Can't be that much if tolling the DVP and Gardiner gets them that upset.
I work at Sheppard-Yonge and most people finds GO Transit way more useful and faster than TTC.
Your passion is admirable. it's too bad it's at the expense of logic.
You just said yourself that serving people outside Toronto, that's what GO is for, right? So, if I live just north of Steeles (which I do) and wanted to take transit to visit you at Yonge/Sheppard for a coffee, how pray tell would I do that using GO? I mean, here we are in TOTALLY different cities, and all.
I guess you think I should drive north to Langstaff, take the train down to Union and then the subway back up? Or YRT to Finch and then a GO bus?
Your blanket statement about "most people" you know doesn't tell us much about actual travel patterns and what's an efficient way to move people. Nor does the blanket statement that people who live at Bathurst/Steeles (for example)- but on the south side, can be moved efficiently by TTC but the people who live just on the north side are better served by GO.
Really, it's mostly funny how this thread spirals and repeats itself every 50 pages or so.
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So, City of Toronto & fares are the main sources of revenue for the TTC.
Which all pay the O&M costs annually, which York Region isn't doing
Pffft. TTC is barely subsidized by Toronto taxpayers which makes a joke of this whole "TTC should serve Toronto first!" argument. York Region riders pay the exact same fare as Torontonians, making up 75-80% of the cost of their ride. "Humble taxpayers" foot the pathetically small leftover share.
Every major TTC capital project is funded through upper levels of government, so that's a joke too. Why am I paying - twice - for your stupid Crosstown, eh? Don't get me wrong - I think it's a shame TTC lost the pre-Harris operating subsidy. But let's not get on our high horse about Toronto's amazing investment in transit.
As for Montreal, all you really prove is what's been said here 50 times before: the primary issue is governance/funding. if the Toronto border happened to be at Highway 7 instead of Steeles - with everything else existing as it does today - your argument would be non-existent. Similarly, if we had proper regional revenue tools. But the entirety of your argument essentially boils down to "The reason it doesn't make sense to build transit outside of Toronto is because I'm in Toronto and I don't want to pay for that stuff." Which isn't non-sensical at all. But it's a very limited view of the reality of the commutershed and economic reality circa 2017.
I don't think you're being selfish; I just think it's proof that we've outgrown the system we have in place. Because that's what happens when you draw lines in the sand and people keep moving beyond them and you stop investing in extending and buttressing your network.
be directed at York Region who's desperate to become a major city by creating a new downtown out of thin air and density on the back of Toronto and its citizens
knowing full well that the current network can't handle it.
This is just absurd. Firstly, because York Region isn't a city and secondly because Markham alone is already one of the biggest and fastest-growing cities in the country and the notion that they are "desperate" is both laughable and insulting.
Provincial policy REQUIRES them to build that downtown.
It was the PROVINCE who promised them the subway.
We WANT suburbs to stop building crappy sprawl and intensify along transit corridors. Stop talking about them being selfish and desperate for doing the right thing. It's beyond hypocritical. Perhaps you'd prefer Markham's 1980s government to the current one? They were far less desperate for transit, that's for sure.
That growth is happening and the question is how we accommodate and serve it.
So you're misunderstanding cause and effect. if people buy homes on the edge of Vaughan and Markham instead of near a subway at Yonge/7, they will drive. And they will clog up the roads. You want to talk about a network that "can't handle it"? Roads and transit don't exist in vacuums. You're just playing a shell game and more than tacitly encouraging sprawl. Absurd indeed.
It's about recognizing that if Toronto doesn't fix its public transit infrastructure with mass expansion, the city will choke under its own congestion.
Yeah, how are they doing with that? Have we reversed plans for LRTs and subways again this week or was that last month? hard to keep it straight.
But, sure, fix the TRANSIT congestion and we'll deal with the roads clogged by people in the 905 to whom you denied transit later.
All this time and productivity loss costs Toronto billions and makes it less attractive for all kind of investment that will go elsewhere. Sorry to break it to you, but they'll go to Montreal, Vancouver or major US cities, not Richmond Hill or Markham.
As I said, no understanding of regional economics. Toronto and Markham are the same economy. Breaking news.
Toronto suffers...guess what, so will the whole 905 and the rest of Ontario. So it's in the 905 interest that Toronto stays as attractive, more attractive as ever so more investments comes which beneficiates the 905 cities as well.
And vice versa. Shocking, I know. But by all means, keep treating the 905 (with Peel + Durham + York housing more people than all of Toronto) like pathetic, lucky satellites circling the wonder that is Toronto, with its perfectly managed transit and lack of congestion.
So unless those York Region politicians "grows the F up", I applaud the City of Toronto on their stance on the York Region subway.
Well, we agree on the need for someone to grow up, anyway.
Thank you
Sincerely,
an humble Toronto Taxpayer
You're welcome,
A lifelong GTA
citizen.