[44 North]

I wonder if people at the time considered the SkyDome as a waste of money.

Today, the SkyDome is used in my economics lectures as an example of the multiplier effect infrastructure investment has on the economy.

If there were two other stadiums that years of study said should take priority over Skydome, "Skydome" was to be much smaller, but somehow by divine political intervention became priority #1 (morphing into a project much larger than originally proposed) - then yes I think it's apt for ppl to consider it a "waste". That's the reality of Eglinton West, yet few understand it because lack of info, their partisanship, their disdain for everything Harris-related, or simply because they genuinely prefer plannertician napkin doodles. Really Eglinton was not supposed to be a subway, and was not supposed to be the first priority of Network 2011. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the riding for the leader of the prov party at the time was smack dab at the terminus of this subway.

According to Network 2011 Eglinton West was the third priority (after Sheppard to Vic Pk and DRL from Pape to Spadina). It was also supposed to be busway, LRT, ICTS, and maybe conventional subway. If we choose to ignore political jockeying, switching priorities, and upgrading surface rapid transit to heavy rail subway - then most shouldn't consider Eglinton West to be a waste at all. But the ubiquitous reality is that funds were/are scarce, and things are a zero sum game. It's no question that politicking, priority switching, and upgrading modes all come at the expense of other projects. Sheppard was cut short, DRL was dropped entirely. For that reason I think it's sensible to consider Eglinton West to be somewhat of a waste.

 

[TransitBart]

I wonder if people at the time considered the SkyDome as a waste of money.

Today, the SkyDome is used in my economics lectures as an example of the multiplier effect infrastructure investment has on the economy.

People were concerned. Waste of money is too strong. It was a public-private partnership. There is no doubt infrastructure investment can have a multiplier effect.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

According to Network 2011 Eglinton West was the third priority (after Sheppard to Vic Pk and DRL from Pape to Spadina). It was also supposed to be busway, LRT, ICTS, and maybe conventional subway. If we choose to ignore political jockeying, switching priorities, and upgrading surface rapid transit to heavy rail subway - then most shouldn't consider Eglinton West to be a waste at all. But the ubiquitous reality is that funds were/are scarce, and things are a zero sum game. It's no question that politicking, priority switching, and upgrading modes all come at the expense of other projects. Sheppard was cut short, DRL was dropped entirely. For that reason I think it's sensible to consider Eglinton West to be somewhat of a waste.

All the Network 2011 history is germane (especially for people who want to "blame" Mel for Sheppard) but, at the end of the day,by 1995 they had settled on a mode and they were literally building a conventional subway and literally filled in the hole they'd started to dig rather than proceed. And they didn't replace it with BRT or LRT or anything else. They left it in stasis until Crosstown came along. (An nice imaginary alternate history is Mel somehow taking the money Harris left him and building LRT along Sheppard and Eglinton rather than half a subway along just Sheppard. Oh, well!)

Because of where things got to before the project was canned it possible to (relatively speaking) compare apples to apples when asking "did we save or lose money by not building that project, and then building nearly the same thing 20 years later?" But, yeah, at the end of the day it's yet one more lesson in what happened when funds are scarce and politics get too involved in the planning. And it's sad to see we haven't learned very much from it at all.

 

[44 North]

All the Network 2011 history is germane (especially for people who want to "blame" Mel for Sheppard) but, at the end of the day,by 1995 they had settled on a mode and they were literally building a conventional subway and literally filled in the hole they'd started to dig rather than proceed. And they didn't replace it with BRT or LRT or anything else. They left it in stasis until Crosstown came along. (An nice imaginary alternate history is Mel somehow taking the money Harris left him and building LRT along Sheppard and Eglinton rather than half a subway along just Sheppard. Oh, well!)

The hole was filled in, not encased in a km thick cube of depleted uranium. Asssumedly leaving Eglinton West in "stasis" should be similar to leaving it until it got its turn in the queue (sometime post 2000).

Because of where things got to before the project was canned it possible to (relatively speaking) compare apples to apples when asking "did we save or lose money by not building that project, and then building nearly the same thing 20 years later?" But, yeah, at the end of the day it's yet one more lesson in what happened when funds are scarce and politics get too involved in the planning. And it's sad to see we haven't learned very much from it at all.

But we're not building "nearly the same thing" twenty years later. We're building a light rail line, which is in-line with the pre-Rae Network 2011 decision of some kind of (non-subway) rail transit. This is also in-line with the 70s-era plans for some kind of intermediate rail (i.e not 150m heavy rail).

