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- Thread starter denfromoakvillemilton
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TheTigerMaster
Superstar
They're in the business of winning votes, not improving lives
I wouldn't say that voters are stupid, but rather that human nature prevents humans from making decisions that benefit them. Even outside the political realm, people make decisions against their own interests all the time. And I'm not suggesting I'm above this; it's fundamental human nature. For example, humans are heavily biased towards making decision that'll result in instant gratification, even if it harms us in the long run. When faced with complex issues, we tend to adopt whatever position is presented to us first, even if it's demonstrably wrong. We're prone to groupthink and emotion clouds our ability to make logical decisions. Political and advertisement campaigns take advantage of these, and other flaws in our decision making to further their own interests. You could probably find dozens of examples of this on any given day. It's naive to believe that people are always making decisions that will benefit them, and that political campaigns and other interest groups aren't taking advantage of these flaws.
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DB9
New Member
It's amazing how NIMBYs can argue with a straight face that there's not enough land for redevelopment.
Kenendy&Eg of today looks even more sparse than 1950s Yonge & Eglinton. If anything Yonge & Eg was already a dense streetcar neighbourhood by the time the condos and apartments started popping up like weeds. They figured out a successful zoning formula back in the 1950s, and yet we're still struggling to get zoning right at Kennedy&Eg in 2017.. no wonder if feels like Scarborough is falling behind.
1950s Yonge&Eg, from the city archives:
kEiThZ
Superstar
Why blame just Scarborough politicians? This is what drives the rest of us batty. Everything seems to be used to attack Scarborough in some fashion. So yes, it comes of hysteria when everything seems to fall on somebody or the other from Scarborough.
How many North York or Etobicoke politicians have talked about TTC and GO integration? How many members of the TTC Board for that matter have publicly discussed RER and TTC integration in serious depth?
And Scarborough is certainly not the biggest beneficiary of GO RER. Until Smart Track came along, there weren't that many stations planned in Scarborough. It was ridiculous. This is the point I raised earlier. The clear winners were the 905ers.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
It's not the responsibility of North York or Etobicoke councillors to represent Scarborough residents.
DB9
New Member
The blame isn't just placed on Scarborough politicians - this is purely your own conjecture.
But this thread is about a transit proposal in Scarborough. So why wouldn't the actions of Scarborough politicians be front and centre here?
I don't see Scarborough being singled out. Are people here any more charitable to the doom prophets that run Etobicoke like Stephen Holyday, Michael Ford, or our beloved crackpot mayor?
You're basically playing the victim card - something we saw often while growing up in Scarborough, and it would drive us batty. It's a ridiculously defeatist attitude that sets the borough back every time it wants to move ahead. Why are Scarborough politicians beyond reproach? They've done terribly, and measure up poorly with high performers like Pam McConnell.
If you look at a map, North York doesn't benefit much, so I wouldn't expect them to be the biggest advocates of it. The RH can't be RER'd, and they're not adding any stops to the Barrie line. Etobicoke councillors are infamous for their obstruction.. and they've proven to be more interested in fighting battles downtown (e.g. voting against the King Street pilot) to mess with the "downtown latte-sipping elites" than caring about what happens in their neck of town.
De Baeremaeker is on the TTC board. Why hasn't he been the GO RER advocate within the board?
Out of the former boroughs in the 416, we're most definitely the BIGGEST beneficiary. Scarborough has two GO RER lines with more existing and proposed stops than either Etobicoke or North York. There's 6 existing GO Train stations within Scarborough on 2 RER lines.. how many 905 suburbs have that many stations? The distance from SCC to downtown alone is around the same as MCC to downtown! Scarborough will clearly benefit from RER as much as Mississauga or Markham or any inner 905 city does.
Given the outsized benefits Scarborough will realize from RER, Scarborough should be one of the most ardent advocates fighting for these improvements. But in reality it is not. There's barely a peep, because it isn't catchy jingoism like subways, subways, subways.
