Montreal is getting all the fares in Laval and Longueuil but they succeeded at not only making Laval and Longueuil for their share of the operating costs but the outer suburbs cities as well (ALL 89 of them)
Why couldn't the City of Toronto and the TTC negociate the same? There's no excuse to put that operating cost on Torontonians while York region is enjoying the advantage of a subway in their region in exchange for a "1 time check"
I don't know enough about Quebec's transit funding overall. I will say that I expect, within five years, there will be some sort of GTA-wide funding mechanism (be it road pricing, a gas tax or whatever) that will render your question moot.
I understand the basic principle - I fund a transit system with my taxes, so why should it go into YOUR municipality - but that's what I believe is as obsolete as the line on the map.
I agree with the subway going to Steeles. Beyond Steeles not at all. If LRT is SOOO good for growth, why can't YRT build an LRT on Jane and Yonge instead of eating Subway $$$ that could have started the DRL or bury Eglinton?
So, you think it makes sense to do two different transit systems instead of one integrated one?
Why not save even more money by running the subway up to Cummer/Drewry, running BRT to Steeles and then LRT up to Hwy 7?
Or maybe people could take moving escalators part of the way?
An INTEGRATED REGIONAL system is what the GTA needs. I understand there's a municipal border at Steeles but that's been meaningless for years in every respect, except for (to an extent) tax-funding. As I said, that will soon be meaningless too. That's why Metrolinx exists. Integration is one of the basic principles of The Big Move, such as it is. Doing less - asking York Region residents and workers to change from BRT to LRT to Subway in the course of 5km is an EXCELLENT way to ensure no one ever takes transit. (By the way, people travel BOTH ways on transit these days, not just from the suburbs to downtown.)
It's mot Toronto's job to help York grow more prosperous. When I vote for my mayor and Councillor, I expect them to work for Toronto, not for York Mississauga or Durham.
If that's your attitude, you should return the $8.4B now being debated and take Toronto out of organizations like the GTA Marketing Alliance.
After all, Toronto's transit problems and prosperity shouldn't be solved by MY tax dollars, much less some guy in Cornwall or Listowel or Thunder Bay, right?
OR we could have a tax system that takes all the money from all over and distributes it where needed, recognizing that the GTA economy needs to be efficient or it, and the whole province, wil be dragged down? One or the other.
It's easy to blame York for being assertive on developing a coherent transit plan (the nerve!) but it's TORONTO's decision not to prioritize the DRL.
There's no mystery to the whole LRT/subway debate.
It's most sensible to extend a subway 5 km to a huge population node under an overcrowded road than it is to build a huge, new line (especially, more to the point) at the expense of several smaller lines that could add up to more good.
It's your thinking that a Yonge extension is "helping York" and no one else that's the obstacle, with all due respect. People from York work in Toronto, and vice versa. When you build a sensible network you help EVERYBODY. Yes, it would be far preferable there was suddenly $50B just sitting there so we could do the Yonge line and the Eglinton subway and the DRL all at once but that's not reality.
