Council did not finish its debate by 8pm on March 21, and a motion to extend time failed, barely, on a vote of 28-15 (a 2/3 majority was needed because this would be a procedural change).
The pro-subway forces are running the clock, but they are simply wasting everyone’s time. On a simple majority basis, the LRT option will pass.
Come back at 9:30 am on March 22.
In the previous article, I reviewed the three main options under study for Sheppard East as well as the comments of the City Planning and Finance departments on various related issues.
In this article, I turn to the Expert Panel’s evaluation of the options, their scoring system, and the question of bias in the process.
The analysis and scoring begins on page 39 of the Expert Panel Report. The panel chose three broad areas for analysis, and subdivided each of these into three subcategories.
In each of the 9 subcategories, the highest possible score is 5 points for an overall raw total of 45. However, the weights assigned to each group are different with Funding & Economic Development getting a weight of 3x, Transit Service 2x, and Sustainability and Social Impact 1.5x. Once the weights are applied, the total potential score is 95 points. These values are normalized up to a “perfect” score of 100.
Table 15 on page 41 summarizes these scores. In order that readers can see how the weights affect the outcome, I have recast these data to show the buildup of the weighted scores to a 100-scale. Continue reading
Steve Munro 