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TTC: Sheppard Subway Expansion (Speculative)

One thing that's for sure is that...nothing's for sure yet.

What happens if the Provincial Conservative wins a majority?
the current 8.4 billions will get Eglinton buried and 0$ will remain for Finch and Sheppard

NDP?
Not clear but they seems way more flexibility than the Liberals (hybrid of subways and LRT)

Liberals
Stay the course with Transit City

The other factor is...Will Ford win in 2014?
Regardless of who wins...Transit City is very unpopular in the inner suburbs and since they have the majority of the votes, candidates will be quick to somewhat swim away from Transit City as it is...no matter how hard the Toronto Star scream in outrage.

With the Regional Transit taxes to be in effect very soon, anyone thinking people will pay for those taxes and accept Transit City are sadly mistaken. It would have been easier to make them accept the plan before the regional taxes. But having them paying extra (meaning more money available) to still get LRT will be unacceptable to them.

Weren't they told that LRT was chosen due to lack of money available. Once that argument is thrown out the windows, you think they'll pay and not demand rapid transit??? Candidates will be quick to pick up on that...in both Provincial and Municipal elections.

Doesn't make sense? Not if you're thinking as a journalist, urban planner, transit planner or expert. At the end of the day, you have to think like a politician and that's how they think...Get in power and stay in power...no matter the cost. Best examples "Sheppard Line and Vaughn Metropolitan corporate whatever station"

Sheppard is not due to start until 2017. With an election due in both Municipal and Provincial level, you would need and majority Liberal government and Olivia Chow with a left majority of councillors winning...Who wants to bet a 100$ on that scenario?

All the above is from a politician point of view.
 
rbt said:
Stintz had that idea (in the press at least). Ford cannot under any circumstances agree with Stintz; especially if it might get approval from council thus requiring the expenditure of city money.
Click to expand...

TTC studied the B-D extension to STC and found it to be the least feasible solution. Stintz kept repeating that the transit experts recommended Transit City so it must be approved, and then 3 months later came up with her own One City plan which had the B-D extension. How could she say all this with a straight face - the biggest example of hypocrisy and the main reason she lost her credibility with the population of Toronto.

The "left" solution to this transit problem was to build LRT as soon as possible to kill the subway extension forever - even though this lead to large resentment by the public and has greatly impaired the ability to raise money to complete any more transit in Toronto. The "right" solution to this transit problem was to react by stating that the subway should be built as soon as possible to ensure that it will not be killed - even though it is not a priority and uses valuable funds. The "compromise" solution would have been to put a moratorium on the Sheppard corridor for 5 or 10 years - no LRT and not subway. (Possibly there could have been a bit of City money thrown into the pot). This money would be put towards building "subways", either Eglinton grade-separated (elevated) through Scarborough, extending the SRT to Malvern, or beginning the DRL - which will have to go up to Seneca College to properly relieve the Yonge line.
 
Solid Snake said:
Regardless of who wins...Transit City is very unpopular in the inner suburbs and since they have the majority of the votes, candidates will be quick to somewhat swim away from Transit City as it is...no matter how hard the Toronto Star scream in outrage.

With the Regional Transit taxes to be in effect very soon, anyone thinking people will pay for those taxes and accept Transit City are sadly mistaken. It would have been easier to make them accept the plan before the regional taxes. But having them paying extra (meaning more money available) to still get LRT will be unacceptable to them.

Weren't they told that LRT was chosen due to lack of money available. Once that argument is thrown out the windows, you think they'll pay and not demand rapid transit??? Candidates will be quick to pick up on that...in both Provincial and Municipal elections.
Click to expand...

Bingo. Just because Ford is a doofus, the Transit City crowd figured they could go against the wishes of over half the population (more than just Ford campaigned against Transit City) and just press ahead. They may have won the battle, but may wind up losing the war since, as is stated above, people will not want to pay extra taxes just to get LRT.
 
If an LRT ever "kills" the subway forever, it is only because there isn't enough ridership once it is plopped in to require its' replacement. In that case, just what kind of justification does one have that the corridor requires a subway in the first place? On the other hand, if the LRT does what it supposed to do, it will encourage ridership growth to such an extent that it will eventually require a higher order replacement, which is the historical pattern of transit upgrade in the city.

re: winning the battle and losing the war

I have a feeling with this crowd they aren't likely to want to pay extra taxes regardless. Hence the subways by private sector nonsense.

AoD
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
Actually Andrea Horwath basically came out swinging against the regional transit taxes, ditto (not surprisingly) Hudak.

AoD
Click to expand...

And my answer from a politician perspective would be, they will scream against the tax but will gladly let the Liberals implement it...Once either of them takes power, they will leave those taxes there. Wasn't GST supposed to be temporary?
 
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Err, remember we are in a minority government - they will have to wear it just as much for voting for whatever legislation that is necessary to implement it.

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Err, remember we are in a minority government - they will have to wear it just as much for voting for whatever legislation that is necessary to implement it.

AoD
Click to expand...

Sure, Horwath will find a way to justify supporting it since Wynne will have to give in to the NDP's demands to stay in power. Horwath will say something along "that package deal was too good for Ontarians to turn down. We'll vote for the budget but we still disagree with the taxes". She's done it before...She criticized Mcguinty's budget but voted for it. She'll do it again.

