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- Thread starter kEiThZ
- Start date
golodhendil
Active Member
Another thing from the article in the OP that caught my eyes:
What is so fundamentally different between the "Western world" and the "Eastern world" that transit here can never pay for itself, even with increased ridership and improved management? (and disregarding the fact that it did)
DavidH
Senior Member
TOareaFan
Superstar
So, because one guy said out loud at Queen's Park that the province had invested $104B...it is therefore true? and since he did not say that the figures were inflation adjusted then we assume they are not so the cost of the land is now $250B?
People, I know this is just a free-forum for debate but we really have to be careful what we write/type in our arguments....these statements have a nagging way of becoming "facts" that are re-quoted elsewhere.
I don't know what the land acquisition costs were.....I am trying to think how I could find out.....but my little knowledge of land values tells me that $104B just does not sound right at all.......really!
DavidH
Senior Member
As an aside, doing the math on the land acquisition, the portion sold, and presumably related to the $104b quote, was 68 km long. If we assume that it's a strip 100 m wide for sake of simple math, this means it's 680 ha in area. This gives us a land cost of $147M/ha, which seems exorbitant by any standard particularly given the undeveloped nature of almost all of it at the time of acquisition. It's not as if the government had to offer inducements to anyone to sell, after all.
If this truly the cost, let's NOT build the 407 East extension, and instead use the money to build ALL of the remaining Metrolinx proposals before 2013.
But hey, Wikipedia and Hansard say its so, so it must be....
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kettal
Banned
The Minister who made the estimate of $104 billion had no reason to inflate the cost, and nobody in the Hansard disputed the number.
If you have any more accurate source to prove me wrong, I'd love to see it.
kettal
Banned
To own a car in Tokyo, you must first prove that you own enough land to park it (almost nobody has enough land there). Then there's a few other impossible hoops you have to jump through.
In short it's almost impossible for an average person to own a car in some countries, so transit has a captive market.
DavidH
Senior Member
Well, you're wrong on one point. The statement was NOT from the Minister, it was from a backbencher named Douglas Rollins. His Wikipedia entry indicates that he sat as a backbencher and was never in cabinet.
And why would someone dispute it? Do you think the Tories were going to question their own member's statement? And the opposition parties were more concerned about stopping the sale than the one small detail in a statement by a backbencher.
Rollins may not have had a reason to inflate the cost, but that doesn't eliminate the possibility simple mistake. Couldn't it have been $104 *million*, for example?
In the absence of a more reliable reference, I think we have to take the land acquisition costs as being unknown.
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Darwinkgo
Active Member
Hansard is only the record of what people say, it is not edited to be true.
kettal
Banned
You're absolutely correct, and the minute I see a more reliable source I will believe it.
I'll also be able to sleep better at night knowing that number is inaccurate.
If anybody finds a source please do post it.
I'll also be able to sleep better at night knowing that number is inaccurate.
If anybody finds a source please do post it.
Jonny5
Senior Member
How do you rate the reliability of sources? Why does a statement from a backbench MP, not connected to the ministry, have "reliability"? If he had said $104 trillion, instead of $104 billion, would you also believe it? Both sound obviously wrong to me.
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DavidH
Senior Member
I suspect an accurate source would be very hard to find given that land was purchased over several decades.
kettal
Banned
If he said anything that wildly inaccurate in the house, I'd imagine the Hansard would be full of interjections from other MPs and perhaps a description of Mike Harris attaching a muzzle to the man's jaw.
Again, I'm only believing it in the absence of any more reliable numbers.
Again, I'm only believing it in the absence of any more reliable numbers.
DavidH
Senior Member
Unless the number was so jaw-droppingly wrong that it was ignored by everyone else, and treated as an obvious error. After all, the issue was the decision to sell. The amount it cost to buy the land had only a slight bearing to what it was possible to sell it for; at $100B it would not have sold. So perhaps this is simply a case of the opposition staying focused on the matter at hand.
I would have thought that the number being treated as *accurate* would be what would have gotten the opposition riled up. After all, it would be a very easy argument to make with the public that it was being sold on 3 cents on the dollar.
If you want to go further with this, I suggest trying to find proof that the land costs *could* have been that high ANYWHERE in the area that the 407 was built in. For example, a quick search got me the following from York Region in 2008:
"The Commissioner of Corporate Services be directed to complete the acquisition of approximately 29 hectares (71 ac) being described as Part of Lot 34 Concession 6, Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, for $330,000 plus associated land securement costs of $30,000 for a total acquisition cost to the Region of $360,000".,
Now, this comes to $10,000 per hectare. I'll grant that the 407 land acquisition may well have had to buy a wider strip than the highway itself occupies, but even if we say that they bought a 1 km wide strip, you'd be looking at 6800 ha total, meaning that the per-ha cost would be over $14M/ha to reach $100B in total, which is 1000 times these costs. NONE of the lands in the 407 corridor would have been developed enough to account for that kind of a difference.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
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scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
Here's what Le Gique said last year:
If it was $100B+, the 905 would be home to the largest concentration of billionaires in the world since each farm purchased for the 407 would have cost like a billion dollars - and some of this land was acquired decades ago. We could build the 407 along a road like Steeles today, buying tens of thousands of houses and apartments and offices and stores and industries, and it would not cost $100B to buy the land.
Perhaps there were only 10 MPPs in attendance that afternoon, half of them nodding off or chatting or doodling...if the stated figure was off by one (or two or three) decimal places, it's quite possible that no one noticed.