg Banks]

I completely support that option. We should go rent a few bulldozers on the weekend and get started.

I suppose this post should be in another thread nevertheless here goes....What was GLL doing during the last term? The Humbertowne fiasco...the lack of any planning whatsoever for the Richview ROW...leaving D Ford and Build Toronto to run willy nilly roughshod because there was no planning...Look at Mimico 2020 (Ward 6) at Six Point ( ward 5) shows Etobicoke Councillors do have a modicum of inderstanding when it comes to planning....Why didn't GLL look to the plans for development for Yonge N, Birchcliff/Cliffcrest or even Scarborough City Centre to at get some small understanding of the planning and development process. This is the Western gateway to the City, it should be a showpiece not a piecemeal lack of planning mickey mouse development process...

Rant finished.....

 

[freshcutgrass]

I like Chow and agree with a lot her points. But she is a poor communicator .

Except...she isn't a poor communicator. She just happens to be in a an awful campaign that isn't her style, and she isn't going to change her style (start flip-flopping and BS'ing her way to votes like the other two jackarses).

But I'm not voting for the best campaigner...I'm voting for who I think would be the best mayor.

Unlike the other candidates, Chow has a huge track record that proves she always has been a good communicator where it counts...she knows everybody and everybody knows her. She's represented the city for 6 years as school board trustee, 14 years as a city councillor and 8 years as a federal MP. She has a good academic record ands speaks 3 languages.

If you love John Tory...fine...vote for him, but please don't tell me you didn't vote for Chow because she can't communicate.

 

[kEiThZ]

There is far more to be said about individuals who will vote for snake oil that failed to deliver despite all the warnings. Gambles like these breaks nations and start wars, in other times and other contexts. Let's not spin BS votes and four years of wasted time into some sort of moral victory that it isn't.

AoD

Never said it was "some sort of moral victory". Don't know where you got that from my post. I'm wondering what it is that makes people so dissatisfied and disillusioned that they'd vote for someone like the Fords.

 

[kEiThZ]

What's really sad is how betrayed Chow Nation feels.
They can't admit their gal ran a bad campaign and they can't admit that, as The Star says:
Either Olivia Chow or John Tory could make a fine mayor for Toronto. But at this time, with the challenges the city faces now, we believe Tory is the clear choice to bring Toronto together, make progress on the key issues and put the chaos of the past four years behind us.

For them, the Star just got it "wrong."
Agreeing to disagree isn't in their vocabulary. Just like Ford Nation, folks. Sorry.

This isn't a math question with an objective answer, it's a matter of subjective opinion and you guys are in the minority. Accept it, get over it. The city will be OK.

I don't think she ran a bad campaign. What many don't get that is Toronto isn't ready for a hard left turn. They're just getting over their hard right turn.

 

[kEiThZ]

If you love John Tory...fine...vote for him, but please don't tell me you didn't vote for Chow because she can't communicate.

Bad communicator may not be a deal breaker. But it's a reality in a campaign that if you can't communicate your message, you won't win.

Just look at that $60k per year answer on the Newstalk 1010 debate. We're all left wondering if that's what she really believes (and if so how she derived that figure) or if she's miscommunicating her actual intent of two parents making $60k each. If people walk away scratching their heads after listening to you, you're a poor communicator and there's a risk, as a politician, that people might just pick someone they better understand.

 

[kEiThZ]

The thing is the subway's speed itself would not be as fast as perceived by the general public. There's this whole misconception that the subways are going to be significantly faster than the LRT.
...
The projected speeds are:
Subways- 40km/hr
LRT- 36km/hr

Travel Time (From Kennedy To Sheppard):
Subways-10mins
LRT-15mins
...
Eglington Crosstown LRT- 28km/hr
Downtown Subway- 24km/hr
...
So this whole notion that subways are faster than LRTs and are worth the extra billions is a farce.

Those speeds all apply in tunnelled LRTs where there is no practical difference between LRT and subway. Average speeds (not just the operating speeds between stops) on surface running is far different, where you have stoplights in the way or reduced stop spacing (Sheppard East was projected at 23 km/hr, compared to the bus at 17 km/h). And the majority of that increase in average speed comes at the cost of increased stop spacing compared to the bus (400m on Sheppard East vs. 250m that's there now).

In any event, it's not running speed that people are concerned with. It's total travel time. And on that front, it's things like the transfer at Kennedy that costs riders time (and ticks them off). And there's a perception that LRT won't really do much for that. And that's not really untrue. What would you tell someone who's concerned about their 1.5 hours to travel from Rexdale or Malvern to the core or nearly 2 hrs to get across the northern GTA (say a York U student travelling from Malvern)? Are you going to tout the fact that LRT saves them a few minutes over the bus that would have been running instead?

I'm happy that Tory put forward suburban rail. It's the most sensible solution for what most voters actually want. And all those LRT loving cities (Paris, Vienna, Munich, etc.) have all built the backbone of their long-haul systems on suburban rail. Once the lack of real suburban rail is addressed in the GTA, we'll see far more support for LRT. I really do think public mentality will change against subways in the suburbs at that point.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

If you love John Tory...fine...vote for him, but please don't tell me you didn't vote for Chow because she can't communicate.

If she can't handle soft-spoken Tory and bully Doug in a debate, how do you think she will react to Rob Ford, Karygiannis and potentially Mammolitti on council?

In any case, I don't think her communication issues are the problem, the problem is that if you listened to what she had to say she often lacked substance or looked utterly clueless (everything regarding transit, painted bike lanes and rectangle curbs being the best thing ever) and often resorted to her own rhetoric and populism. These, in addition to a lack of charisma, her constant mumbling of words and inability to sometimes communicate the point across, all contribute to an overall negative image.