Did we save or lose money, it's hard to quantify. But Harris' overall austerity measures aside, one thing to consider is that perhaps he was teaching the previous gov't a lesson by stopping work on EW. That would be: don't queue jump, don't concoct priorities, don't upgrade modes without proper rationale, and don't play politics by using scarce funds to build an unwarranted subway to your riding.

Personally I don't think a subway along Eglinton West was that bad of an idea, imo it's arguably better than heavy rail along Sheppard. But I'm distancing myself from opinion and going by the list of priorities coherently laid out in a well-developed plan that was Network 2011 - a plan which very much considered scarcity of funds, and how to spread these limited funds in a phased process into the future.

 

[TOareaFan]

If you tell them it cost $500M to construct and was sold 15 years later for $50M (hotel + stadium) most people would say it was a waste of government money now too.

Except very little of that is true. The cost was closer to $600MM......of which the provincial government contributed about $195MM ($30MM up front and assumption of $165MM of debt)....sure, by the time they sold it the debt had grown to a much higher figure (combination of debt service being capitalized to the loan and annual operating deficits) and the Rae government eventually wiped out the debt (by just adding it to the provincial debt) and sold the stadium for $150MM to a private consortium.

At that point the subsequent sales to various private entities at lower figures do not impact the government coffers...so any sale of $50MM (not sure there was one....the final sale to Rogers was around $25MM) is a bit irrelevant in judging whether it was a waste or not.

However, when you look at the finances of about 70% of households, it's pretty clear very few people look more than 5 minutes ahead or at consequences.

This part I fully agree with....politically it must be real challenge to get voters to be concerned about debt.....when they seem absolutely willing in their own lives to live off debt.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Did we save or lose money, it's hard to quantify. But Harris' overall austerity measures aside, one thing to consider is that perhaps he was teaching the previous gov't a lesson by stopping work on EW. That would be: don't queue jump, don't concoct priorities, don't upgrade modes without proper rationale, and don't play politics by using scarce funds to build an unwarranted subway to your riding.

While also proposing a heavy rail line (GO) into your riding (Peterborough)

 

[44 North]

While also proposing a heavy rail line (GO) into your riding (Peterborough)

Not sure how true that is. Harris' riding was North Bay (250km north of Peterboro). Am unfamiliar with his party ever proposing an extension of GO to either city. Though GO would replicate the cancelation of VIA (so not exactly a 100% new heavy rail line), I don't believe Mike the Knife proposed commuter service there.

 

[salsa]

A nice looking emergency exit that probably no one will ever use.

 

[cplchanb]

honestly...why waste so much money on the aesthetics of an emergency exit.............. once again misplaced priorities....

 

[pstogios]

honestly...why waste so much money on the aesthetics of an emergency exit.............. once again misplaced priorities....

Cue the "design is essential" crowd...

 

[Adjei]

honestly...why waste so much money on the aesthetics of an emergency exit.............. once again misplaced priorities....

Yeah I'm sure we could have built the DRL if we hadn't wasted money on these emergency exits..

 

[Hopkins123]

Yeah I'm sure we could have built the DRL if we hadn't wasted money on these emergency exits..

Regardless, the investment is still misplaced. If the money was to only be spent on TYSSE, they at least could have invested a bit towards tiling the freaking station platform walls.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Will they be placing a portrait of Robert Vaughn in the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Station? Nah, wrong spelling.

 

[cplchanb]

Yeah I'm sure we could have built the DRL if we hadn't wasted money on these emergency exits..

considering that TTC has been asked to hack and slash their budgets... every dollar here and there couldve been useful...remember theres plenty of emergency exits scattered across the line... they really shouldve stuck with a cookie cutter design for something so minor in significance. Hopefully for the ECT they will be more sensible. Youre probably going to say it was too late in construction to have made that change but it just goes to show the spending culture of TTC..... misplaced priorities....
and the giant mausoleums stations will serve as a reminder....but then somebody is probably going to throw in NYC for example or some other city with beautiful stations....well...they have money...we dont....we cant afford oppulance over function at this age

 

[cplchanb]

Regardless, the investment is still misplaced. If the money was to only be spent on TYSSE, they at least could have invested a bit towards tiling the freaking station platform walls.

not to mention considering how late they are they couldve spent the money on fasttracking construction...every week gained is a week spent recuuperating financial losses