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2018 Provincial Election Transit Promises

muller877 said:
Doug Ford has repeatedly said it is taking too long to build transportation. Most recently the road/train through the Ring of Fire. I'm very hopeful that the tax dollars will be spend building transit vs paying for study after study.
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This is the exact thought process that got Rob Ford elected, who like his brother, had no interest in getting ANY transit built.
 
That Spacing article is interesting but it is notable in one thing it didn't mention........RER. When listing the potential lines that maybe cut , RER and ST weren't listed because even Ford knows that cancelling them will kill him in the 905 &suburban 416. This is to say nothing of making an enemy of a very powerful Conservative party member......Tory. Tory has a lot of pull in the party and a lot of old allies and Ford would find him a formidable opponent.

I still think he will cancel/delay till after his reign the DRL and Sheppard but will use some of the saved money on RER/ST bring it up to grade separated subway capacity and frequencies being able to claim he is bringing 200km worth of subway to the suburbs at a fraction of the cost of the DRL. The Finch LRT alone will cost more than grade separating the entire RER system as most of it already is including the entire Kitchener RER segment and nearly all of the ST corridor. He would get a lot more political credit for that then LRT lines or the DRL every would and save billions in the process and could be up and running before he potentially seeks re-election.

As for the Mississauga, Hamilton, Ottawa LRTs, London's BRT, and GO service extensions to Peterborough, Cambridge, and Niagara that will be far more tricky as he has to make grounds in those cities which have a strong Liberal and NDP base.
 
muller877 said:
The travesty is that the Liberals have not progressed these project further along than moving some gas lines and engineering. Passing the buck vs building it themselves.

I think Doug Ford should at least hit pause to try and understand why so much money is going to consultants and not to actually building things. These costs are huge and I have zero faith that the Liberals have (or are planning) to spend the money wisely. We need a Commission just like they had in Quebec.
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Agreed. I'm not even certain the problem is with the Liberals (directly) rather than their decision to upload planning to Metrolinx from local agencies. Looking at the books, the spending delays since Wynne took over are nearly all on the execution side.
 
I don't believe for a minute that Ford will declare "scorched earth" and cancel everything. The issue is cash flow, not absolute project cost.

Take a look at the cash flows and note where Ontario will have to provide funding. The big expense for the Liberal promises is all in the out years, 2018-2020 is not the biggest piece. RER is barely out of the starters' gate in terms of cash flow. What has been signed is affordable, so those projects will likely continue. No cancellation penalties, no taste of gas plant scandal.

What won't happen is further spending approvals, beyond whatever Ford's people define as a healthy and sustainable cash flow. Lorinc's article runs in that vein, albeit taking the 'worst case' scenario by assuming that transit funding comes out of what's left over from other spending. Ford may find good politics in favouring some projects ahead of that.

The "find the gravy" approach is not all wrong, btw. I took this picture today at Kennedy Station on the Crosstown project. There is a hundred dollars or more of quite reusable almost new vinyl rope in that dumpster. No doubt the crew that used it had a single task for it, and when the task was done they had no further need for the rope. But it would fetch $50 on Kijiji, had I been able to steal it. You may say that $50 is nothing in the scope of a $5B budget, but I'm sure Ford's campaign fund would welcome that contribution. Two passersby independently commented on this as waste while I was taking the picture. The politics are compelling, regardless of the economics.

- Paul

20180322 Rope.jpg
 

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@crs1026 And that kind of thinking surely extends at higher levels where the waste might amount to much more than $50. Great post.
 
crs1026 said:
There is a hundred dollars or more of quite reusable almost new vinyl rope in that dumpster. No doubt the crew that used it had a single task for it, and when the task was done they had no further need for the rope. But it would fetch $50 on Kijiji, had I been able to steal it. You may say that $50 is nothing in the scope of a $5B budget,
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It's not that it's nothing. It's that this kind of thinking ignores the other side of the ledger. How much would it have cost the company to re-wind the rope, keep it clean, store it properly and disburse it properly for the next job where it's needed? I am going to guess that cost is going to be at least $100, which is why the rope is disposable.

Sandpit said:
I'm guessing it's because local businesses are lobbying for it...one of the signs that it's not 1995 anymore in terms of transit.
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The 905 today is where the 416 was 15-20 years ago. And they know where things area heading if they don't build transit. The only real question is whether people want more local or more regional transit first.
 
kEiThZ said:
It's not that it's nothing. It's that this kind of thinking ignores the other side of the ledger. How much would it have cost the company to re-wind the rope, keep it clean, store it properly and disburse it properly for the next job where it's needed? I am going to guess that cost is going to be at least $100, which is why the rope is disposable.
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All true, and there is the liability issue if the re-user has the rope break because it was a cheap, one-time-only grade product in the first place. Although, companies do often have profitable small-scale asset reclamation and disposal functions to squeeze some bucks out of the dumpster, if only to cut the volume and curb the dumping fees.

My point was, the passers-by I saw (who were all of modest means) all salivated at what they could use the rope for. Their conclusion (rightly or wrongly) was that ML wastes a lot of money in its projects. One guy (who seemed a little more knowledgeable) even quoted me per-hour charges for all of the big machinery that was parked on site and not being used that day. He may have been off base in his dollar figures, and the equipment utilization might be good, but this is the stuff that gives Ford Nation its leverage. It’s all face-value rhetoric, but it sells.

- Paul
 
Reports on Twitter that Ford pledges to restore the 3 stop SSE and close the Sheppard loop, ie extend the Sheppard subway westward
 
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