raptor said:
Because we could use those $3.35 billion towards some real priorities.
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I know that fact 100%, but why isn't there a "GTA Transit Expansion Priority" Thread to argue about this. Without this thread, it may be hard to trace different arguements and facts (even though they're the same for the most part).
 
Edward Skira said:
I'm in agreement with Del Duca on this.
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It's all political theatre, of course. But it strikes me as pretty poor optics for Tory to be attempting to implement a budget freeze while "asking" the province for all this money.

I'd agree til the cows come how with anyone who thinks cities (especially Toronto ) need more money and autonomy for transit and housing, but he can't have it both ways. It sucks we have to keep bringing up the SSE but it raises multiple questions, not the least of which is "If the province gave Toronto $10B for transit tomorrow, what reason is there to think council will spend it responsibly?" Maybe the province earmarks it for DRL and Toronto decides they'd rather do a subway on Finch West. Maybe the DRL moves forward and, right before shovels go in the ground, a new council changes its mind. As long as the resource are scant, people are right to look at where big money is being spent and wonder about the "side effects," of it going to A instead of B. (An obvious internal example is where the ELRT funding will come from, since the SSE, which was supposed to have money to spare, doesn't anymore.)

Speaking for myself, the issue isn't with the SSE specifically, it's the process and the issues it raises - entirely fairly - if Toronto is going to demand 10s of billions for transit, putting very little of its own in the kitty, at least so far.

Anyway, it doesn't seem to be online but the local paper, the Thornhill Post has a little article about what's going on up in Langstaff. quick summary:
-as I said, they need to rehab Pomona Mills Creek before any construction can start
-Markham, TRCA and the landowners (Condor) are doing it
-following remediation, which officially starts in June, there will be a park there of which Condor rep says "It's a main feature of our development."

I saw Toronto also got a development proposal for north of Cummer, where he LCBO is. I forget the stats but it was pretty big and the owner cited the Cummer stop in his proposal (which staff are against). These things are gonna keep happening and coming down the pipe.
 
The Yonge extension will add 40,000 residents to the area between Finch and Hwy 7, it will take 2500 buses a day off of the same stretch of Yonge. York region is planning dense transit oriented developments in order to satisfy the demands of the province for dense urban development.

Metrolinx failed to recommend electrifying the Richmond Hill GO in it's recent service improvement plan because the orientation only serves those heading to Union and it wouldn't gain enough passengers to be a viable project. Extending the line to only Steeles will do nothing to remove the buses off Yonge, it'll just shorten their trip.

York is projected to grow by 500,000 people in the next 25 years. The vast majority of that will be in the three southern municipalities (Vaughan, Markham and Richmond Hill) which would be served by this extension. If the province is intent on increasing the share of commuters using transit in York, this extension is an essential element. Without it, York's potential for growth in the most demand parts of the region will be seriously hindered. The need for the DRL is evident but Tory, making threats that he'll block the extension if he doesn't get his way isn't the way to go about it.
 
junctionist said:
After the road tolls debacle, it's hard to say what authority Tory has on regional transportation matters when the province can make any decision it wants to please 905 voters. Still, it would be blatantly irresponsible to keep expanding the Yonge portion of Line 1 without addressing the overcrowding at Bloor Station. Toronto needs to stand firm on this matter. The DRL is no vanity project, political vote-buying exercise, or distant need. It is absolutely necessary for a functional transportation system for the region.
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It was necessary a decade ago. I have lost two team members in a year who can't take the southbound crush in the morning. Both female milenials who decided that the commute was taking a toll. This is ridiculous.
 
amnesiajune said:
The province can't (within reason) force the TTC's hand on this. But what they can do is refuse to fund projects, and this is all political posturing in anticipation of big funding announcements. As far as Toronto is concerned, the Yonge extension doesn't matter but getting external DRL funding is extremely important. As far as the provincial government is concerned, both projects are of equal importance. The final product will likely be something in the middle, where both projects get built and the provincial government contributes most of the funding.
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This is an interesting view, but I don't really see how either of these to projects can be funded "in the middle".

The Relief Line must, at the very least, connect the downtown to Danforth subway; otherwise there will be no relief at all.

The Yonge North extension can, in theory, reach Steeles in Phase 1, leaving the section up to RHC for Phase 2. That would be both unwise in terms of the costs (high % of start-up and wind-down costs for a very short extension), and completely impractical in terms of political support as the York Region's representatives would get really mad.
 
Cobra said:
Yonge should stop at Steeles to relieve Yonge street.
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Yup I agree. I do not know why the mayor of Toronto is even pushing for a subway outside tis borders again. The money can be spent providing more and better service to Torontonians within the city
 
amnesiajune said:
I'd say the complete opposite. Transit planning needs to be done regionally. City-based transit planning is why Toronto is such a mess and so many people are car-dependant. The vast majority of employed people in the GTA don't work in the same city that they live in, and our transit system (by virtue of being planned within imaginary lines) is normally useless to those people.
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Thats right. Cause the 905 is certainly not car dependent never mind those large parking lots at GO stations
 
TransitBart said:
It was necessary a decade ago. I have lost two team members in a year who can't take the southbound crush in the morning. Both female milenials who decided that the was taking a toll. This is ridiculous.
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And whose fault is it that the DRL is not further down the line?
It's not because of a single person in York Region, nor anyone at Metrolinx or MTO or the provincial government.
Three-word answer:
Toronto
City
Council

We did need it at least a decade ago. They didn't see it. They wasted years changing their minds. They wasted money on inefficient, expensive projects,including 2 Tory has taken the lead on. So as much as I agree on the DRL, and did before this extension was in the air, I have zero sympathy for his hypocritical position.

