Funny thing is, i've seen him at Yonge station and take the Eglinton East bus on 2 separate occasions so he's definitely (or should be) more aware of our transit issues compared to a Doug Ford who gets shuffled around in his private Escalade and who's never used public transit for a day in his life.
I mean Rob was all about them subways back then, and Doug is still today. The difference is that Doug actually has the financial power being premier to deliver.
1. Close all streets in downtown core to motor or non-transit traffic. 2. Walk or cycle. 3. Limit most daily activites to the 15min circle.
He's just a guy now. Don't let him rile you up.
I mean let's see where it lands. They claimed is was cheaper, which is why the OL exists. Opening on time is much more important at this point.
Officials bury rising costs of Ontario Line, cite concern about ‘further public discussion’ | Globalnews.ca
Government documents obtained by Global News show information about the rising costs of Toronto's new subway line was labelled 'contentious' and withheld from publication.globalnews.ca
Global news is continuing on this tirade that the OL Is wildly over budget - it simply isn't.
This article they at least acknowledge that the $19 billion figure includes operating costs, though still conflate it as budget overruns. Not sure how that logic is working, as the article clearly mentions that the $19 billion includes 30 years of operating the line while the original $10.9 billion figure did not, nor do any major infrastructure projects typically include operating costs in their construction budgets..
The way things are tracking right now, the OL will have a capital cost of between $11 and $13 billion, depending on where the last contracts land. That's indeed over the $10.9 billion original stated budget, but a much more marginal increase vs. the 70% they are claiming.
The OL is likely over the original budget, but that original budget was prepared before the 30% runup in construction costs through the pandemic. I don't think any politician is to blame for that, and it is most certainly not 70% over budget.
now that you mention it, no one has said anything about TBM's
He's been advocating for years, that there should be a single station between Queen and Osgoode (which was part of one of the DRL plans) and against the construction of the line west of Queen. And against the technology change for the line. I don't see anywhere that he opposed Danforth to Queen (other than quibbling that maybe it should have been King).
I think it comes down to history here. For the DRL's entire existence the expectation was it would run along Queen Street to Roncessvalles at some point; so the extension down to the ex can be seen as a needless detour. Personally I have nothing against the line going to the ex but all things being equal if it were up to me I would have opted to cut that part west of Osgoode and divert its funding and resources to extending the line north to Sheppard. I would have also gone along King Street since prior to COVID the 504 was moving around 86,000 riders per day so its a prime candidate for a subway replacement (or supplement) like the Yonge and Bloor streetcars were.
One of the beauty things about the currently alignment is it intercepts so many of the major streetcar lines, without destroying any of them. Also, the subway station with the most AM peak arrivals is Dundas, which at least is walkable from Queen station.