ARG1 said:
You should be the last person to start with emotional arguments.

How do you think the people of Scarborough feel after getting a horrible RT line, that apparently they don't deserve rapid transit access without a Linear Transfer? Stuff like this have been on the minds of Scarberians (yes I'll call them that, I think its a cool name) for decades, yet when a populist appears promising a subway, somehow anyone who complains about this stuff is a filthy ford supporter who invents issues to "overpay" for Rapid Transit projects.

There is a reason why appealing to emotions is a bad form of debate, and why its considered a fallacy.
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Do you not see the irony in your statement?

Almost the entire debate in favour of the SSE has been based on emotion. Based on what people 'deserve', and no longer being '2nd class citizens'. Actual numbers and economic considerations have taken a backseat.

I'd say the frustrations of people up north are just as valid of those who live in Scarborough, or anywhere else for that matter - especially in communities that have been historically marginalized.

As I mentioned, when the Premier frames everything in these terms, it was bound to haunt him at some point.
 
t54zhao said:
What more is there to do? These are communities of 5000 with no economic output because quite frankly, they’re in the middle of nowhere.

You’re talking about QP making Torontonians feel better except for the fact that an extra billion dollars spent in Toronto benefits nearly 5 million people and 500 million dollars spent in the forest benefits 5000.

The reality is that spending big money on improving the roads up north is far more wasteful than spending bigger money in Toronto. 500 million dollars on a road that gets 5 people per hour vs 1 billion in transit line that will carry 15000 people per hour is not wasteful.

There are more people in the 36 sqkm of Etobicoke Centre, just one of the several ridings that Crosstown West will pass through, than both Kiiwetinoong and Mushkegowuk—James Bay combined at nearly 550000 sqkm.
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Again, the article is not arguing that they should be spending that money up north. It's highlighting the hypocrisy over government waste.

When the government argues for fiscal restraint and the need to use dollars wisely, spending billions extra in areas that benefit you politically is going to be questioned, and rightfully so.
 
syn said:
Do you not see the irony in your statement?

Almost the entire debate in favour of the SSE has been based on emotion. Based on what people 'deserve', and no longer being '2nd class citizens'. Actual numbers and economic considerations have taken a backseat.

I'd say the frustrations of people up north are just as valid of those who live in Scarborough, or anywhere else for that matter - especially in communities that have been historically marginalized.

As I mentioned, when the Premier frames everything in these terms, it was bound to haunt him at some point.
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Thing is I'm not arguing on emotion, my arguments are mostly based off stuff like "The catchment area is bigger, or it removes a linear transfer". At no point did I ever argue that Scarberians "deserve" a subway, so no, I don't see the irony. My point is, if you have a problem with people arguing from emotion in favour of SSE, don't then start arguing from emotion about people who live in the north. Either it is ok, or its not ok. There is no in between.
 
I'm an 'extremely urban' person who usually does not care about people in rural areas. But what I'm reading here about how the benefits of the many outweigh the benefits of the few. Replace the words 'all-weather roads' with 'year-round clean water' and you see how that argument doesn't apply in all situations.

These kinds of investments are not about who deserves what. They are to make the whole province better. I agree that Toronto is the center of Canada and deserves most of the investment. But don't forget that people move. There are also all the cargo and industrial traffic using these roads. The mass exodus from the city to smaller towns and villages are an example of these roads benefiting everyone too. People would have not been able to move so freely without usable internet infrastructure and roads already in place. Another example is people visit a lot of small towns in the cottage season. and many of these towns can balloon from '5000' to double or triple that (or more)


Expecting a certain standard of living/infrastructure is inherently emotional, but does not make it less valid. Building for the distant future is good and all. But like Syn said if it severely limits the now or the medium term then it might not be worth it.
 
ARG1 said:
Thing is I'm not arguing on emotion, my arguments are mostly based off stuff like "The catchment area is bigger, or it removes a linear transfer". At no point did I ever argue that Scarberians "deserve" a subway, so no, I don't see the irony. My point is, if you have a problem with people arguing from emotion in favour of SSE, don't then start arguing from emotion about people who live in the north. Either it is ok, or its not ok. There is no in between.
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You suggested I'm arguing based on emotion. I'm not. I'm not accusing you of that either.