If your team members want an easy commute, they can get a condo within walking distance of Scarborough Town Centre, otherwise the current city government doesn't much care. Or, per what Jaycola said, we can pretend not building the extension doesn't mean more people on roads which are themselves over capacity at rush hour.

This isn't about one project and what it will or won't do to the network, it's about how decades of mismanagement and lack of investment create spiralling problems. And how they get worse when you don't learn from those mistakes.

I mean...
Palma said:
The money can be spent providing more and better service to Torontonians within the city
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... Have you been paying any attention? Is that what he's showed with SmartTrack? With SSE? With TCHC? With the Gardiner?

No, the problem isn't York Region wanting a subway. It's that Toronto is so bad "providing more and better service to Torontonians within the city," that it is literally incapable of building transit lines that will generate the greatest ridership and growth.
 
salsa said:
Del Duca response: "Mayor Tory just can't take yes for an answer".


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This seems a bit petty IMO. Has the Prov 'been at the table from the start' re: the RL? Pre-2010 the need for the line became crystal clear, which is why its midterm priority status was officially acknowledged by the City and we got to work on DRTES. Meanwhile Metrolinx took something like four years to conclude the obvious and begrudgingly agree to this in their Big Move update. But it was lukewarm to say the least, and they undertook their own YRNS that ran roughshod over criteria in the City's plans. The Prov said very little over almost ten years, and it seemed like they genuinely 'came to the table' less than a year ago by agreeing to help fund the planning. I wouldn't say that's "from the start".

As for the part about "not taking yes for an answer", I find it a bit confusing. If they have said yes, then why aren't they willing to discuss their role as a capital funding partner? Ditto for projects like EBFLRT, where for years pleas for help have fallen on deaf ears. Certainly the 'shovel-readiness' doesn't mean much. The Prov has said yes to less shovel-ready projects before. Heck, the premier and Metrolinx went behind City Council's back and threw $Billions for an unstudied subway through the Golden Mile. And considering in the past the Prov has helped fund the planning for things they had no intention on following through on, I find it hard to view this supposed 'yes' as the real deal. Yet, at least.
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
No, the problem isn't York Region wanting a subway. It's that Toronto is so bad "providing more and better service to Torontonians within the city," that it is literally incapable of building transit lines that will generate the greatest ridership and growth.
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Do we get to annex York region?:D:D
 
Or York Region can annex Toronto :)

At least it'll be a regional government. You guys might not like the taxes, though. We need them up pay for stuff, apparently...

(hey, some of the YR councils are just as messed as Toronto. But when the 10 fools in Aurora go crazy they don't take the entire regional transportation system with them.)

44 North said:
Meanwhile Metrolinx took something like four years to conclude the obvious and begrudgingly agree to this in their Big Move update. But it was lukewarm to say the least, and they undertook their own YRNS that ran roughshod over criteria in the City's plans.
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Unless you have inside info (and I suspect you don't) this is totally your personal spin on internal discussions to which you were not privy, right? I'm guessing you can't back up any of this "begrudging" or "lukewarm" stuff based on knowledge of the people or process.

What actually happened is that Metrolinx incorporated the entirety of Toronto's council-approved transit plan (ie. Transit City) into The Big Move. Toronto's plan did not include DRL as a priority, so neither did Metrolinx.

AFTER the YNSE came to council, Toronto suddenly felt the DRL was a priority - it was entirely dependent on that coming into play.

When Metrolinx revised its timelines, the DRL was moved up accordingly. I don't know why they would have done a piecemeal amendment based on Toronto waking up and smelling the coffee. It was listed, as it should have been, alongside a series of revisions. You have no evidence, I'm sure, that it hadn't been de-facto reprioritized internally before the public list was released.

As for the roughshod comment - how can you know so many little things and so little understand how government and planning work? As you've told me and this thread many times, what happens outside Toronto is not Toronto's problem. But it IS Metrolinx's.

So, after TORONTO told METROLINX they couldn't build the subway METROLINX seemed to really want until they got the DRL , TORONTO totally ignored the DRL while Rob Ford futzed about everything else. So METROLINX , as TORONTO should have done and would have if they really cared, undertook a study not just of the symptom of DRL but of the larger problem of Yonge-Boor congestion, what causes it and what might relieve it. They didn't "run roughshod" over the city's plans because the city still didn't have any plans.

They finished this important network study - which included TORONTO and many other stakeholders - years before the DRL EA got underway.

And, moreover, everyone now talks about how the Sheppard DRL is what's really needed to relieve Yonge which is entirely something METROLINX came up with and which Toronto almost certainly never would have even conceived much less looked at on their own. According to you this holistic work, which has undoubtedly informed Toronto's work (since, again, they were involved in the Metrolinx study) was outside their mandate anyway.

So why not just thank them instead of an inventing, almost from whole cloth, a narrative that fits your preconceptions and misleads people?
 
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