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2014 Municipal Election: Toronto Mayoral Race

VTB said:
For myself, unless they lay out a realistic funding plan for it, all talk about DRL is just that.....talk. And for once I agree with RoFo, talk is cheap!:))
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Sure.. but if a one of a voter's main concerns is building the DRL, who else are they going to vote for? It seems that they'd vote for the person talking the most & strongest about building it.

Well I guess we'll have wait and see the funding part of their platforms.
 
ehlow said:
I thought the McCowan subway would get most of it's ridership from connecting bus routes anyways (and the Sheppard East LRT if it happens), like the SRT does.
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It is a question of ridership. The subway needs substantially more ridership than an LRT does before it starts making economic sense. The number of riders going on the extension will not substantially increase, as the same bus routes will be delivering the pretty much the same amount of people, only with the termini changed. The number of new condo projects across Scarborough is tiny in comparison to downtown, meaning there isn't going to be the dramatic jump in people riding on the TTC that subway boosters promise up and down will happen.
 
ehlow said:
Sure.. but if a one of a voter's main concerns is building the DRL, who else are they going to vote for? It seems that they'd vote for the person talking the most & strongest about building it.

Well I guess we'll have wait and see the funding part of their platforms.
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Yes!
 
CN Tower said:
Hopefully the line will add to density along its route and therefore grow the number of the people that it services in addition to adding property tax revenue to the city
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So let me get this straight: firstly, you're contradicting the experts when you say that the subway is the best way to spend our precious tax dollars. It's actually it's a huge waste of our tax $, but you just want an underground limousine free of charge, you socialist!

That's not all though: you also just demonstrated that you don't understand how property tax works. The City calculates how much it needs, and rates are set accordingly. Furthermore, more density means more people consuming more services which cost more money (isn't this the sort of thing you hate?)

Not really sure why you're still here; all you do is repeat the same tired old lies and/or misunderstandings. If UT is really the hotbed of socialists you apparently believe it to be, what exactly are you hoping to achieve? Faced with a well-informed centrist/left-leaning crowd, are you really expecting that anything you say is going to persuade anyone of anything really other than what UT regulars already know?

I'd be a lot gentler in suggesting you rethink the subway if not for your abject failure to abandon the Chow co-op lie. You're wrong, and you know you're wrong. Stop spreading things you know to be untrue.
 
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edmundoconnor said:
It is a question of ridership. The subway needs substantially more ridership than an LRT does before it starts making economic sense. The number of riders going on the extension will not substantially increase, as the same bus routes will be delivering the pretty much the same amount of people, only with the termini changed. The number of new condo projects across Scarborough is tiny in comparison to downtown, meaning there isn't going to be the dramatic jump in people riding on the TTC that subway boosters promise up and down will happen.
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Well both the LRT and subway would go up to Sheppard instead of ending at STC, so the Sheppard LRT could feed people into either line. I would think that increases ridership.

However the subway ends at McCowan and Sheppard, the LRT is further east, so I'm not sure which is better in that respect, but it seems like McCowan would be more central with regards to Scarborough. Maybe someone more familiar with Scarborough can correct me.

Anyways, my main concern is the 2.5 year shutdown.
 
ehlow said:
I thought the subway costs included some extra repair work to keep the SRT running. How unreliable is it now? I would think people would still prefer to have it running and breaking down occasionally than shut down for years.

Maybe they can run the buses that would've gone to STC or Lawrence East station to run to Kennedy station instead to make up for it if it's shut down.
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It depends greatly on whether people see actual progress. If you shut it down and begin work on the LRT next year, I think people would view it in a more positive light than yet another EA which could well be killed before construction of the subway ever starts. If the LRT can be stopped, so can the subway. The LRT could almost be finished by the time the 2018 election rolls around, whereas with the subway, they're maybe sorta sometime thinking about sending out an RFP one of these days. The subway does precisely nothing for the areas east of McCowan. They still have to take a bus, and get a dreaded transfer.
 
