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Wonder if Doug Ford will ignore any or all reports between Metrolinx and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority?
^That video drove home to me how much drab, grey subterranean concrete there is in the GO station network. For all the emphasis on big colossal station buildings and parking garages, you’d think ML would try to put a bit of colour in those underfround passages. I see they are using a more elaborate amount of lighting, and lots of mirrors.... but what’s with the uniform gray pallette?
- Paul
^That video drove home to me how much drab, grey subterranean concrete there is in the GO station network. For all the emphasis on big colossal station buildings and parking garages, you’d think ML would try to put a bit of colour in those underfround passages. I see they are using a more elaborate amount of lighting, and lots of mirrors.... but what’s with the uniform gray pallette?
- Paul
Lots of places this could go, but decided on here. Looks like changes to the environmental assessment process for transit projects, including some exemptions (maybe)? Would love for some input from some bright minds.
O. Reg. 231/08: TRANSIT PROJECTS AND METROLINX UNDERTAKINGS
You should talk to some of our mutual friends about this. It truly is incredible how many changes - positive and negative - get (and have gotten) scuppered at the last minute because of any perceived detriment to the governing power.^I’m not a lawyer, but my inexpert reading of the Reg seems to suggest that its effect is to place everything Ml does into the TPAP process (as opposed to the full EA process). This doesn’t seem to mean ML is exempted from conducting a study, it just avoids a Catch 22 where some things can be done by TPAP and others must be done by EA. Simplifies and makes the rules and process more consistent.
To digress, The interesting discovery for me (I had never actually read the Metrolinx Act) was how much the Minister’s approval is written into the Metrolinx Act. I had always been under the impression that QP had quietly politicised Ml’s operation by requiring the Minister vet all their decisions. It turns out, if ML wants to run the 16:55 train at 16:50, they really do need the Minister’s signoff. By law, ML is more of a Ministry of Transportation than I had appreciated.
The other interesting discovery was that all the sections giving ML the authority to dabble in municipal transit were qualified by words such as “with the agreement of the municipality”. There are lots of ways that QP can coerce municipalities to agree to things, but on paper a unilateral SuperLinx amalgamation would require a change in legislation.
- Paul