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Canadians tend to compare ourselves to the US only, hence our smugness combined with a bit of an inferiority complex. But to our credit, the GO RER plan is obviously inspired by Europe. We even gave it a European name. There are very few regional/commuter systems in Anglo North America that have the kind of service and integration that Metrolinx is working towards. And the TTC is fighting it every step of the way.
 
MisterF said:
There are very few regional/commuter systems in Anglo North America that have the kind of service and integration that Metrolinx is working towards. And the TTC is fighting it every step of the way.
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What are they doing to fight it? Honest question.
 
dowlingm said:
There is no "plan to do this in a few years", just TTCRiders mewling about it. In any event, you can't make rich people pay full freight for everything. It sounds great for the occupy people but it drives people with even moderate incomes away from being stakeholders in having a good transit system, and into the arms of Uber. After all, if someone's paying less, someone else will pay more and it won't be the Province.
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I should have said that the TTC is studying it: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...y_ttc_fare_discount_for_lowincome_riders.html

I never said rich people should pay full freight for everything. It's just not fair for someone going from Warden/7 to Warden/Finch to pay more than twice the transit fare of someone going from Kipling to Kennedy.

And do you really think people are going to switch to Uber if their transit fares increase by distance? I doubt Uber would be able to compete with the TTC on longer routes in terms of price and speed. They're currently charging people $4 for a 3km commute.
 
torontologist said:
What are they doing to fight it? Honest question.
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Well that may have been a slight exaggeration, but crs1026 mentioned a couple things. One more is that the TTC opposes any kind of zoned fares, which are essential for true integration between local and regional transit. Essentially they want to operate in isolation. They have a bit of a dinosaur mentality.
 
MisterF said:
Canadians tend to compare ourselves to the US only, hence our smugness combined with a bit of an inferiority complex. But to our credit, the GO RER plan is obviously inspired by Europe. We even gave it a European name. There are very few regional/commuter systems in Anglo North America that have the kind of service and integration that Metrolinx is working towards. And the TTC is fighting it every step of the way.
Click to expand...

Do you think Toronto will ever get out of the trap of seeing "us and the US" as "the world"?

Do you suppose that we will become more internationally-inspired or outward-looking in the future? I sure hope so. Even the US is beginning to look that way. Even some US cities are being inspired towards "New Urbanism" which can have Old World influences.
 
There are definitely some things that can be learned from other continents. What gets me is where people assume that everything in Europe is better than in North American just because some things are, and that everything done/used in Europe is not only transferable to North American operations, but can be so transferred with minimal effort, time and cost.
 
As others have pointed out, the of provincial funding was a gut punch to the TTC. I think they were always a fairly conservative organization but ever since all they can do is dream of one day achieving a Sate of Good Repair. There's no other vision, no ability to break new ground. I can't imagine there's a single thing they've done in a generation or more that's regarded as a best practice elsewhere.

[I see this a lot in Steve Munro's stuff. He has a better sense of TTC than anyone else but it's an extremely narrow view of TTC and little ability to see through to new or innovative ideas.]

The larger political context (which includes amalgamation, or at least the end of Metro) is important too. One reason the TTC was a "global leader" was because Metro was a global leader in co-oridinating transit investment and planning. But then there was the SNAFU of the Scarborough LRT. And then the subway ended at Finch while the population exploded outside, in Markham and Vaughan etc. They all had their little transit systems and no one worried what anyone else was doing. In short, Toronto stopped being a transit global leader because Toronto got maxed out, stopped expanding the RT system and crawled into its turtle shell when the population growth wasn't in Toronto, per se.

So now we're left with urban sprawl and little fiefdoms and so knitting everything back together is a real uphill challenge. TTC needs to get with the program but it's obviously the biggest transit system by far but they've been opposed to every regional innovation, starting with Presto. If there's fare integration or service integration, I imagine they'll have to be dragged in, kicking and screaming.