She's in no hurry to give up the balance of power until she'll see there's an opportunity to win, then she and the Conservative will defeat the government.

The bottom line is that the Liberals are on borrowed time.
The opposition will let them do the dirty work on taxation.
The opposition will then defeat the government
Election time
New Transit promises that will satisfy the most people to justify not cancelling the tax (subways in Scarborough)
New Transit Plan
End of Transit City
 
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That is of course your interpretation - there are far less rosier scenarios that are guided by transit politics over the past 30 years.

AoD
 
Solid Snake said:
The opposition will let them do the dirty work on taxation.
The opposition will then defeat the government
Election time
New Transit promises that will satisfy the most people to justify not cancelling the tax (subways in Scarborough)
New Transit Plan
End of Transit City
Click to expand...

If you can believe that you can really believe anything. I don't know how you can satisfy "most" people building subways in Scarborough when most people don't live and work in Scarborough. ARL, Milton GO, Hurontario LRT, all-day services on all GO lines, Yonge extension... all those projects need the money that this government would supposedly redirect to "subways in Scarborough" despite every study on ridership saying it isn't required. The NDP base and PC base is not in Scarborough. The PC base is in the suburban, smaller city, and rural areas where "subways in Scarborough" means taxes wasted on Toronto / hog town / the big smoke. The NDP base is in manufacturing and resource sector areas and central cities and their base would be half saying lets not waste money in Toronto, and half saying lets focus on a DRL. In a defeat of the Liberals, with the PC win the most likely scenario, the focus will be on the Niagara peninsula freeway, a Kitchener-Guelph-Vaughan freeway, government workforce reduction, and tax reductions on the middle class and up to "create jobs".
 
Oh wait, I see where you are going. The goal was stating the absurd. OK then, this is the future as I see it:

1. The Liberals pass a tax,
2. The NDP and PC kick them to the polls because of it and the PC's win a majority,
3. The PC's keep the tax and, BAM, they get rid of those streetcars that nobody wants and 5 years later you got this:
dream_toronto_subway_map.jpg


Boo-ya. Take that Liberals and Bike Riding Pinkos.
 
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Solid Snake said:
Weren't they told that LRT was chosen due to lack of money available. Once that argument is thrown out the windows, you think they'll pay and not demand rapid transit??? Candidates will be quick to pick up on that...in both Provincial and Municipal elections.
Click to expand...
There are at least two more hoops to jump through: 1. ridership ; 2. why build one subway line, when you can build more LRT lines with same pot of money. Some will see those as valid points, others might see them as bs. No right or wrong, it all comes down to preference / perspective.
 
EnviroTO said:
If you can believe that you can really believe anything. I don't know how you can satisfy "most" people building subways in Scarborough when most people don't live and work in Scarborough. ARL, Milton GO, Hurontario LRT, all-day services on all GO lines, Yonge extension... all those projects need the money that this government would supposedly redirect to "subways in Scarborough" despite every study on ridership saying it isn't required. The NDP base and PC base is not in Scarborough. The PC base is in the suburban, smaller city, and rural areas where "subways in Scarborough" means taxes wasted on Toronto / hog town / the big smoke. The NDP base is in manufacturing and resource sector areas and central cities and their base would be half saying lets not waste money in Toronto, and half saying lets focus on a DRL. In a defeat of the Liberals, with the PC win the most likely scenario, the focus will be on the Niagara peninsula freeway, a Kitchener-Guelph-Vaughan freeway, government workforce reduction, and tax reductions on the middle class and up to "create jobs".
Click to expand...

You are right but even if the PC base is not within the city of Toronto you can be sure that's what they'll be aiming for at the next election. If you look at the last election, what truly hurt the PC was their inability to win seats in the city. You can be sure they will try to replicate what the Federal Conservatives did and that's winning seats in the city. They won't win seats downtown but Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke...with the right message? If they would have done that last time, we would have had a minority PC government today.

Remember, winning and get in power is their goal. They won't care about ridership in Scarborough, like the Liberals didn't care about ridership in Vaughan.

As an urban/transit planner, I agree with everything you just said. But if you put your politician hat, I disagree with you. Expect them to take advantage of the anti-liberal wave to consolidate their hold on suburban areas and do everything they can to win seats in the inner suburbs. Same for the NDP. They will try to steal seats from the Liberals

After all, subways in Scarborough doesn't mean sending a negative message to the rest of the province by spending money in Toronto. By reallocating the 8.4 Billions on the table and adding an extra 500M$, the SRT would become a subway and Eglinton East would be buried as a subway. Not that much new money would be necessary, just the cancellation of Finch and Sheppard LRT.
 
11th said:
There are at least two more hoops to jump through: 1. ridership ; 2. why build one subway line, when you can build more LRT lines with same pot of money. Some will see those as valid points, others might see them as bs. No right or wrong, it all comes down to preference / perspective.
Click to expand...

Again...the urban planner hat vs a politician hat.

I'm not disagreeing with on what you're saying. I'm just stating the obvious. Politicians don't care about ridership. Look at Vaughan. Tell me the ridership is what got them a subway...Even Sheppard falls in that category. Politicians do what they have to do to win. The PC lost due to their inability to win within the city. Although they stand little chances to win downtown, they will do whatever they can to win the inner suburbs...
 
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