Councillor Josh Matlow: “The overwhelming response is of tremendous concern, principally because of the incursion of traffic that will result from this.” So he's concerned about traffic but wants to delay the opening of the system that reduces it. Right.
Seems to me that Matlow isn't that much of a "evidence-based transit" activist. This just proves that he doesn't actually care about better transit, but rather wants to incur the fewest expenses as possible while disrupting the fewest people as possible. Now that's fine for a politician, but not someone who claims to want better transit, it's pathetic.
I fully understand his concerns with the Scarborough fiasco (I disagree with his solution), but his concerns here make absolutely no sense. Sure, traffic on Eglinton is bad, but how many people actually drive on that street? In 2011 (before the bulk of crosstown construction started), it seemed to be about 15K vehicles per
intersection, so I'd estimate 50-60K vehicles across the entire crosstown section. That's fine and all, but the Eglinton Buses carry about 75K Passengers per day together, and other buses that run on Eglinton (Lawrence East for example) carry at least another 30K more. There's also the Bathurst bus in this situation which carries another bunch of passengers (I don't remember the specific number). Forcing people to wait longer for better transit doesn't help anyone, including drivers but especially those that actually use transit.
![Screen Shot 2018-12-19 at 7.36.32 AM.png Screen Shot 2018-12-19 at 7.36.32 AM.png](//cdn.skyrisecities.com/forum/data/attachments/159/159660-946598d1f98a3da388865225645f677e.jpg)
Based on TheStar's own poll, it seems like Matlow's concerns are bogus to the vast majority of people, but I will admit, this poll is quite biased.