AZ, your comments are idiotic because you're saying that GO is to blame for Toronto's suburbs, which is just plain retarded.
Your conclusion is retarded. GO is bad because it helps aid the suburbs. Go did not create the suburbs, nor will the suburbs disappear if Go disappears.
hat's definitely a better solution than focusing on downtown Toronto and leaving people in the suburbs to rot.
People left to go to the suburbs so that the city would rot. We need to stop giving them handouts by enhancing their life in the suburbs. They should be responsible for the consequences of choosing to live so far away, and one way to do that is to not enhance Go.
So as a solution, we should force them all to drive everywhere! Yeah, that'll make them so mad!
Well there are two possibilities. To not enhance service to their exurbs. Or to eliminate the service. Both are better than to enhance service to them. They should pay for their decision to live so far from the central business district. Hm, raising the fee for using the Go train might just do the trick.
Sorry, but I don't get your logic that Metropolitan Toronto did anything substantial to combat sprawl.
In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s MT helped in coordinating development with rapid transit. This has resulted in Toronto being one of the most livable cities in north america. It was coordinated land use planning. MT had the authority to veto certain construction. By the 1980s population was growing outside of where MT had authority. The unplanned suburbs outside of what is today toronto capitalized by taking industry and people out of the city. Cheaper taxes and cheaper homes, such standard stuff that killed american cities.
Secondly, there's a good reason why people in the suburbs don't want to become under the jurisdiction of a larger government: they want to be able to think for themselves.
This is the logic that is used against planning. Lets not plan. Lets let the private sector do it all, they know best. This is where what you have said comes from, this want to not be restrained by some higher planning agency.
The most livable cities in the world had strong regional governments. Arguably the best place for transit on the world is stockholm. All their suburbs were under the metropolitan government. It is a big shame that not all of toronto's were.
Thinking for oneself is one thing. But when that impairs the neighboring village/town then that is another. Thinking for oneself has resulted in short term profits- at the expense of long term problems.
No thanks.
Would you feel angry if people in Chicago got to decide what was happening in Toronto?
If Toronto had 100,000 people and was right beside Chicago, then yes, of course that there should be a regional government to help integrate stuff. Heck, chicago should just gobble up toronto if that were the case. Instead the chicagoland has no regional government. But instead it is proud to have the most suburbs out of any metropolitan area in the world - over 300 - and along with that has the most divisions of decision making - something what illinois is very notorious for.
edit/add:
it's not like Toronto took a big step on suburbanization
It took a very big step on suburbanization in the 1980s and 1990s. Dunno about the 2000s, but I think so for that too. What is the result - TTC ridership falling by a quarter between 1988 and 1996.