Why is Scarborough so incapable of advocating for itself, that we need someone else to speak up for us to advocate for GO RER? Why aren't Scarborough politicians screaming at the top of their lungs to fight for this transit investment as a priority?
It is paramount that Scarborough speaks up, otherwise fare integration will benefit the 905. There's so much at stake here, and yet most of the oxygen is wasted on petty squabbling about SSE & the Sheppard subway.
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kEiThZ
Superstar
I dunno about charitable so much as they never come up in discussion....
Fare integration isn't just a Scarborough issue though. Realistically, it should the mayor leading on it.
Eh? I disagree on this. A huge part of why thy don't benefit much is specifically because they don't have many stations....just like what was proposed for Scarborough before Smart Track. And again, nobody is rushing out to ask why their politicians aren't demanding more stations and better integration.
Only post Smart-Track. And if that goes away, as some here want, the value of RER diminishes substantially.
There's a whole bunch of other councillors on there too. None of them are talking RER. In fact, I'd suggest De Baeremaeker is not well positioned to talk about since the Stouffville line, nor the Lakeshore line run through his ward.
Because without integration and full support from the province, it's pointless. Construction on RER has not yet reached a stage where it's future is assured. When that happens, I'm sure we'll see more. Right now? Pointless.
It's pretty obvious how little Metrolinx thinks of serving 416, when you look at what stations were going to be prior to Smart Track. So what exactly would "screaming at the top of their lungs" do? They have to have something tangible to trade that subway for. LRT was a poor trade for them. And RER was not really offered as an alternative for their constituents.
This I'll agree with.
Unfortunately, though, neither side really is willing to let it go. I sometimes fear the pro-LRT camp isn't going to conceded even after construction has started. I can honestly some of them cheering if the construction was halted. And it's really unfortunate the the subway proponents didn't consider dropping the idea when it got changed to a single stop.
DB9
New Member
And they won't come up in a Scarborough transit thread - cause it has to do with Scarborough, not Etobicoke.
But, I've seen more than a few mentions on the RoFo thread alone, so look there.
It isn't only a Scarborough issue, but it's one that has an outsized impact on Scarborough. I agree the mayor should be more vocal about it, but it doesn't help when he has no Scarborough councilors backing him up in a very public manner. I mean they could even go on CP24 and keep talking about it.
You're kidding me right? There's only one line in north York that can realistically be RER, and that's the Barrie line. I mean yes, you can put in an extra station or two but that's the maximum you can really do.
RER by the way is supposed to be an express service (think Paris RER, MetroNorth or LIRR), not a 500m spacing subway. There's only so many stations you can put in before you undermine its efficiency and purpose.
How does it diminish substantially? Is this just hyperbole? Reality Check - Even with the existing stations as is, most of the densest population clusters in Scarborough are within its radar. South of the 401, even without Crosstown east, many Scarberians are within short bus rides to Kennedy, Eglinton & Guildwood GO. At most I'd squeeze in an extra station at Lawrence or Ellesmere.
North of the 401, Agincourt station is conveniently located right in the middle between Vic Park & McCowan, where most of the population lives. Miliken GO, which is actually on the Scarborough side of the border, is also heavily used by Scarberians.
Yes, we need better feeder routes into GO RER, but even if we reconfigure the bus routes to serve it, it'll make a big difference for transit riders.
He's the freaking Deputy Mayor of Toronto East. If he isn't in the position to represent Scarborough's interests on behalf of the mayor, then who is? His ward does touch the LSE line.. there's a GO TRAIN station at Bellamy & Eglinton!! The LSE line literally skims the SE end of his ward, if you're so adamant about enforcing ward boundaries.
GO RER is something that has broad constituency across the 905 and the GTA, one of the few areas the whole region can agree on. The province has already allocated billions to make it happen, with more funding envelopes that could become available thru the Feds & the Infrastructure Bank. Yet Scarborough is showing tepid support - and why is that? Politicians in Scarborough have not even attempted to rally the public to support it. I've received a ton of newsletters from the 6dad about the Scarborough subway schemes, and not a single one about GO RER. Why is that?