I think it's sort of pathetic how people are so gung-ho for a candidate and so against others. Regarding transit platforms, the candidates have months to release how they plan on funding their proposals. Those on here who've blasted Tory for not saying how he'll pay for the DRL yet praise Chow for her stance on transit fail to acknowledge that BOTH candidates have yet to release their transit finance plans.
I hope we'll see less partisanship and more policy-based discussion in this thread, as partisanship gets Toronto nowhere.
 
edmundoconnor said:
It is a question of ridership. The subway needs substantially more ridership than an LRT does before it starts making economic sense. The number of riders going on the extension will not substantially increase, as the same bus routes will be delivering the pretty much the same amount of people, only with the termini changed. The number of new condo projects across Scarborough is tiny in comparison to downtown, meaning there isn't going to be the dramatic jump in people riding on the TTC that subway boosters promise up and down will happen.
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Condo projects, in and of itself, do not contribute significantly to ridership unfortunately. What does is concentration of employment.

If infrastructure money is unlimited, we could build the BD extension, the DRL, heck, even all the lines that RoFo mentioned earlier, but we don't so we have to spread whatever we have to serve the most people possible. Doing LRT's instead of the BD extension would save over $1billion plus the operating cost subsidies that will be needed. This was supposed to be paid for with a property tax component for the next 30 years! If we could agree to leave this tax levy in place, it could go towards the DRL which we all agree would reduce travel time and hopefully some of the gridlock.

Just my 2 cents.
 
edmundoconnor said:
It depends greatly on whether people see actual progress. If you shut it down and begin work on the LRT next year, I think people would view it in a more positive light than yet another EA which could well be killed before construction of the subway ever starts. If the LRT can be stopped, so can the subway. The LRT could almost be finished by the time the 2018 election rolls around, whereas with the subway, they're maybe sorta sometime thinking about sending out an RFP one of these days. The subway does precisely nothing for the areas east of McCowan. They still have to take a bus, and get a dreaded transfer.
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If you're east of McCowan, you'd take a bus and transfer to either the SRT or subway, either way it's the same. I guess the only difference is the extra transfer at Kennedy.
 
VTB said:
Condo projects, in and of itself, do not contribute significantly to ridership unfortunately. What does is concentration of employment.

If infrastructure money is unlimited, we could build the BD extension, the DRL, heck, even all the lines that RoFo mentioned earlier, but we don't so we have to spread whatever we have to serve the most people possible. Doing LRT's instead of the BD extension would save over $1billion plus the operating cost subsidies that will be needed. This was supposed to be paid for with a property tax component for the next 30 years! If we could agree to leave this tax levy in place, it could go towards the DRL which we all agree would reduce travel time and hopefully some of the gridlock.

Just my 2 cents.
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If I was sure that the money saved would go towards the DRL I'd move more inclined to support switching back to the LRT. I have no idea of that would happen though.
 
Glen said:
Um..Yes.

Why would Jack and Olivia, three months prior to the initial Toronto Star report, voluntarily started paying hundreds of dollars more per month in rent?
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It's not hard to see why. They were trying to hide the fact that they were stealing the profits from hard-working business owners. It's nonsense like this that has kept employment growth in the city weak for the past generation and counting.

If she is elected, I can see a return to the glory days of Miller when already record high business taxes skyrocketed, and business was driven out of town, if not the country. Who would want to invest anything in a climate like that?

Toronto would be in real danger of becoming a hollowed out shell like Detroit.
 
ehlow said:
My main concern with switching back to the LRT is the 2.5 year shutdown required. What are your thoughts on that?

If I were someone who used the SRT currently, 2.5 years using a bus instead of the SRT would be brutal.
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There are several years of EA/planning and construction ahead for the subway plan. It would not be in service until 2023 (possibly later, if there are over-runs -- which, BTW, Toronto would have to pay for itself. The feds and the province are not on the hook for over-runs at ALL.) The SRT will not last that long. Whether we choose LRT or subway, people are spending some years on shuttle buses.

But LRT means service starts by 2019 (instead of 2023), the route goes further east and north in Scarborough, it will provide good service, and it will cost much less. If we get extra TTC funding, it can go to the DRL, other lines or general service improvements.
 
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