MisterF said:
As Muller mentioned, the TTC has been disincentivizing short trips in central Toronto for decades. They've been subsidizing the suburbs since the flat fare was instituted. That's a big part of why the downtown subway network hasn't grown in 60 years.
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To be fair, the system did brought about a much higher level of transit usage than peers in the US, and the problem with downtown transit wasn't acute at the time. If there is one issue, it is that they didn't (reasonably?) foresee the failure of the multi-centric plan and missed the boat on core intensification. The 90s recession and the mid 90s to early 2000s 905 commercial boom (and stagnation in the 416/core) didn't help making the case for downtown transit either. The problems with Yonge would have boiled over if not for these intervening circumstances and probably moved DRL earlier.

AoD
 
ADRM said:
First, and this has been covered well by the local non-Toronto Sun media, Tory has a multitude of fiscal levers available to him that he's not willing to pull for fear of his own electoral life.
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This is the huge point that Tory doesn't get (nor does much of Council). Toronto has adequate opportunity to tax Toronto to raise money for the City to spend.

What Tory is seeking is the opportunity to tax People Outside Toronto instead. Neither Wynne, not any other party, will fall for that. The Province will decide what level of support it can offer (likely proportionate to how much they have raised in the City, as opposed to elsewhere) and derive whatever political gain it can from those announcements. By that yardstick, the Province has come to the table and brought plenty of money. But it will not be imposing new province-wide taxation to make up the shortfall to Toronto's needs. Toronto has to do that itself.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
This is the huge point that Tory doesn't get (nor does much of Council). Toronto has adequate opportunity to tax Toronto to raise money for the City to spend.

What Tory is seeking is the opportunity to tax People Outside Toronto instead. Neither Wynne, not any other party, will fall for that. The Province will decide what level of support it can offer (likely proportionate to how much they have raised in the City, as opposed to elsewhere) and derive whatever political gain it can from those announcements. By that yardstick, the Province has come to the table and brought plenty of money. But it will not be imposing new province-wide taxation to make up the shortfall to Toronto's needs. Toronto has to do that itself.

- Paul
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More accurately, Tory was seeking the ability to charge all users - at the same price and regardless of where they live - for services provided by the City of Toronto. A road toll is no different than a TTC fare, and neither is a tax.
 
pman said:
A road toll is no different than a TTC fare, and neither is a tax.
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It's more like charging an integrated fare to someone coming downtown from Port Credit, and then giving all of the revenue to TTC, and none to GO Transit or Miway. Road tolls make sense, but politically there has to be integration and sharing of the revenues. Toronto can't charge a 'downtown tax' to the bedroom communities, even if they make good use of the downtown.

I'm recycling through an old debate, and won't persist......but then, so is Mr Tory.

- Paul
 
ADRM said:
I, too, hate nearly everything about SmartTrack, but I will say that I've been somewhat buoyed by Tory's now oft-repeated public focus on the RL and "waterfront transit." Our municipal discourse is so badly poisoned that the mayor is expending political capital by uttering that refrain, and he deserves I think at least a modicum of credit for that.

Obviously, the devil is and will continue to be in the details in respect of how quickly the RL rolls out and gets funded and in what exactly "waterfront transit" means (along with, again, funding), but at least he's talking about them when he could just be talking about the bevy of additional unnecessary suburban subway extensions his colleagues want.
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I've noticed that Tory hardly talks about SmartTrack now that the plan has been watered down. Has he given up the SmartTrack dream?
 
crs1026 said:
It's more like charging an integrated fare to someone coming downtown from Port Credit, and then giving all of the revenue to TTC, and none to GO Transit or Miway. Road tolls make sense, but politically there has to be integration and sharing of the revenues.
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No, it's not. The Gardiner Expressway tolls would only apply east of the Toronto/Mississauga border. Just like how TTC fare would only apply east of that border. If the entire Gardiner/QEW network was tolled, including sections in Mississauga, then revenue sharing would be up for discussion.

And if Mississauga wants more revenue for MiWay, they're more than welcome to try to toll their roads. It's not Toronto's responsibility to share revenue in collects within the City of Toronto on City of Toronto property with other municipalities.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
I've noticed that Tory hardly talks about SmartTrack now that the plan has been watered down. Has he given up the SmartTrack dream?
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Oh no, definitely not, unfortunately. He's definitely focused more recently on the Eglinton E LRT, RL, and 'waterfront transit', but he's certainly still gung-ho about SmartTrack. His team may have internal polling that has informed that shift in language priorities.
 
MisterF said:
The GO Transit of ten years from now will have almost nothing in common with the GO Transit of ten years ago. The RER lines won't be used to their full potential without fare integration, whatever form that takes. The government isn't going to spend $13.5 billion on RER just to handicap it with the current fare system.
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I'll believe it when I see it. We've seen GO Transit gutted once by the previous PC government. Fool me twice, shame on me. Patrick Brown says hi.
 
crs1026 said:
Off Guard?
...
Nobody thought to pin CN down about their plans until 2017 ??????
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Incompetent staff can be caught off guard; that's typically how it works isn't it? I was using a nice term for failure to perform detailed due diligence.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Nope.
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Well then. Could you explain the location of one of the densest communities in the city is at? All I see are single detached houses, a Don Valley Parkway, some trails, a business park, and an Ontario Science Centre. Where's the density you're referring to?

I can see 3-5 possible station locations between Danforth and Eglinton. A 7 km 3 stop "extension" to the unbuilt line would make sense, but a 1 stop would too.

Yes, I know about the secondary plan for the Don Mills Eglinton area.
 
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