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I'm not positive you know what an anecdote is, as you seem to be inferring that anecdotes must inherently be untrue. Which is untrue.

And I don't think you get the difference between anecdotes and general statistics.
 
And I don't think you get the difference between anecdotes and general statistics.

It feels like a waste of time explaining any of this to you, because you're obviously disinterested in engaging with the actual discussion at-hand in any productive way, but for the practice:

> It is a simple, plain, incontrovertible fact that, with the same income when adjusted for currency exchange rate, I paid a higher total tax rate living in Manhattan than I do in downtown Toronto.
> That shouldn't be surprising to anyone actually interested in fact -- 0r, "general statistics" to use your term -- because I paid US federal, NY state, and NY municipal income tax whilst living in the US (each category of which was material), but pay only one of those living in Toronto (no municipal tax!).
> And, as another poster pointed out, that's not even taking into account the existence of the sales tax, road tolls, or any other number of added burdens one deals with living in NYC.
> In general, of course, cost of living in Manhattan is much higher than it is in Toronto, and it's not even close.
> You asserted originally, for some reason and apropos of nothing, that another poster had ignored what you had claimed to be fact and what is, in reality, a gross generalization, and then accused some combination him or her and an amorphous collection of other individuals on this forum of insularity.

And, no, we really don't have to talk about purchasing power parity to make this discussion -- about the Gardiner Expressway, or at least as is the general intention -- relevant for the rest of the people on this thread.
 
The overall tax burden is also a lot lower for individuals in the US. You ignore that.

While I understand and support more investment, there are times I feel like some of you don't talk to anybody outside this forum....

We need to find ways to fund infrastructure in a manner the public will bare. And to expand the boundaries slowly. The surest way to get arch-conservatives elected would to impose the taxes you propose, IMHO.

But their large health insurance premiums in the U.S. can be a big burden. Or going bankrupt to pay for their medial bills.
 
But their large health insurance premiums in the U.S. can be a big burden. Or going bankrupt to pay for their medial bills.

Like this will convince any voter in Toronto to accept higher taxes.

I get the sentiment. I really do.

But people who keep on and on about New York, or London, or wherever seem to ignore local context a lot here. This is where I think Tory has really done a lot for Toronto with the Gardiner toll. He's used a good ton of political capital and made tolls politically acceptable.

We should push that advantage. But not to the point of pissing off the average voter.

I firmly believe that a sales tax will be viewed as a step too far by the average voter. Because you'll be reminded, every time you buy something. Things like property taxes, land transfer taxes and even the VRT are occasional or less visible. That's the key to making them palatable.
 
That's metropolitan area; by actual city area, it's the fourth largest. So it's not a myth, it just depends which metric you're looking at. Fourth or seventh, Toronto often still acts like a city the size of Ottawa rather than a city of over 6 million (metropolitan) or almost 3 million (city).
 
A myth that needs to go.

http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-cities-in-north-america.html

Toronto is big to be sure. But it's Houston big. Not Chicago big.

"The population of the Greater Golden Horseshoe was 8.7 million residents at the 2011 census. In 2011, the Greater Horseshoe was the fifth most populous greater urbanized area in North America, just behind the Baltimore-DC-Northern Virginia CSA." - Wikipedia.

So yes, if we are going to be including the entire Chicagoland, then the Greater Golden Horseshoe is on the same level.

The nucleus cities of Toronto and Chicago are also at the same level.

I think the comparison is apt.
 
It is sort of dependent on how "Metropolitan" is defined - commutershed in the case of CMA I believe:

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/ref/dict/geo009-eng.cfm

In the case of the US Metropolitian Statistical Area, the definition are along similar but not exactly comparable lines:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area

CSA is another measure but it is again different:

The primary distinguishing factor between a CSA and an MSA is that the social and economic ties between the individual MSAs within a CSA are at lower levels than between the counties within an MSA. CSAs represent multiple metropolitan or micropolitan areas that have an employment interchange of 25. CSAs often represent regions with overlapping labor and media markets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_statistical_area

AoD
 
Toronto has no income tax nor a sales tax. New York City has an income tax that range from 2.907% to 3.648%, and a sales tax of 4.5%. Toronto has to beg Queen's Park and Parliament Hill for crumbs.

They also went 70+ years between their last subway extension and the first chunk of the 2nd Ave opening which is mostly federal money. Despite their broader income stream MTA finances aren't in better shape than the TTC.
 
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They also went 70+ years between their last subway extension and the first chunk of the 2nd Ave opening which is mostly federal money. Despite their broader income stream MTA finances aren't in better shape than the TTC.

Not true about the 70 years between their last subway extension. The 7 line was just extended a few years back. And there were others in the previous decades. Not huge extensions but still extensions.
 
Not true about the 70 years between their last subway extension. The 7 line was just extended a few years back. And there were others in the previous decades. Not huge extensions but still extensions.

And the 7 extension is a great example of proper, needs-based transit planning -- the latest expansion, which opened not long ago, was conceived of to serve the nascent Hudson Yards neighbourhood (among other priorities); got a whole bunch of density coming quickly to an area and need transit to serve it? Build the transit to serve it.

The vast majority of Hudson Yards development isn't even slated to come online for years, and the subway to serve it is already open.

Makes you think about our process here, from RL to East Bayfront to Liberty Village and so on.
 
The vast majority of Hudson Yards development isn't even slated to come online for years, and the subway to serve it is already open. Makes you think about our process here, from RL to East Bayfront to Liberty Village and so on.

Here in Toronto it would've been called a $3 billion one-stop boondoggle by its opponents and we would've sat around debating what the "right" option is for two decades.
 
Here in Toronto it would've been called a $3 billion one-stop boondoggle by its opponents and we would've sat around debating what the "right" option is for two decades.

Actually it would be more like DRL being in place before East Harbour is even open - because I am sure the Hudson Yard urban context so comparable to anywhere else in the city. Of course, nobody seem to have issue prioritizing that over a 3B subway extension because that's what NYC would have done?

AoD
 

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