Having made mistakes with investments sometimes, I'm mindful of tunnel vision. And so I like to stay open to new ideas. And will pivot, if I see something better.
This goes right into how I look at electoral politics with regards to transit. Kim Campbell said it best, when she said that elections are no time to discuss serious issues. It's unfortunately true.
Imagine, if David Miller had said that Transit City would take 30 years and cost $18 billion by the time the whole plan was finished. How many people would have voted for him then? If we had known that there was an $18 billion budget, perhaps, we'd have thought far differently about how we'd be spending that money and which lines we'd target first.
Given that Miller would have been off by 200%, one would think that other candidates who propose a different plan might get some slack. Instead, Tory is being roasted for not having the level of detail in his plan that Metrolinx would put in to a BCA. Do we now expect every mayoral candidate to be a transit planner too? Perhaps, we should limit the big chair to only those who have urban planning degrees?
On the other sides of this three sided spectrum, you have, strangely enough, two individuals who are equally orthodox in their transit planning approach. Doug Ford (really Rob Ford) will not build anything but subways. And Olivia Chow won't build any subways, save one. Where Rob Ford is completely out to lunch, Olivia Chow won't even bother actually taking a second look at all those transit assumptions and making sure the priorities are in order, except to move up the DRL (and I suspect that's an electoral move more than an actual concern).
I have grave misgivings about Tory's financing plan for Smart Track. And the only reason I'm voting for him, is because if his financing flops, I'd gladly swallow the property tax increase to get improved transit. But while the financing plan is sketchy, the actual transit plan really gets to the root of what bothers most voters: commute time. Tory actually understands what bugs most voters and is going to try to solve it. Ford knows what voters want and will lie about giving it to them. Olivia Chow doesn't seem to care much about voter priorities. She almost seems to be running to be premier, with a standard NDP policy platform including tax increases on the rich (home owners) to pay for social housing, school lunch programs, etc. Meanwhile, half the voters have transit as their #1 issue and she promises them marginal increase in bus service for the next few years and a DRL after she's retired from public office.
