denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
What if Ford does not get elected and a person of the Left does? Can we go back to the Origingal Transit City Plan? Or are we stuck with this current plan. Regardless of City Hall.
|
|
|
Whoever is elected next will have their own transit platform. On Eglinton it is unlikely tunneling beyond the places where Transit City envisioned it and on Sheppard will be underway. On Sheppard there is unlikely to even be a tunneling contract tendered and on Eglinton there might be termination fees depending on how the province tenders the tunneling contract starting near Jane and Eglinton (i.e. is it a contact to tunnel to the Don Valley or is it the whole route). So, a Transit City comeback is possible, so is an Eglinton subway and DRL plan, so is a white elephant subway plan.
Transit transcends political ideologies in large cities such as Toronto, and one's political stance cannot be used to predict the type of transit platform they prefer. I believe that while Ford's transit policies are damaging, Miller's transit policy was equally damaging, though for opposite reasons. While building a subway on Sheppard is ridiculous right now, Transit City would have entrenched the notion of mediocrity for at least a generation, and that would have been devastating for our rapidly growing city.
I guess anything that has a medium carrying capacity (like light rail) is mediocre. All transit systems have to be small (bus) or big (subway), but nothing in between. And all buildings have to be small (detached house) or big (supertall) or they aren't worth building. And here I thought that matching the technology to the corridor demand and budget available was good sense. Turns out it's just mediocrity. This new learning amazes me!
I for one find it ironic how it is perceived that the 'right' prefers larger, more expensive, higher order transit projects, while the 'left' prefers cheaper, less glamorous lower order transit.
Transit transcends political ideologies in large cities such as Toronto, and one's political stance cannot be used to predict the type of transit platform they prefer. I believe that while Ford's transit policies are damaging, Miller's transit policy was equally damaging, though for opposite reasons. While building a subway on Sheppard is ridiculous right now, Transit City would have entrenched the notion of mediocrity for at least a generation, and that would have been devastating for our rapidly growing city.
Toronto needs a mayor who supports subways as strongly as Ford, but has the common sense to simply swap the Sheppard extension with a DRL. We'd be totally set if such a candidate ever came forward, and unfortunately no such candidate - left or right - presently exists at City Hall. The closest we had to this was Sarah Thomson, and it is a real shame that not enough people recognized this.
Mediocrity how exactly? Like not building anything, which is what were are almost doing now?
Dan
Toronto, Ont.
I think that certain elements of Transit City (concepts, individual lines or sections of lines, etc) may return, but I think the plan as a cohesive master plan is dead. Most transit plans in Toronto's history have had common elements to them, it's just the technology choice and specific routing have been a little bit different, as have been the priorities.