New TTC Chair and Board

[SimonP]

All this is making very clear who we need to knock off next election. Palacio and Parker fell well below 50% of the vote in both 2006 and 2010, and both seem to be backing Ford's full agenda despite representing middle of the road areas. If it looks like Ford has a chance at reelection in 2014, swinging those two seats to the progressive side should be a top priority.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I have a question. Is Karen Stintz (the TTC Chair), Peter Milczyn (the Vice-Chair), and the others (Maria Augimeri, Vincent Crisanti, Frank Di Giorgio, Norm Kelly, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Cesar Palacio, and John Parker) working for the transit riders and people of Toronto or for Rob Ford and his gang?

In the past few months, they seem to me be following the wishes and desires of Rob Ford and not the wishes and desires of the people of Toronto. Only 15% of the people believe in Rob Ford's dream of a subway (note that I am using the singular) instead of Transit City.

The commission had better wake up and listen to our questions and be more open than the closed doors we face these days. Being the chair of the TTC, Karen Stintz should be the one discussing the future of transit in Toronto with Metrolinx and the province, and not be left on the sidelines. Do your job Karen.

 

[Dan416]

Frankly your biased post doesn't deserve a response so I'm boycotting your post.

 

[drum118]

Frankly your biased post doesn't deserve a response so I'm boycotting your post.

Haaaaaa!!!!!!!! LOL you already respone to his posting. Your Biased is showing on your responce.

He asked a question and put his views to the question in the same post. What is wrong with that???

Yes, most of the commission is marching to Ford beat and you can see that if you attend the meetings.

We wasted how much time in Jan on the bus cuts when it was already known they were going to be cut before the meeting.

It's a dog and pony show with some commissoners going against the grain and various matter, but in the end, they loose on the vote.

The next 4 years is going to be a waste of most people time and effort to try to improve transit in the city.

Even after cutting the routes so the saving can be apply to other routes in Sept, I don't seeing that happen at all becuase TTC still needs to make more cuts to their budget.

Wait tell TC and the Subway plan show up to see a waste of more time.

You will noticed that there is nothing on Metrolinx adgena for transit ranking and funding for Feb 18 meeting other than approval of York BRT project. This mean transit in the 905 is getting push off further into the future because of Ford Pie in the Sky Thinking.

Transit is going down the tubes and come 2015, we will be the biggest joke surounding moving people for the Pam-Am games. Going after the Pam-Am Games is a big mistake on the Government side today.

 

[spider]

I have a question. Is Karen Stintz (the TTC Chair), Peter Milczyn (the Vice-Chair), and the others (Maria Augimeri, Vincent Crisanti, Frank Di Giorgio, Norm Kelly, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Cesar Palacio, and John Parker) working for the transit riders and people of Toronto or for Rob Ford and his gang?

I have an answer. The dynamic is precisely the same as every other iteration including in the Miller years. Quelle surprise!

Only 15% of the people believe in Rob Ford's dream of a subway (note that I am using the singular) instead of Transit City.

You can back up this number? 85% of the citizens of Toronto are opposed to subways and love Transit City?

 

[nfitz]

Only 15% of the people believe in Rob Ford's dream of a subway (note that I am using the singular) instead of Transit City.

You can back up this number? 85% of the citizens of Toronto are opposed to subways and love Transit City?

I assume this is a reference to the recent Leger poll where only 15% said we should stop building Light Rail and build subways instead, and the rest were undecided (9%) or said e should follow the current plan or keep Light Rail but move more of it underground (76%).

Clearly there is not widespread support for Ford's election platform of completely cancelling Transit City and simply focusing on a couple of subway extensions in Scarborough.

 

[gweed123]

I assume this is a reference to the recent Leger poll where only 15% said we should stop building Light Rail and build subways instead, and the rest were undecided (9%) or said e should follow the current plan or keep Light Rail but move more of it underground (76%).

Clearly there is not widespread support for Ford's election platform of completely cancelling Transit City and simply focusing on a couple of subway extensions in Scarborough.

There may not be widespread support for Ford's subway platform, but you can't help but notice the 76% saying we should build more transit underground. This is where I hope Metrolinx will step in. Metrolinx will hopefully say "maybe not all underground, but how about some elevated or trenched?", or "maybe not all HRT, how about some underground LRT or some SkyTrain as well?". I hope Metrolinx will be telling Ford "we'll give you grade-separated transit, but it's up to us to decide where, when, and what technology".

Everybody's kicking up such a fuss about this, without even knowing what the alternative plan actually is. It's not going to be Transit City as-is, and it's not going to be Ford's subway plan as-is (if it is, then Metrolinx has lost all credibility and should be disbanded). Wait and see what the new plan looks like before yelling doomsday. Who knows, you may actually like it better than TC (unless you have a fetish for in-median LRT everywhere).

 

[Tewder]

The commission had better wake up and listen to our questions and be more open than the closed doors we face these days. Being the chair of the TTC, Karen Stintz should be the one discussing the future of transit in Toronto with Metrolinx and the province, and not be left on the sidelines. Do your job Karen.

You have a problem with the mayor taking initiative on transit? Why not wait to see what the mayor and his team come up with before criticizing it? Just saying.

