News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 9K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
EarthCam Time-Lapse Documents Rafael Viñoly-Designed New Stanford Hospital Construction
 40K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
Resort Town
 5.2K     0 

AlvinofDiaspar said:
Easy - put it to a plebiscite. Do you support a tax increase of x for the provincial transit proposal, Do not break it down and itemize.

AoD
Click to expand...

I would like a plebiscite, but they aren't easy to organize either.

Itemizing (with or without plebiscite) might have an advantage of letting the city choose which projects it wants to fund first, if it can't afford to fund all of them. Say, SSE and the Relief Line, both serving the 416, could receive the required 25% from the city first. Yonge North, that benefits York Region more than 416, might receive 15% from York Region and just 10% from Toronto. And Eglinton West can be just deferred if Ford insists on putting it all underground and making the city pay 25%.
 
Rainforest said:
I would like a plebiscite, but they aren't easy to organize either.

Itemizing (with or without plebiscite) might have an advantage of letting the city choose which projects it wants to fund first, if it can't afford to fund all of them. Say, SSE and the Relief Line, both serving the 416, could receive the required 25% from the city first. Yonge North, that benefits York Region more than 416, might receive 15% from York Region and just 10% from Toronto. And Eglinton West can be just deferred if Ford insists on putting it all underground and making the city pay 25%.
Click to expand...

Too complicated, and it gives an easy out that could lead to some ridiculous results. What you need is basically a city wide referendum on the entire scheme. It also forces the province to deal with the city as a single unit.

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Too complicated, and it gives an easy out that could lead to some ridiculous results. What you need is basically a city wide referendum on the entire scheme.

AoD
Click to expand...

But what if the plebiscite results in a "NO"? It won't trigger provincial elections; the same government will stay in power till mid-2022. They will say OK, if you don't want our plan, then we can't afford to help you with transit construction. Here is your 1.4 billion for the SRT corridor, we aren't giving you anything else. 4 more years wasted?
 
Rainforest said:
But what if the plebiscite results in a "NO"? It won't trigger provincial elections; the same government will stay in power till mid-2022. They will say OK, if you don't want our plan, then we can't afford to help you with transit construction. Here is your 1.4 billion for the SRT corridor, we aren't giving you anything else. 4 more years wasted?
Click to expand...

Yeah but do you think a government - wait - a premier - that talked so loudly about subways and shovels can get away with that?

AoD
 
Rainforest said:
They won't look good, but they cannot lose their majority in the Legislature without new elections ..
Click to expand...

No, but don’t forget, the whole premise for taking over is building subways because the province have the wherewithal to do it - not having to push up local taxes to do it. What are they going to do, take over the city and force it to zero the increase?

AoD
 
Personally I will be very upset if any of eglinton (east or west) is postponed to pay for this. I have no idea why people are so adament that Mccowan and eglinton gets a subways when eglinton east would serve that neighborhood just as well. BTW once upon a time I lived at Brimley and Lawrence and I'm still pro lrt.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Yeah but do you think a government - wait - a premier - that talked so loudly about subways and shovels can get away with that?
Click to expand...

I doubt it matters. They can still win a majority without any of their 11 Toronto seats, and I don't believe they would lose Etobicoke or North York seats over it. They could take a portion of the $30B and pivot to Milton line upgrades instead.

Incidentally, a $7.5B debt will force Toronto to add an 8% property tax levy for 30 years. If the Ford's had done that while they were mayor/councillor for their Scarborough capital project fund, the city could have comfortably self-funded the Scarborough subway with plenty of cash remaining in hand.
 
Last edited:
Rainforest said:
But if the city refuses to contribute to the provincial plan, the province will bail out of its own commitments. Not an easy situation.
Click to expand...

Meh. That sounds like a wonderful thing to me. Especially since I have zero faith of any of these projects starting construction anytime soon. The province isn’t acting in good faith here, and we should have not be playing ball with them. These projects can wait until we have a government that isn’t hostile to Toronto
 
syn said:
Scarborough’s one-stop subway: ‘This was a bait and switch

I'm glad to see The Star holding the city to account on this entire fiasco.

Solid evidence that the SSE is almost entirely a political exercise.

"And yet, the estimate for the subway extension now stands a $3.9 billion, according to city staff, putting the cost of the two-for-one transit plan at just over $5.5 billion."
Click to expand...


TheTigerMaster said:
Surprise, the whole thing about freeing up Toronto’s books was bullshit. Dougie just wants a subway folks
Click to expand...

Don’t you just love it when everything the naysayers have ever said ends up being true? ?
 
Subway defenders just keep moving the goal post. Makes you wonder if they ever intend on riding the transit they are campaigning for.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top