I'm pointing out that political support behind the SSE has almost entirely framed the discussion in terms of emotion and entitlement. The article did a good job of highlighting why the GTA deserves much more investment, while also pointing out the hypocrisy in wasteful spending.

If you don't want to use the word "feel", then the lived experience of those in other areas of the province is as valid as the lived experience of those in Scarborough.
 
denfromoakvillemilton said:
So you're in favor of underground everywhere then? At least with the Danforth extension we can get ridership by going to Sheppard Ave. Right now, they don't even run all the #32 routes past Weston Road.
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I'm not. My preferred alignment for Eglinton West is elevated, but this article reeks of classic NIMBYism and partisan bickering. " Weirdly, the only major project in Toronto where politicians are embracing above-ground construction is where it makes the least sense, with the decision to run the Ontario Line above ground through the denser and more-urban environs of Leslieville. " Ye, sure. Leslieville Elevated is bad, even though its using existing rail corridors.
 
Realistically, the subway opponents are those who suffered an epic failure here.

Yes, the execution of the SSE project has been messy. The city was dragging its feet for 4 years, then the province took over and didn't pick up a great speed either. But guess what? the subway is still the official choice, and Metrolinx is working on it. Nobody is working on the SLRT.

Proponents of the surface transit need to learn their lessons. How to present their case. How to find good compromises: EWLRT elevated over some intersections would be perfectly reasonable, and a lot cheaper than the fully tunneled option. And last but not least, how to win the local elections.

Failing all of that, the "surfacers" will keep stumbling from one misfortune to the next, grumping about the lack of public support for their brilliant ideas. Which is regrettable because their proposals are actually good in many cases.
 
Rainforest said:
Realistically, the subway opponents are those who suffered an epic failure here.

Yes, the execution of the SSE project has been messy. The city was dragging its feet for 4 years, then the province took over and didn't pick up a great speed either. But guess what? the subway is still the official choice, and Metrolinx is working on it. Nobody is working on the SLRT.

Proponents of the surface transit need to learn their lessons. How to present their case. How to find good compromises: EWLRT elevated over some intersections would be perfectly reasonable, and a lot cheaper than the fully tunneled option. And last but not least, how to win the local elections.

Failing all of that, the "surfacers" will keep stumbling from one misfortune to the next, grumping about the lack of public support for their brilliant ideas. Which is regrettable because their proposals are actually good in many cases.
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I think the issue is more that almost nobody was asking for this. Sure, there was some grumbling, but the grade separated surface option would have been been as elevated. The biggest issue to me was the lack of grade separation on surface routes. You're either building a glorified streetcar or not. We will have this issue on Eglinton East within the next 2 years.
ARG1 said:
I'm not. My preferred alignment for Eglinton West is elevated, but this article reeks of classic NIMBYism and partisan bickering. " Weirdly, the only major project in Toronto where politicians are embracing above-ground construction is where it makes the least sense, with the decision to run the Ontario Line above ground through the denser and more-urban environs of Leslieville. " Ye, sure. Leslieville Elevated is bad, even though its using existing rail corridors.
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I prefer elevated on EW as well, but that's on the residents imo. We do need better selling, but my issue is that we'll be using boring machines yet again and not massive cut and cover, making a 4 year project 11 years.
 
1608062685438.png

Slide from REM presentation, Toronto should take some notes.
 
duffo said:
Very disingenuous post. REM is essentially a commuter/regional system. The Eglinton line has stops at every major intersection, so the travel time savings are much lower since its making the stops anyway (and reaches a much lower top speed in between stops). No one at Metrolinx is proposing we run GO trains in the street ROW (yet..)
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You are correct about the current REM. Well only for the outer areas, the spacing in the inner areas for the REM are fairly reasonable when you account for natural features like the mountain and rivers.

You forget that this thread is about the EWLRT, which was a street running LRT until fairly recently. Which then got switched to a mainly underground alignment without (public?) consideration for a possible elevated alignment like for REM East.

The Eglinton West extension has practically the same spacing as the REM east Line. EWLRT is basically a middle ground between commuter spacing and traditional Toronto subway spacing.

REM East: 1391m

EWLRT: 1314m

For reference here is what the spacing is for Vancouver's Expo Line: 1516m
 
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