Scarborough is vote rich, yet we're not leveraging it to influence the province. Instead, we just keep sending them our wishlists for subways, subways, subways.
Metrolinx would think more about serving the 416, if Scarborough was demanding it. But we're not, so why would they care?
Unfortunately, politics in Scarborough is so toxic, it's barely functioning - just like the US Congress. I think what is likely going to happen is that we're going to realize ten years down the road, we just blew 5-6 billion dollars on a Cadillac one-stop feeder line to Kennedy RER.. Malvern will be starved of transit, and nothing will be done on Sheppard. I guess win-win for Scarborough eh.
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OneCity
Senior Member
Unless a new voice comes into the picture residents are going to be asked to choose between Tory-Keesmat's neutred 1 stop subway which they did not vote on vs. transfer LRT they have already rejected. You cant blame the voters for these two ridiculous plans. This is all Politics and Political ego's at play now for both plans.
Although transit is highly important these days in Toronto Politics, its not the only item voters are voting on. So hard to blame voters when their previous votes don't seem to be respected by either plan.
kEiThZ
Superstar
I've taken the S-Bahn and RER. Know what they are.
And I stand by my assertion. Both Richmond Hill and Barrie lines are terrible for actually serving North Yorkers. They could have more stations. And beyond that proper suburban rail usually incorporates varied services including local and express, so that not every train is stopping at every station. Metrolinx hasn't planned for any of that. They focused GO virtually entirely on the 905. And as a result it's become an afterthought in the 416.
On the Stouffville line? Look at what stations were to be there without Smart Track. Existing GO stops. And useless to large chunks of ridership. Look at ridership on the Finch buses. And no stop there. Ditto Lawrence. Post-Smart Track those are now getting stops. Of course, if Smart Track gets cancelled....
Lakeshore East RER only works well for those well south of the 401. This does nothing for the target market for the subway extension. And like you say many of them are within a short bus ride to Kennedy. So hence, RER is not going to be foremost on their transit plans.
Most of the 416 is showing tepid support for RER. As is normal for virtually all things GO Transit inside the 416.
I'm not even sure how to respond to this. Councillors pushing ideas their residents want is somehow "toxic"? People seem to love democracy, until the voters make choices they don't like. It's exactly this language that has me saying, it's hysterics. Did you say Etobicoke's politics was "toxic" when the Fords have been elected there for decades? What about North York's politics being "toxic" when Lastman used to run the place? We got the freaking stubway because of Lastman. But Scarborough is the one with "toxic" politics.
Also, your comparison to the US Congress is nonsensical. There's no gridlock in Scarborough politics. Most politicians fall into two camps:
1) Support the subway.
2) Don't care.
There's no real opposition to the subway. You may not like how the politicians are lining up in favour of the subway or not speaking out against it. That doesn't make their politics dysfunctional.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Malvern doesn't care. After the original LRT cut the last stop back to Sheppard and Progress (barely touching Malvern), the LRT plan became a lot less appealing. I heard several friends and neighbours say the LRT wasn't coming to Malvern. And that was sorta true....with the terminus at Progress and Sheppard. As a result, I saw my incompetent councillor (Raymond Cho) elected in the recent by-election as MPP on a pledge to support the subway to SCC.
This is the same Cho who first opposed the LRT under Miller, than supported it under Ford (only after he realized that his ridiculous idea of extending the Sheppard subway to the zoo wasn't going to happen ever), and has now run on a promise to build the subway to Sheppard/McCowan last I heard. I've heard all his plans because my parents used to help out with this campaigns (paid work...). And this is on top of previous plans. I remember discussions in the 1990s on extending the SRT to Malvern, which never panned out.