The anti-Ford camp comes off as determined to see Ford fail, regardless of the consequences to the city, which does make it a little difficult to take them seriously. Truly, this is partisanship/polarization at its worst. I mean, he's here for a while so we had better try and make some things work, somehow. Having said that, if the plan he offers sucks then gloves off!!!

 

[gweed123]

You have a problem with the mayor taking initiative on transit? Why not wait to see what the mayor and his team come up with before criticizing it? Just saying. Having said that, if the plan he offers sucks then gloves off!!!

I agree 100%. If the plan that the TTC and Metrolinx comes up with sucks just as badly as Ford's plan or Transit City, then by all means, I'll gladly take to the streets to protest. But there's no sense in arguing against something when you don't even know what it contains. That comes off as a very Republican tactic (i.e. "I don't care what it's actually about, Obama thought of it and therefore it's evil!).

 

[GraphicMatt]

I think you're both oversimplifying the situation a tad - my criticisms result from what I see as a total hijacking of a process that was well in motion, resulting in unnecessary delays.

 

[gweed123]

I think you're both oversimplifying the situation a tad - my criticisms result from what I see as a total hijacking of a process that was well in motion, resulting in unnecessary delays.

Part of me agrees with you, but part of me also remembers what happened in Ottawa after the 2006 mayoral elections. Mayor got dumped, plan got dumped, new plan was created that was infinitely better. Yes, there were delays involved, but the new plan is a much better allocation of resources, and the work that was done on the old plan is still part of the TMP, and is scheduled for Phase 2 of the TMP (at least the section from Bayview to Riverside South is).

The best possible outcome here is to make modest improvements on the current plans, and ditch the parts that really don't work. Keep the Eglinton tunnel, but redesign the surface portions on either end and connect it with the SRT revamp. Utilize as much of the SELRT ROW design as you can, and design it as a BRT instead. Things like this, although they may cause some delays, will have enough portions of the original Transit City (or even plans older than that, like the SRT Mark II upgrade) to allow those parts to continue with little or no delay.

Especially with Eglinton, the surface sections will take much less time to build than the tunnel will, so even if those sections are delayed for a couple of years while the redesign happens, it isn't the end of the world, because they were slated to start construction years after the tunnel anyway.

 

[Asterix]

You have a problem with the mayor taking initiative on transit? Why not wait to see what the mayor and his team come up with before criticizing it?

Absolutely the mayor should be able to take initiative on large scale transit projects. Ford's people will produce a new plan that can be input into the city and TTC detailed planning process and then right as they are starting construction in 3 and a bit years, we can have a new mayor come in who should be able to take initiative on a large scale transit project and have his people come up with a new 'improved' plan. That sounds like an effective and responsible way to run municipal operations.

It's not an issue with being knee-jerk anti-Ford and wanting to see him fail. It's a matter of basic frustration that after years of leg work, lobbying funding partners (ie provincial government) and much design and planning work, instead of starting to build an extensive network, the whole thing has been yanked off the table on the basis of very limited and poor reasoning.

It's not like Ford has a history of involvement in transit planning and could present a coherent argument as to why surface light rail was so inherently bad beyond using catchy phrases like 'people want subways'. I think it is obvious to most everyone he is simply taking his personal biases and arbitrarily applying them to an entire network plan without really understanding what it is he wants to cancel.

TC may have its faults and the reduction of funding from the province certainly doesn't help, but even with what is on the table, would be providing much better service to a much larger catchment of citizens/taxpayers/customers than any foreseeable Ford Scarborough subway plan.

 

[gweed123]

TC may have its faults and the reduction of funding from the province certainly doesn't help, but even with what is on the table, would be providing much better service to a much larger catchment of citizens/taxpayers/customers than any foreseeable Ford Scarborough subway plan.

But Ford won't be getting his "Scarborough Subway plan" as long as Metrolinx is running the show. So your whole argument of "well at least TC is better than what Ford is proposing" is kinda moot. Once the new Metrolinx plan is released, THEN you can compare it to TC, and make an informed decision on which is better.

PS: If Ford does get his Scarborough Subway plan, like I said earlier, Metrolinx should be disbanded, as they will have lost all credibility.

 

[GraphicMatt]

You make it sound like there's some real progressive planning going on between Metrolinx and the TTC at the moment - working together to forge a new vision for transit in the city. My read on it is that they're deadlocked in Sheppard-versus-Eglinton arguments and we'll inevitably get some weak-kneed compromise half-plan just so the Ontario government won't look like a complete joke going into October.

Admittedly, yeah, this is probably where I cross the line from fair-minded to cynical and biased.

 

[gweed123]

You make it sound like there's some real progressive planning going on between Metrolinx and the TTC at the moment - working together to forge a new vision for transit in the city. My read on it is that they're deadlocked in Sheppard-versus-Eglinton arguments and we'll inevitably get some weak-kneed compromise half-plan just so the Ontario government won't look like a complete joke going into October.

Admittedly, yeah, this is probably where I cross the line from fair-minded to cynical and biased.

Maybe I have an over-confidence in Metrolinx, who knows. I just feel like Metrolinx has too much at stake here to just roll over and take it from the TTC and Ford. They want to be a regional planning agency, not a regional funding and rubber stamp agency. With TC, Metrolinx jumped in (or rather was created) mid-way through the process, so it was a bit difficult for them to make their mark. But this time, they can get in on the ground floor. If they can flex their muscles a bit here, I think we'll see a pretty decent plan.