[Adjei]

It's not just those lines. It's RER as well, which is, for all intents and purposes, several new rapid transit lines. It's still not enough, but let's give credit where it's due.

These guys only think about Toronto so they don't count RER or other transit lines elsewhere.

 

[salsa]

Brad Dugid loves to point that out. But all of these new transit lines within Toronto are from a single $7 Billion commitment made 10 years ago. The Liberals need to do better than that. That money alone isn't going to solve our transit problems.

Or if they refuse to provide us more funding, then at least allow us to do it ourselves. Which they wont.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It's not just those lines. It's RER as well, which is, for all intents and purposes, several new rapid transit lines. It's still not enough, but let's give credit where it's due.

GO Transit has a decades long tradition of disincentivizing Torontonians from using their services. They say they're planning fare integration to make the system more useful for Toronto, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[salsa]

GO Transit has a decades long tradition of disincentivizing Torontonians from using their services. They say they're planning fare integration to make the system more useful for Toronto, but I'll believe it when I see it.

John Tory would be wise to stop expending so much political capital on SmartTrack, and instead fight for a better fare deal for Toronto. Not just for the two GO lines he campaigned on, but for all of them. The province must not be allowed to make the decision for us without a fight, and there's already some evidence suggesting that Metrolinx is heading toward what is essentially a cash grab from the TTC to subsidize the 905.

 

[georgevicbell]

We need a secondary source on that claim. A 2024 construction start is not in line with what City Staff have indicated before, nor does it make sense given how advanced planning for the Relief Line Short is.

The Environmental Assessment for the project will be complete in late 2017/early 2018. After that point, the TTC can either complete 30% design work, and enter into a design/build agreement with an outside firm to complete the line, OR TTC can complete 100% design while concurrently constructing the line. In either case, it won't take six to seven years to design the Relief Line; the design phase typically lasts only one or two years before construction start. Furthermore, a delay of 6 to 7 years will dramatically increase the price of the project. So what are they planning to be doing during that delay?

Perhaps Paula Fletcher was talking about the Relief Line northern extension when she made that comment. The earliest that extension could begin construction is 2024, if it follows a similar planning timeline as the Relief Line Short (four years from planning start to EA completion + two years design).

Full funding doesn't have to be in place to even get started building as far as I'm concerned...the city should do what we did with Eglington and get tunnelling...get the tunnel route done, do soil samples, order some TBMs, figure out where the headwalls for stations will be, start digging a place to put the TBMs in, move some utilities and pump some concrete to build headwalls, and put the TBMs in the holes and dig...

Then you have 5 years of tunnelling to get around to designing the rest of the thing...and making a contract...let the higher orders of government spend as much as they want on that bit...and let them order the vehicles, put down the rails and signals, and whatever weird PPP setup they want for it.

Tunnelling should be it's own thing, started as early as possible, funded by Toronto...that makes the rest of the schedule almost forced into place...

 

[ADRM]

Or if they refuse to provide us more funding, then at least allow us to do it ourselves. Which they wont.

Except that they did. If you fall for John Tory's incessant whining about the road tolls then you're simply not applying enough critical thinking to his talking points.

 

[ADRM]

John Tory would be wise to stop expending so much political capital on SmartTrack, and instead fight for a better fare deal for Toronto. Not just for the two GO lines he campaigned on, but for all of them. The province must not be allowed to make the decision for us without a fight, and there's already some evidence suggesting that Metrolinx is heading toward what is essentially a cash grab from the TTC to subsidize the 905.

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.

 

[salsa]

Except that they did. If you fall for John Tory's incessant whining about the road tolls then you're simply not applying enough critical thinking to his talking points.

Did what though? Because whatever few revenue tools they granted us are not nearly good enough for our huge needs, and are limited compared to what many other global cities have at their disposal. But at the same time, I've also been very critical of the mayor's property tax policies and wasteful spending on the SSE and Gardiner expressway.

 

[ADRM]

Did what though? Because whatever few revenue tools they granted us are not nearly good enough for our huge needs. At least that's what I hear a lot in the media. At the same time, I've also been very critical of the mayor's property tax policies and wasteful spending on the SSE and Gardiner expressway.

The increased gas tax revenues that the province gave to the city means more money quicker than the tolls would have, and that's a simple fact.

Tory keeps talking about the road tolls decision as if they're the sole barrier to the city's financial independence but that's horribly misleading, especially given his reticence to embrace a wider array of impactful revenue tools - many of which are presently at his disposal - and his proclivity for blowing literally billions of dollars wastefully.

 

[muller877]

GO Transit has a decades long tradition of disincentivizing Torontonians from using their services. They say they're planning fare integration to make the system more useful for Toronto, but I'll believe it when I see it.

