All of the messaging around this is about economic development through the "knowledge economy". It's not so much about existing demand, but about inducing new demand and new economic ties between cities along the 401 corridor. And honestly, I don't see how 70-minute trains every half hour between London, Kitchener, Pearson, and Toronto wouldn't completely change the calculus about where and whether to set up offices for a new or existing business.
That's just it, this feels like an excuse for the Liberals to play up a bunch of Richard Florida-isms about the creative class and "knowledge economy" (they'll probably wrap it up with their corporate welfare to Open Text and others) rather than anything like a coherent transit policy (which prioritizes actual rider benefits per unit of investment).
Of course it wouldn't "completely" change anything. Perhaps a few thousand people may use such a line, less than people who use Glencairn Station for the love of god. It would be a rounding error in a region with millions of jobs, except in terms of its outsized costs. Politicians love this stuff because, like the UPX, it allows them to use empty buzzwords (again, bring on the Richard Florida) and appeal to voters who normally find the indignity of riding a bus discomforting, but the see the "knowledge economy" as something "transformative."
Even in cities like San Francisco, practically synonymous with the "knowledge economy," the tech industry only accounts for 8% of the workforce. Meanwhile, while everyone's patting themselves on the back about how creative and transformative things are becoming and how great it is that Twitter gets millions in tax breaks, the bulk of the Bay Area deals with crap transit to get from their homes-next-to-oil-refineries to low paying service sector jobs and underfunded schools.
It's the complete skewing of government priorities away from some idealize notion of the "greater good" towards a super specific form of favouritism where certain industries (entertainment, tech, certain types of sexy manufacturing) are able to extract totally outsized benefits.
insertnamehere said:
.. Like any high speed rail line? I'm honestly very confused by the distaste for this.
Because the major issues with transit in the GTA/Ontario have more to do with basics like access to reliable bus service and the like, not the absence of a luxury train to London (of all places..)
It's akin to a country with rampant illiteracy or malnutrition suddenly insisting on free PhD programs.