Rainforest
Senior Member
This is the nub of the issue. Sometimes politicians define the problem, sometimes the problem emerges and they can have to face it.
I won't digress too far from this thread, but - the Relief Line is a rock in the bay that any new government will face. I can agree that Brown will be moderately pro-transit.... but measured in his spending. When the projects are lined up in priority, the Relief Line will force its way to the top - out of necessity, not out of platform design. The bills for the Line 2 extension will come in - again, he won't oppose this project - and the Relief Line will take a huge bite out of what's available. I would bet he will push back hard on the premise of DRL Long, preferring to build only the first leg and leave the next leg for a decade (a huge error in my view, and a perpetuation of the "stub building" mentality that has not served Toronto well.....but typical Tory approach to infrastructure ).
This leaves him to make plenty of encouraging sounds about being committed to Sheppard, but passing the bill to the future.
- Paul
Yeah, that's how I would approach that if I was in Mr. Brown's shoes. Undertake an early design of DRL Long to Sheppard, or even DRL Extra Long into Markham, and actually fund it from downtown up to Danforth or to Eglinton.
Of course we don't know what their strategists actually think. We can fully expect them to do something stupid, until they prove otherwise.