Regular people really don't care about transit as much as people on this forum think. They get on the bus, change at SC, take the SRT and then change at Kennedy and head downtown. They know they hate that transfer. They hate that SRT ride. That's about it. And they know that there's been nothing but talk for decades. I suspect for a lot of folks the promise of a subway is just something more tangible over a more amorphous idea like LRT (particularly if it's seen as synonymous with the old trundling streetcars in downtown). And since LRT really came along before the big push for RER, the pitch has been stuck on bus to LRT to subway.
DB9
New Member
Well if you have taken the RER or LIRR, you would know the stations are actually quite spaced apart. Find me a Parisian RER line that has even remotely the same station density as the Stouffville line...
What's the point of adding more stations on the Richmond Hill line if they can't even upgrade it to RER frequencies? They've already ruled out the line as not economically feasible to upgrade due to elevation and flood plain issues.
As for the Barrie line, how many more stations can you realistically add? Where would you propose it to be?
How am I even supposed to respond to this. First of all, Smarttrack turned out to be a good way to communicate Scarborough's wishes to Metrolinx, even if it's a political gongshow. Metrolinx did not fight back, and instead incorporated it into their plans. Isn't that what we want?
Second, buses on Finch and Lawrence can turn...their routes aren't restricted. Neither avenue is running LRT, and won't be for the foreseeable future. They can take one turn and they'll reach the existing GO Stop. It's that simple. Routes to Don Mills station are designed the same way. Many buses go directly into Don Mills (e.g. 167, 169, 24B etc.) Not everyone is forced to transfer to the 190 rocket or 85. So why would it be useless to large chunks of ridership??
I think of course the Finch and Lawrence stops are reasonable additions, and will likely happen. I don't buy into the pessimism, especially when the price to build a GO train station isn't that expensive.
That's not true. Many areas along the GO line like Liberty Village and Humber Bay is actively jockeying for more service and stations. The Unilever lands have demanded a GO Transit hub, and that's where the next CBD will be for Toronto.
Scarborough on the other hand has been surprisingly quiet, even if it benefits us the most.
Congress isn't just known for gridlock you know...look at the recent Obamacare fiasco. Republicans control both the executive, house and senate, and they were dead set on repealing Obamacare. They were unified in purpose, but when they dug in the itty-gritty details the whole plan fell apart.
It's the same debacle playing out for the Scarborough extension, where you end up with a silly one stop subway as a political compromise - if we're going to waste that much money already, why not raise Scarborough's property taxes with an extra levy and pay for the extra stations? But hey, Scarborough residents don't want more property tax increases so that won't fly. And just like Congress, the whole debacle with Obamacare has thrown all of the other Republican priorities in limbo. In Scarborough's case, politicians are so subsumed by the subway debate they've completely ignored the RER, giving it lip service, and zero marketing to Scarberians. How is this environment not toxic?
Lastman's stubway was a mess - but honestly it was the province, Rae & Harris, who denied Scarborough their part of the Sheppard line in the first place. Honestly, why didn't Harris just cancel the whole Sheppard subway in the first place? Harris' toxic transit policies set the GTA's transit system back a whole decade, and we're still trying to play catch-up.
And you think Etobicoke's politics during the Ford dynasty isn't toxic? Then I have a bridge to sell to you in Brooklyn.
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DB9
New Member
Yes, regular people don't have the time or understanding. They expect politicians will uphold their fiduciary duty and not appeal to their lowest denominator. To uphold their professional duty and pick the choices best for Scarborough. Cho is a clear example of a crass politician who brings out the cynicism in all of us - subway to the zoo? Who is he kidding? Promising free subways with development charges is also a vote winner, but where did that get us?
However, there are politicians who do way above and beyond their fiduciary duty - Joe Cressey, Mike Layton, etc.. Not everyone is a realpolitik. We could use a few of them in Scarborough.
sixrings
Senior Member
3. The politician pretends they support subways but actually advocate delayed spending which results in nothing.