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syn
Senior Member
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
amnesiajune
Senior Member
This is how every transit plan in Toronto works out - oversell and underdeliver. Everyone who promotes a big transit plan knows that only a fraction of it will actually get built (or is delusional enough to think otherwise). That's true of the Scarborough "LRT network" proposal too - there's no way in hell that the whole thing gets built, because as costs inevitably rise people will find things to cut out of and trim from the plan.
syn
Senior Member
Makes sense from a political perspective - after campaigning on SUBWAYS SUBWAYS SUBWAYS, how could he betray his supporters in Scarborough with above ground rail?!
Everyone thinks Ford came up with a great plan that was taken down by the 'left', but it was really just him shooting his own left foot.
$2 billion would've been half of the projected cost for the Sheppard extension at the time (it was actually higher), but with half taken care of, raising the rest would've probably been a lot easier.
OneCity
Senior Member
I wouldn't say everyone thinks Ford came up with a great plan? What he did was stop another other ideological poorly connected, poorly detailed plan. For the most part voters in these areas of greater impact were in agreement when it was finally called out for various reasons:
Transfers - SLRT, Sheppard, DRL north and even Eglinton East (SMLRT) was not a thru line at Kennedy and thankfully will be now. These were all unnecessary and inconvenient in the location proposed.
Loss on lanes - removal of two lanes on Eglinton and Kingston is still not well received and absolutely doesn't help solve the main problem of alleviating traffic in any way. But with a better connections to the core with Smarttrack and the subway and a seamless Eglinton East it makes it easier to accept.
Poor connectivity of Scarborough Centre - This does have an big impact on attractiveness, optics, and would continue to hinder growth for the future of a proposed Toronto Growth node. Vaughan Centre & North York Centre connected seamlessly. Not a good look
I strongly agree the BDL extension to SCC never needed to be underground and the subway should have made use of the RT corridor from the start moreso once the geological challenges were known. But Smarttrack was the political wedge spliced between two polarizing ideologies and while the current plan isn't the most economical, its still a very good and well connected long term plan which serves multiple purposes. Furthermore going backward truly wont save much money if any as the absurd transfers are dead and it delaying will further politicize transit when the Feds are finally coming to the table. We don't need that for the sake of all projects future. As far as Transit City was a one trick pony with great coverage for "priority areas", but was a very poorly connected Band-Aid that left the door open to be called out. It was. If some Politicians still want to stick their heels in and refuse to work towards making changes to the old plan than what can you do? Better to move on and start building.
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EastYorkTTCFan
Senior Member
It would have meant shutting it down to rebuild many sections of the line anyway.
Cobra
Senior Member
Your misleading people. He wanted to cancel Transit City and campaigned on it. The province had already butchered the plan themselves way before that. The end result was that he wanted Eglinton 100% underground and merge with the SRT
Glad he turn it down. Burying Eglinton makes more sense than extending Sheppard, like seriously, I live right on top of Don Mills station and still think Eglinton ranks higher than Sheppard.
EastYorkTTCFan
Senior Member
I think he tried to do it but city council pushed back to keep the Crostwinb being built. Ford thought that because he was the mayor of Toronto he could do anything he wanted to and he forgot the biggest thing that Miller always talked about, The Mayor only gets one vote at councul."
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Ford probably could’ve gotten away with canceling TC if he had just brought it to vote in the beginning of his term. But he tried to circumvent Council, and surprise, council fought back. He learned the hard way that the Mayor does not run the city.
syn
Senior Member
Actually, you're misleading people. The end result is that Metrolinx and City Council saved the Eglinton LRT, which fortunately was far enough along that we didn't have yet another transit line on Eglinton canceled. The end result is complete inertia on the transit file. If Ford had not interfered, the LRT to STC would've been nearly done, with the Crosstown East extension already a reality, instead of being completely unfunded due to the ballooning cost of the foolish SSE proposal.
Eglinton is buried where it needs to be buried - that has absolutely nothing to do with Ford.
Turning down $2 billion in additional transit dollars that could've been reallocated to something that mattered was incredibly stupid and shortsighted - two words that define the Ford era.
Hopkins123
Senior Member
Hopkins123
Senior Member
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
There’s nothing incorrect about what he claimed. The only extraordinary thing is your quickness to point fingers when you clearly don’t understand the process.
The mayor is free to enter negotiations with anybody he wants. But ultimately Council gets the final say with regards to approval and implementation of the result of those negotiations.
Ford entered into negotiations with QP to cancel TC. QP offered him $2 Billion for Sheppard East Subway Extension as long as the ECLRT remained in the surface east of Brentcliffe. Ford denied the offer, and thus the matter was never referred to Council.
Cobra
Senior Member
I think we were showed that it is whoever pays for it that has the final say or have you forgot the province saying it was subways or subways regardless of city council deciding to flip one more time. You'd need an NDP Majority to sink the SSE...we both know that's not happening