I was born and raised in the great South West {London} and went to university in Ottawa and Toronto and I go to Toronto every couple of years so I know the city well. Truth be told, of Canadian cities over one million, Toronto is my favorite.
It's just such a shame to go back to Toronto and know that short of the Stubway the transit system is exactly the same as it was when I left. Being a Vancouverite thru these years you see what a city can do when it decides to not only make transit a priority but when the citizens are willing to put their money where their mouths are. When they do and don't submit to every NIMBY in the district the result is a ever growing mass/rapid transit system and skyrocketing ridership levels with complete fare integration and a region that thinks regionally as opposed to turf wars.
Winnipeg just opened it's impressive but small BRT system and the citizens of Winnipeg put more of their own money into the line than Toronto has for it's TC plans yet Toronto is considerably wealthier and of course has 4.5 times the population.
The politicians of all political stripes in Toronto in the last 40 years have shown themselves to be gutless wonders by not bringing this issue to the forfront and telling Torontonians the clear truth......if you are not willing to pay you get nothing in return. This is why I have little faith in the new revenue tools that will be released because reports, which Toronto excels at, are the easy part. Toronto's ability to create reports and put forth "bold new plans" are the stuff that legends are made of.
Toronto politicians have made a living out of bitching at Ottawa and Queen's Park as it makes for good politics and re-election campaigns but gets Torontonians, quite literally, no where. The only way out of this politcal incompetence and bureaucratic inertia is to hold a BINDING plebisite.
The plebisite must show exactly what will be taxed, what the improvements will mean for their particular areas, and have FIRM timetables and budgets as Metrolinx and the TTC have a horrid record on both and Torontonians have no faith in them in either regard.