 

[freshcutgrass]

I don't think she ran a bad campaign. What many don't get that is Toronto isn't ready for a hard left turn. They're just getting over their hard right turn.

What hard left turn....she has the most fiscally responsible and honest platform....by far.

I don't know about you, but the last 4 years has left me pining for those hard left days of city-building of the Miller years.

 

[freshcutgrass]

If she can't handle soft-spoken Tory and bully Doug in a debate, how do you think she will react to Rob Ford, Karygiannis and potentially Mammolitti on council?

The fact that she doesn't fit into the same campaign mould as Ford & Tory is exactly one of the reasons she always has been and will continue to be a better member of council. Anyone who has any knowledge of Chow knows she has more charisma than Tory or Ford combined. That's just a joke.

Anyone who would call Chow clueless and accuse her of lacking substance (and being a populist?????? )...well, that's just another example of someone who hasn't done their homework...congrats.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

The fact that she doesn't fit into the same campaign mould as Ford & Tory is exactly one of the reasons she always has been and will continue to be a better member of council. Anyone who has any knowledge of Chow knows she has more charisma than Tory or Ford combined. That's just a joke.

Anyone who would call Chow clueless and accuse her of lacking substance (and being a populist?????? )...well, that's just another example of someone who hasn't done their homework...congrats.

Aw, you know, everyone's got an opinion. Here's mine:
I like and respect Olivia Chow. By all rights it should be a neck-and-neck race between her and Tory but blaming THEM for the fact that she is polling 20% seems suspect to me. "Strategic voting" or not, someone should take a long hard look in the mirror and ask how DOUG FORD is beating her by a solid 10%. (I suspect when the final numbers are in the gap won't actually be that big, but still.)

You might feel she has more charisma, but she didn't show it in the campaign. I don't know how else you reconcile reality.

She got out of the gate much stronger than Tory and faded. She's picked it up in the last few weeks but only by siding with Doug against Tory and is now reduced to getting the press together so she can say, "Did you know John Tory was a CONSERVATIVE?!" Personally, I don't like fearmongering and pigeonholing people based on their prior party affiliations (not even a lifelong NDP'er) but at the end of the day this is the price she and the downtown left (if I may generalize) are paying for KNOWING she is the best person for the city, just waiting and waiting for her to rightfully claim her place. To win the chair she had to sell herself to the rest of the city and she didn't pull it off, and that's on her (and her team).

I could have seen myself voting for her, sincerely, but I quickly got tired of her repeating stories about The Children and crowded streetcars and she lost me totally when she refused to go at Rob. she lost me for good on Switcheroo Friday with her "I'll take the high-road," act, calling Tory "nasty' for saying that Doug was "divisive." He called a spade a spade, and she didn't and that's why Tory is the one getting all the strategic votes and not h er.

A half dozen times I've seen her set Doug and Tory at each other and then roll her eyes and ask the crowd to "vote for these guys if you want four more years of this," as if it's Tory's fault.

So, you're right that Olivia is a much better potential mayor than her numbers show but it doesn't matter at the end of the day. She didn't do what she had to do and at some point blaming it on others is a dog that just won't hunt.

 

[SunriseChampion]

I was voting last Sunday in Ward 10, and there was this guy who thought there was a problem with his ballot. I overheard him complaining to someone, saying "why is Rob Ford not on my list, I want to vote for him". Ya, you're in the wrong ward buddy. Another Ford Nation intellectual.

I read this and facepalmed.....then, I almost cried.

It reminds me of my poli sci studies at Carleton and some philosophers' ideas on how destructive it is when fools get a voice. Perfectly illustrated by yon man in Ward 10.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Anyone who would call Chow clueless

Don't mistake this as an attack on Chow as a whole. I admire her interest and expertise on social issues and wouldn't for one bit even consider the argument of her being clueless in regards to homelessness and affordable housing, etc. She's focused her entire career over it.

However, on the transit profile, it was highly evident in debates that she does not understand transit issues, transit infrastructure and transit planning.

and accuse her of lacking substance (and being a populist?????? )...

Yes a populist. NIMBYism is populism. Mothers with strollers in order to create sympathy for her bus plan is populism. Threatening that rival transit plans will bulldoze entire neighborhoods is populism. Her entire campaign over the past two months has been a negative campaign focused on scare-mongering, ie. populism.

well, that's just another example of someone who hasn't done their homework...congrats.

I've done too much homework, else I might be voting for Chow.

 

[kEiThZ]

What hard left turn....she has the most fiscally responsible and honest platform....by far.

I don't know about you, but the last 4 years has left me pining for those hard left days of city-building of the Miller years.

Feel free to disagree. But like it or not, it's going to be tough sell a former NDP MP and widow of the NDP party leader as a moderate. So yes, for a lot of people she's very firmly to the left. Mind you I don't think she's so far to the left to be unpalatable, but the reality is that for most, she's not closer to the centre than Tory. And that's a hard turn, snapping back from this crazy right turn we took four years ago.

 

[freshcutgrass]

I can't fathom why it's a plus to vote non-strategically.

Because my friend....politics is the place one does not want to play games with one's principals. Vote for what you support....not what you don't support.

Not that there's really much chance of Ford winning even if you vote for Chow, but there's another way around it. Just make sure you support your local councillor. It's a weak mayor system, so as long as the good councillors are voting it doesn't matter if Ford won, because council will do what they did to his brother...essentially ignore him and have a "mayorless" city.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Feel free to disagree. But like it or not, it's going to be tough sell a former NDP MP and widow of the NDP party leader as a moderate. .

Then I would say anybody who saw it that way was being led by their ideology, and not listening to what her platform actually says. Which is the way most people always vote anyway...so big whoop I guess.