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Ontario Liberals and Transit

Rainforest said:
In case the city goes to court to uphold that agreement (a hypothetical situation); wouldn't it be deemed frustrated by the subsequent actions of the City Council, i.e. its vote for the subway instead of SRT?
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There's no point the city going to court. Ultimately, the City and the TTC exist at the pleasure of the province. If the city wins, the province just passes legislation to do what they please.
 
GenerationW said:
It's common knowledge that one doesn't exist for a B-D extension. What's your point?
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nfitz said:
There is one. It says that it will be LRT. Signed in 2012 by Joseph Pennachetti, Andy Byford, Bruce McCuaig, and Jack Collins - who all acknowledge that this binds Metrolinx, the TTC, and the City.
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GenerationW said:
Well said! We have an agreement which has been a totally effective roadblock to even a hint of a subway.....no wait.
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Yeah because the same people didn't flip back and forth before. If there is no agreement, then the city can switch back to the LRT without trouble, like nfitz has said.
 
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denfromoakvillemilton said:
If there is no agreement, then the city can switch back tocan just the LRT without trouble, like nfitz has said.
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Huge trouble if the province has no interest in switching back, which certainly seems to be the case to me. They can just pass legislation to do whatever they please (like nfitz said).

All the city can do in that case is try to get the best deal it can.
 
Provincial Liberals have taken enough beating for changing their plans in the mid-air, and will not want to do it again unless they absolutely have to.

They won this time only because Hudak made PCs look worse than Liberals; next time, PCs will find a more likeable leader.

Sticking to the Scarborough subway plan will make Liberals look somewhat more credible. The city council would need to reach a large majority on the LRT vs subway issue to convince the province to change the course again; something like 30 vs 15. If it is a close vote, the province will go with the subway.

However, the city might backtrack on its portion of funding for the subway. In that case, the province is more likely to shorten the subway (to STC instead of Sheppard), rather than cancel it altogether.
 
Rainforest said:
Provincial Liberals have taken enough beating for changing their plans in the mid-air, and will not want to do it again unless they absolutely have to.

They won this time only because Hudak made PCs look worse than Liberals; next time, PCs will find a more likeable leader.

Sticking to the Scarborough subway plan will make Liberals look somewhat more credible. The city council would need to reach a large majority on the LRT vs subway issue to convince the province to change the course again; something like 30 vs 15. If it is a close vote, the province will go with the subway.

However, the city might backtrack on its portion of funding for the subway. In that case, the province is more likely to shorten the subway (to STC instead of Sheppard), rather than cancel it altogether.
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They better stick to their guns on the subway to Sheppard. Shortening it to STC is a great way to start the Sheppard East Subway Debate again.
 
denfromoakvillemilton said:
They better stick to their guns on the subway to Sheppard. Shortening it to STC is a great way to start the Sheppard East Subway Debate again.
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That's true; if the subway terminus is at Sheppard and McCowan, the route structure of Sheppard East LRT can be pretty simple. That will be either a single route, or two branches (the other going to Malvern centre).

If the subway gets cut back and ends at STC, the LRT routing would have to be more complex, and some riders forced to wait longer for their branch.
 
Rainforest said:
Provincial Liberals have taken enough beating for changing their plans in the mid-air, and will not want to do it again unless they absolutely have to.
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Precisely ... which is why if City Council votes to cancel the Danforth extension, then we're unlikely to see the provincial government try and overrule the city and changed the signed plan to subway.
 
nfitz said:
Precisely ... which is why if City Council votes to cancel the Danforth extension, then we're unlikely to see the provincial government try and overrule the city and changed the signed plan to subway.
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The general public is under the impression that subway is the current plan, supported by the city council and both the provincial and the federal government. Technicalities of signing the new master agreement that is needed to formally overwrite the old one, are of no interest for the majority of public.

If the plan changes back to LRT, the voters will say that the city council flip-flopped, and the provincial government followed the suite and flip-flopped too. Then, why the heck they even bothered to have this debate in 2013, they could just proceed with the LRT plan that was in force at that time.

The city councilors may get away with that. They do not represent any party; some are newly elected, and some represent ridings that do not care much about Scarborough anyway.

But the provincial Liberals would take a lot of damage, which they do not need and do not have to take. Sticking to the subway plan is a lot easier and safer for them.
 
Rainforest said:
If the plan changes back to LRT...
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Pay attention. The signed deal between the City and the province is till LRT. If City goes ahead with subway ... fine. If city wants to maintain the current deal, then Province would have to take extraordinary action to change the current LRT agreement to subway. It doesn't matter that many are currently ignorant about the status of the deal ... it will become quite clear if the province were to intervene.

Though, it would never happen. The Liberals are not about to intefere. Wynne has already said as much.
 
nfitz said:
Though, it would never happen. The Liberals are not about to interfere. Wynne has already said as much.
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Just can't imagine how, after all doldrums in support of the subway, they will now say "oops, the city council voted the LRT back in, so we are going with LRT".

If the province kept low profile during the 2013 debate, and made it clear that they are accepting the subway only in response to the city council's request, they could easily go back now.
 
Rainforest said:
Just can't imagine how, after all doldrums in support of the subway, they will now say "oops, the city council voted the LRT back in, so we are going with LRT".
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By saying something like "we respect the decision of local government to return to the agreement they had originally made with the province that will serve more people for less money, and we'll focus on moving forward on other subway and rapid transit projects in Toronto".

Wynne has already started laying the groundwork for this - http://www.torontosun.com/2014/06/27/wynne-softens-support-for-scarborough-subway
 
Yah I'm not really buying the argument that this would be another unavoidable flip-flop. The money is allocated to transit projects in Toronto. If we switch plans on Scarborough and still have that provincial money committed to Scarborough now committed to other transit projects in Toronto (like say, the DRL), who is actually going to be upset?
 
WislaHD said:
Yah I'm not really buying the argument that this would be another unavoidable flip-flop. The money is allocated to transit projects in Toronto. If we switch plans on Scarborough and still have that provincial money committed to Scarborough now committed to other transit projects in Toronto (like say, the DRL), who is actually going to be upset?
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Well Scarberians who hate LRT because it's "second class" but other than that no one.
 
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