My bad. The search function on my browser wasn't working. Here is my reply:
"Steve: I beg your pardon. I live downtown. I know what it’s like trying to get on an overpacked subway, and if I were not using a Metropass, I too would scream loudly about paying $3 for a short journey with the TTC’s transfer regulations. The point I am making here is that in any political fight, if you try to accomplish everything in one go, you use up a lot of effort on issues that are not central to the one you want to win — saving Transit City in some form today."
The priority shouldn't be Transit City. Similar systems in Europe were/are being created to compliment existing subway infrastructure. Urban planners, including former TTC general manager David Gunn support this proposition. You can't keep on building feeder lines into a system cracking at the seams from over-capacity.
The political fight shouldn't be about Transit City, but about building subways in dense areas that are desperately needed right now. And it's not as if this idea isn't supported. Transit City is dead, let's not forget that.
"Steve: I was on the Queen car, or at least trying to be on one, this morning and watching lots of people walking while looking over their shoulder to see if anything was coming. Eventually, I gave up and walked down to King where the first four cars to appear were not going far enough to take me to my destination."
Thanks for proving my point.
"Steve: South of Bloor? In case you have not noticed, I have been advocating for the Downtown Relief Line for years"
It's not in your "Grand Plan". A post you made in 2009 talking about (yet another) study on the DRL is not enough.
"back when all the subway jocks in this town wanted to do was build more subways off into the open fields of suburbia (and thereby overload the YUS)"
Funny, your campaigning for this now, but it's only the slightly better scenario of cheaper LRT in suburban communities of two-story homes.
"There is a lot of demand on all of these routes that has nothing to do with the subway or core area travel. Should we not give them better service?"
Yes, dedicated bus lanes as I've seen in Europe.
"If you want to insult Transit City without proposing some alternative"
I don't care for alternatives for transit in the suburbs when what we need is several (yes, plural) downtown lines connecting areas where people CANNOT drive.
"I will lump you in with the no-brainers"
Count David Gunn among them. He inspires my ideas and has the experience to back up what he proposes and lends support to.
"If you want to talk about transit without assuming I am some hermit living in a cave up around North Bay who never rides the TTC, then we can have a conversation."
We can have that conversation when you start to not only propose and support the DRL with some regularity, but to offer insight on where it should go and stops it should have. I would love it.
"Don’t bother leaving more comments here."
I'm not interested in leaving comments about GO expansion and lines to nowhere. The entire GO network is less than the Queen Streetcar. We need to start talking about the infrastructure of the core downtown. It's embarassing to have tourists/friends visit and not be able to have rapid transit to Little Italy, the Distillary District, Liberty Village and Queen West. These are the areas of the city worth visiting, not suburban areas. It's the hard truth. And I speak with passion about this because I'm from here and see a lot of potential to this place, and after the Sheppard debacle I have zero tolerance for transit expansion being driven by politics in lieu of a grand vision for what could be the best city in North America.
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I still stand for my comments regarding the NIMBY-ist attitude and hostility towards intensification at city hall. I worked there for a short period of time and have heard the rumours (and because they are rumours I won't indulge in listing them here).
But I will say this...I heard through the grapevine that some of the very "heros" of city politics have been instrumental in shelving the DRL throughout the years.
I went to several offices of downtown councillors and was greeted with blank stares and attitudes of indifference when I mentioned the DRL. It's infuriating, so if anyone is put off by my attitude in this forum it's been affected greatly by this experience and my disappointment that CodeRedTO is focusing on Transit City rather than the DRL, which I believe is essential to our subway network.