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Whoa, you leave the forums for a few days and look at what happens! A whole thread dedicated to SmartTrack alone and everything.

I'm so glad to see Wynne and Tory meeting on his first day in office...just seeing Queen's Park and City Hall working together again in any way makes me breathe a sigh of relief.

I'm doubly glad to see Wynne, in a very tactful and careful way, calling out the elephant in the room, which is that SmartTrack is basically just Tory's repackaging of GO RER. Nice to see that someone other than just us here on these forums understands this, because it's pretty blatantly apparent.

But hey, if repackaging GO RER under a different name and colour scheme helps increase public opinion and improve public perception of the plan, or if it secures additional funding from other levels of government to add in the required infrastructure and allow for more frequent service and better fare integration, then I'm all for it.

I have slammed Tory for trying to make GO RER his own plan without giving credit where credit is due in the past, but if it'll only lubricate the passage of GO RER into reality, which is something that the GTA sorely needs, then let's get moving on it.
 
Can we add some stations south of Eglinton on the Barrie line too? Maybe just saint clair and Caledonia. Thanks
 
salsa said:
Also not sure why the city should be obligated to pay 1/3 of the cost for something that was supposed to be paid entirely by the province.
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Only in Toronto would somebody think pitching in to get more transit is a bad idea. The rest of transit systems are paying one third of their transit projects.

A lot of the gridlock we have basically comes down to money (or lack of it) and the politics of tax increases. If TIF fails (likely), I'll gladly pay more in taxes to get shovels in the ground. I'm sick of every level of government pushing another level to pay for their initiatives.
 
kEiThZ said:
Only in Toronto would somebody think pitching in to get more transit is a bad idea. The rest of transit systems are paying one third of their transit projects.

A lot of the gridlock we have basically comes down to money (or lack of it) and the politics of tax increases. If TIF fails (likely), I'll gladly pay more in taxes to get shovels in the ground. I'm sick of every level of government pushing another level to pay for their initiatives.
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This is why the Federal and Provincial governments need to provide dedicated transit funding to all municipalities on a regular basis. This way the municipal government wouldn't have to go cap in hand to upper levels of government for funding, and already approved transit projects wouldn't be held up by the upper levels.
 
Tuscani01 said:
This is why the Federal and Provincial governments need to provide dedicated transit funding to all municipalities on a regular basis. This way the municipal government wouldn't have to go cap in hand to upper levels of government for funding, and already approved transit projects wouldn't be held up by the upper levels.
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The problem is the money shuffling and politics this creates. Province and feds pay for transit. Municipal politicians get credit for low fares and improved service. What incentive is there for federal and provincial politicians?

This is why I have no issue with Harper's 2% gst tax cut. Provincial governments are free to take up that room and raise the revenue they need. Queen's Park could even impose a 2% province wide transit tax (or a roads and rails tax). No need for the feds to do their dirty work. This at least removes all those pesky complaints that Dog River is paying for transit in Toronto. Now it'll only be Wawa residents complaining.
 
kEiThZ said:
The problem is the money shuffling and politics this creates. Province and feds pay for transit. Municipal politicians get credit for low fares and improved service. What incentive is there for federal and provincial politicians?

This is why I have no issue with Harper's 2% gst tax cut. Provincial governments are free to take up that room and raise the revenue they need. Queen's Park could even impose a 2% province wide transit tax (or a roads and rails tax). No need for the feds to do their dirty work. This at least removes all those pesky complaints that Dog River is paying for transit in Toronto. Now it'll only be Wawa residents complaining.
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Or Harper can suddenly say I will not give any more funding for infrastructure projects, however, I will redistribute 2% of the GST/HST right back to municipalities. This way everyone is treated equally.
 
calimehtar said:
Can we add some stations south of Eglinton on the Barrie line too? Maybe just saint clair and Caledonia. Thanks
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Barrie Line is already slated to get a St.Clair station. But on the regular GO network.

It would be nice to use the money slated for the pointless "Eglinton spur" and instead add stations for Smarttrack on the Barrie, Milton and Kitchener lines within the downtown area.

Something like in this map

map-current-full.png
 

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robmausser said:
Barrie Line is already slated to get a St.Clair station. But on the regular GO network.

It would be nice to use the money slated for the pointless "Eglinton spur" and instead add stations for Smarttrack on the Barrie, Milton and Kitchener lines within the downtown area.

Something like in this map
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Every time I see a map with that "Woodbine" station on the KW line I wonder....."who do we expect would use that station".

When I first saw the station proposed it was in conjunction with the UPX...one idea was trains on the GO line connecting to a spur at this Woodbine station taking them into the airport (a change of train was necessary....people would get off the train on the GO line and switch to the train into the airport) even then I did not support the idea (thought the same could be achieved cheaper at Malton station) but understood why a Woodbine station was being proposed.

Now that we have decided to take people to the airport with a service that goes right into the airport...eliminating the need to change trains....i just wonder what the purpose of a Woodbine station would be.
 
TOareaFan said:
Every time I see a map with that "Woodbine" station on the KW line I wonder....."who do we expect would use that station".

When I first saw the station proposed it was in conjunction with the UPX...one idea was trains on the GO line connecting to a spur at this Woodbine station taking them into the airport (a change of train was necessary....people would get off the train on the GO line and switch to the train into the airport) even then I did not support the idea (thought the same could be achieved cheaper at Malton station) but understood why a Woodbine station was being proposed.

Now that we have decided to take people to the airport with a service that goes right into the airport...eliminating the need to change trains....i just wonder what the purpose of a Woodbine station would be.
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A lot of these maps are just concepts, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Honestly the person creating this map was probably like "hmm..haven't put a station in a while, better put one down"

The idea I was trying to get across was to split Smarttrack off to as many stations as possible on GO corridors that already exist, rather than trying to ram a corridor down Eglinton.
 
Tuscani01 said:
Or Harper can suddenly say I will not give any more funding for infrastructure projects, however, I will redistribute 2% of the GST/HST right back to municipalities. This way everyone is treated equally.
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Again. I have never seen the point in having the federal government involved in infrastructure funding. It makes no sense for a country as regionally diverse and large as ours. It leads to lots of complaints and incessant political meddling. It's nothing more than a slush fund for federal politicians. With Toronto, for example, we see a huge amount of the funding going largely towards paying for 905 priorities or projects that are 905 commuter related (Union Station modernization).

So why have that?

And why have the feds act as the national transit fund collection agent?

They have now vacated two points in the GST/HST. Every province is free to raise their own taxes as per their own needs. I don't accept their cowardly attempts at blaming the federal government for not providing funding after the feds created the room for them to raise what they need. This is akin to Toronto not employing the vehicle registration tax and then blaming the province for its transit woes.
 
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kEiThZ said:
They have now vacated two points in the GST/HST. Every province is free to raise their own taxes as per their own needs. I don't accept their cowardly attempts at blaming the federal government for not providing funding after the feds created the room for them to raise what they need. This is akin to Toronto not employing the vehicle registration tax and then blaming the province for its transit woes.
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You really need to look into this before blaming the Provinces. That is not the case at all.

Ontario already attempted this, and got this in return:

"“We did not lower the GST to have it taken away from Ontarians by the Wynne government with a new sales tax hike,” Flaherty said"

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/05/30/flaherty-rips-proposed-new-taxes-to-fund-ontario-transit-plan

So no, every Province is not free to raise its own revenue. No the feds did not create room for them to raise what they need, and no this is not akin to Toronto not employing the VRT and then blaming the Province for its transit woes.
 
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