Maybe not, but it's a set of historical circumstances that have put them where they are.
 
dowlingm said:
There are definitely some things that can be learned from other continents. What gets me is where people assume that everything in Europe is better than in North American just because some things are, and that everything done/used in Europe is not only transferable to North American operations, but can be so transferred with minimal effort, time and cost.
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It's this, and Michael Schabas in general that makes me take the article with a grain of salt. Sure some of the article's sentiments are true, no doubt. But IMO this 'expert' clearly has a hidden (and possibly Prov-motivated) agenda - which is something I took away from his Neptis Big Move critique a couple years back. The whole report seemed biased, flawed, and shaky. Even though many of the TC routes would carry many tens of thousands on their first day in service, they were considered garbage to him. But almost all the Prov projects - some carrying a mere fraction, and based on growth that may not occur - were praised. And he hates the DRL, but gladly supports TYSSE and Yonge North (a project which when incl all the Big Move in place, moves 8.8k peak and 66.5k avg wkday - i.e very little). So why couldn't he have proposed his fantasy ALRT proposals there, as he did with his Sheppard-SRT-wye proposal?

I do believe we were great at one time, and in many cases still are. But I do not think that ceding control to the Metrolinx/Prov will fix things as well as many believe. They've proven that they're wasteful, political, and with unreliable promises/funding.
 
crs1026 said:
A couple of examples

- The TTC's reluctant entry into Presto, while now overcome, was certainly in this spirit
- TTC continues to resist the free/nominal charge transfer agreements that are commonplace between other operators in the GTA

- Paul
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They have also criticized regional fare integration. They are a backwards organization.
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
[I see this a lot in Steve Munro's stuff. He has a better sense of TTC than anyone else but it's an extremely narrow view of TTC and little ability to see through to new or innovative ideas.]
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He's about to complain about York Region not getting its fair share of subways...

TJ O'Pootertoot said:
The larger political context (which includes amalgamation, or at least the end of Metro) is important too. One reason the TTC was a "global leader" was because Metro was a global leader in co-oridinating transit investment and planning. But then there was the SNAFU of the Scarborough LRT. And then the subway ended at Finch while the population exploded outside, in Markham and Vaughan etc. They all had their little transit systems and no one worried what anyone else was doing. In short, Toronto stopped being a transit global leader because Toronto got maxed out, stopped expanding the RT system and crawled into its turtle shell when the population growth wasn't in Toronto, per se.
Click to expand...

Yep.
 
When it comes to leadership in transit, the funding issue is a canard. Yes, the TTC gets shortchanged, compared to other transit systems. But that can't be an excuse for not modernizing fare payment, fare schemes (like zoned or timed fares), or pushing for regional integration. In fact, I'd argue that if the TTC was leading like it should, and pushing for more regional integration, the province might well have delayed or forestalled launching Metrolinx. At this point, it's all but certain that Metrolinx will be pre-eminent transit agency in the province and the TTC's influence on policy will wane over time.
 
kEiThZ said:
When it comes to leadership in transit, the funding issue is a canard. Yes, the TTC gets shortchanged, compared to other transit systems. But that can't be an excuse for not modernizing fare payment, fare schemes (like zoned or timed fares), or pushing for regional integration. In fact, I'd argue that if the TTC was leading like it should, and pushing for more regional integration, the province might well have delayed or forestalled launching Metrolinx. At this point, it's all but certain that Metrolinx will be pre-eminent transit agency in the province and the TTC's influence on policy will wane over time.
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Not to excuse the failings of the TTC, but it is doubtful that it would have forestalled the formation of Metrolinx given the limited authority of the latter (municipal boundaries), service type (GO) and reach, and the political palatability of a City of Toronto ABC leading a region wide effort without regional representation. You need some form of regional governance - and in its' absence, provincial leadership by its' manifest authority.

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Not to excuse the failings of the TTC, but it is doubtful that it would have forestalled the formation of Metrolinx given the limited authority of the latter (municipal boundaries), service type (GO) and reach, and the political palatability of a City of Toronto ABC leading a region wide effort without regional representation. You need some form of regional governance - and in its' absence, provincial leadership by its' manifest authority.

AoD
Click to expand...

If the TTC was leading strongly, I'd have expected Metrolinx to be more like regional co-ordination body and less of an operational transit authority. That's what I'm trying to say. At a minimum, I would think the TTC would have had far more influence. However, the TTC's intransigence on several fronts, has all but committed the province to directing all investment through Metrolinx and probably making it the ultimate transit authority in the GTA. I foresee a day where the TTC could well be turning over the keys to the subways to Metrolinx.
 
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