TTC has a decades long tradition of disincentivizing Torontonians from using their services for short trips (<10 km). I hope they're planning fare by distance to make the system more useful for Toronto, but I'll believe it when I see it

 

[salsa]

The increased gas tax revenues that the province gave to the city means more money quicker than the tolls would have, and that's a simple fact.

But that money is less than what tolls could have provided. The gas tax is a gradually declinig source of revenue that the city has no control over, that can be taken away anytime with a change of government or fiscal circumstance. It's really not cool that the province can just go against the wishes of municipalities purely for political reasons, after previously promising to approve the tolls.

Tory keeps talking about the road tolls decision as if they're the sole barrier to the city's financial independence but that's horribly misleading, especially given his reticence to embrace a wider array of impactful revenue tools - many of which are presently at his disposal - and his proclivity for blowing literally billions of dollars wastefully.

Agree.

 

[ADRM]

But that money is less than what tolls could have provided. The gas tax is a gradually declinig source of revenue that the city has no control over, that can be taken away anytime with a change of government or fiscal circumstance. It's really not cool that the province can just go against the wishes of municipalities purely for political reasons, after previously promising to approve the tolls.

Agree with all of that, with a few caveats. On the road tolls, again, Tory was misleading folks by saying the revenues would be used "to build transit" because, in reality, the lion's share of that revenue was going to be dedicated to funding the reconstruction of the Gardiner East. Under his plan, no significant funding from road tolls was to be dedicated to the Relief Line, waterfront transit, Eglinton East, SmartTrack, or anything other than wastefully propping up an underused expressway.

Not to get too off-topic (though, really, it's all topical because there's less than no money to advance the Relief Line further than the province's $150M we're currently churning through), but there are two important considerations with regard to municipal financial autonomy. 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.

Second, plainly, do we want Giorgio Mammoliti and Stephen Holyday and Denzil Minnan-Wong and the rest of the band of unintelligent, ignorant loons having more power to spend money wastefully? Municipal independence might sound like a nice concept, but I'm actually quite glad that body in its current iteration doesn't have more power than they do.

 

[MisterF]

GO Transit has a decades long tradition of disincentivizing Torontonians from using their services. They say they're planning fare integration to make the system more useful for Toronto, but I'll believe it when I see it.

GO Transit has a long history of a lot of things, but that history is pretty much irrelevant with the decision to build RER. 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.

This suspicion of RER is just one reason that the fragmented nature of GTA transit needs to change. If we had one agency to deal with all transit across the region we wouldn't have these shortsighted turf wars.

John Tory would be wise to stop expending so much political capital on SmartTrack, and instead fight for a better fare deal for Toronto. Not just for the two GO lines he campaigned on, but for all of them. The province must not be allowed to make the decision for us without a fight, and there's already some evidence suggesting that Metrolinx is heading toward what is essentially a cash grab from the TTC to subsidize the 905.

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.

 

[M II A II R II K]

The first phase should include the Science Centre to prevent Pape from becoming a dumping ground in the afternoons, and for better Yonge relief.

Even if they have to cheap out and only have a one stop subway from Pape to the Science Centre.

 

[crs1026]

True, but they seem to be doing fairly well on about 75% of transit promises. So, if they promise 4 things then 3 will probably happen and 1 will struggle.

I think they got some really crappy information on Kitchener before the last election. That whole $5B CN problem seems to have caught even Metrolinx off guard. Nobody anywhere had that queued for budget consideration.

Off Guard?

January 21 2009 - Metrolinx Press Release announcing GTS/ARL

The Georgetown South Service Expansion and Union Pearson rail link will require 28 km of new track and other improvements to deliver important new services, such as:- Two-way, all-day GO service between Toronto and Georgetown

- Two-way, all-day GO service between Toronto and Bradford
- All-day express GO service between Toronto and Brampton
- New peak period GO service between Toronto and Bolton
- New peak period GO service between Toronto and Guelph, and
- Introducing a passenger rail service from Pearson to Union Station

using the Georgetown line."Addressing the limited rail capacity in the Georgetown South corridor permits expansion of GO services," said GO Transit Board Chairman Peter Smith.
"This proposed project will lay the foundation for future further
enhancements".

Georgetown South Service Expansion Project Description released - February 11 2009

Press Release - GO Transit buys Weston Sub - April 8 2009

Press Release reads in part

Claude Mongeau, CN executive vice-president and chief financial officer, said: "CN is pleased to have reached this line-sale agreement with GO Transit. GO is a valuable CN customer - the vast majority of its services in the
Greater Toronto Area operate over CN's rail network - and we believe this transaction and our continuing partnership with GO will help to advance commuter rail and its clear environmental benefits to the Toronto region. At
the same time, our line sale - reflecting CN's tight focus on asset management - will also generate value for the company."

GTS EA Notice of Completion - July 2009

Nobody thought to pin CN down about their plans until 2017 ??????

#asleepatheswitch

- Paul