Updated June 27 at 5:20pm: I have written a political analysis of today’s announcement for the Torontoist website that will probably go live tomorrow morning. A line-by-line review of the plan will go up here later the same day.
TTC Chair Karen Stintz and Vice-Chair Glen De Baeremaeker will formally announce a new plan called “One City” on June 27 at 10:30.
The plan already has coverage on the Star and Globe websites. Maps: Globe Star
I will comment in more detail after their press conference, but two points leap off the page at me:
- The proposed funding scheme for the $30-billion plan presumes 1/3 shares from each of the Provincial and Federal governments. This money is extremely unlikely to show up, especially Ottawa’s share. From Queen’s Park, some of the funding is from presumed “commitments” to current projects such as the Scarborough RT/LRT conversion which would be replaced by a subway extension. The rest is uncertain.
- The “plan” is little more than a compendium of every scheme for transit within the 416 that has been floated recently in various quarters (including this blog). What is notable is the fact that glitches in some of the existing ideas (notably the fact that the Waterfront East line ends at Parliament) are not addressed. The whole package definitely needs some fine tuning lest it fall victim to the dreaded problem of all maps — once you draw them, it’s almost impossible to change them.
For those who keep an eye on political evolution, the brand “One City” surfaced in April 2012 in a speech made by Karen Stintz at the Economic Club of Canada. This idea of a new, unifying transit brand appears to have been cooking for some time.
Steve Munro 
You might change your mind after you hear about Stintz’s (and DeBaeremaeker’s) new One City subway plan. I take it the pro-subway forces recently whacked them both upside the head pretty hard with a couple of rusty GRS train identity coils (both of which I think were tuned to NOT IN SERVICE). Their new position on a BD extension to STC is like a facing junction set to flip-flop mode.
Steve: “One City” is nothing more than every single plan, errors and all, thrown into a pot. The assumption of 1/3 funding from each of Queen’s Park and Ottawa is laughable. When Miller tried this assumption, he was hounded by all of the financially right-thinking folks. Stintz gets away with it?
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Why is the Jane LRT proposal still being taken seriously? Hasn’t the EA shown that the street is just too narrow south of Wilson to do surface LRT?
Steve: This is one of several examples of the fine tuning needed. The plan has picked up most of Transit City unchanged except for shortening Don Mills to end at Eglinton where it meets the DRL, now renamed the Don Mills Express.
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Stintz gets away with it because Ford is so way off the deep end on transit issues, she looks sane.
I agree with you this isn’t going to fly.
But it IS going to get people thinking about what we really need, and thus puts a big fat sword through any lingering Ford thoughts of campaigning on a subway to STC.
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Whatever we land up doing I’d like to suggest that we get the Minister of the Environment to use the special and rarely used permission to skip the whole Environmental Assessment process (I believe last used for the Portlands Energy Centre to avoid brownouts).
This should shave at least 5 or more years off this and save us 100s of millions of dollars not to mention giving any sort of rapid transit a chance to survive.
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To be honest, I’m fine with this plan, so long as the Sheppard West and Yonge North subways are consigned to the bottom of the list. Also, the plan shouldn’t be limited to only what’s proposed now.
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…”so long as the Sheppard West and Yonge North subways are consigned to the bottom of the list”
Or, to put it more nicely, so long as Council deliberates carefully a priority ranking order for each project.
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Also, how can the Scarborough Subway possibly be justifiable with the Scarborough Express and the Scarborough LRT (both of which provide express-like service on already exclusive ROW’s) only a few kilometres away?
Steve: This plan is a composite of everyone’s pet projects and various other schemes like Transit City that have been on the table for some time. The idea of a critical look at them all as a package isn’t part of the evaluation at this stage. Clearly the hope is that staff will sort all this out in their review. Then the serious battles really begin as Councillors swap votes and support.
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Oh dear. Look, I am for transit expansion, and for proper funding of it, but this, uh, this is interesting. Is Karen suggesting we take over the Toronto section of 2 GO lines, and scrapping a fully funded transit project, something that actually has the support of City Council? Dedicated property taxes is a good start, but Harper paying for this, even McGuinty, isn’t happening.
I wonder what will come out at the news conference.
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My prediction is that the council motion will ask Council to approve revenue streams to fund a plan on the scale of the proposed plan, rather than the plan itself.
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Mikey: From what I can tell, the Scarb Subway is proposed as a replacement to the Scarb RT & it’s proposed LRT successor.
Steve: I suspect that proposal gets on the map because the Metrolinx estimate (and commitment) for the SRT replacement includes a chunk of the line north of McCowan Station plus some rather hefty conversion costs. Therefore the “marginal” cost of going with this subway, presuming that Metrolinx even agrees, is based on an apples to oranges comparison. However, given the desire for a subway in Scarborough, it’s an easy way to bring the Scarborough contingent onside.
Queen’s Park has not even formally approved what Council voted for earlier this year, and now Stintz wants to change it again.
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I looked at the map and laugh. Steve, you have described in various post that Union Station is at capacity and how Metrolinx want to move some of the traffic somewhere else. Here, we have everything shoving into Union. We can expect people to transfer to the Yonge or University Line. The Union Station subway platforms don’t seem like it will hold all the new passengers for the two rail lines.
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If we’re going to placate Pasternak with Sheppard West and de Baeremaeker with a massively expensive pull-around of the B-D line through the suburbs east of Kennedy, didn’t anyone consider throwing Holyday a bone by putting in the Kipling LRT (per the recent BlogTO blast from the past). Hey, if the crayons are out, let’s put an LRT to the Toronto Islands too!
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Well, at least there’s no scheme included to extend the Bloor-Danforth to Sherway Gardens. Every time I hear that proposal my eyes roll all over again.
The West Waterfront LRT is back. Grimes seemed to support it back in Miller time. However, if he emitted a peep over Ford’s initial cancellation of Transit City, I missed it. It will be interesting to see what his take will be now, given that he’s managed to be 100% Ford Nation according to Matt Elliott.
Given the pace of development happening around Humber Bay, and now moving into Mimico (40+ storey condos proposed), there needs to be increased transit for the area. The Humber Bay Express remains a dud, typically running with more empty seats than filled. (This while peak-period 501s are at full standing load on Lake Shore.)
Steve: A big question mark for the WWLRT is the future of the CNE lands and where any new line should be routed to serve future developments in the middle or south end of the site. Then there’s the unresolved problem of the Sunnyside connection versus a link at Colborne Lodge Road.
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Councillors Giorgio Mammoliti, Denzil Minnan-Wong, and Doug Ford, along with Mayor Rob Ford, are anti-transit, in my books. At least, TTC Chair Karen Stintz and TTC Vice Chair Glenn De Baeremaeker have used Transit City (and the Transit City Bus Plan) as starting points for more public transit in Toronto, which includes not only heavy rail, but light rail, streetcars, and buses, where they are appropriate.
There could still be adjustments made. The Don Mills Express (AKA Downtown Relief Line) should, at the very least, reach University and then maybe Exhibition Place. The St. Clair streetcar could be extended to Scarlet Road, not just Jane Street. I thought they might have included an extension to the Bloor-Danforth of some sort from Kipling to maybe Sherway Gardens?
But, you’re right, its basically ALL suggestions and plans for Toronto mixed together as one plan. Now if only the Canadian federal government will no longer be the only western democracy that does not fund urban public transit without making a special case of it.
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I’m going with a “cautiously optimistic – glass half full” approach to this plan. Part of me feels this is Network 2011 all over again and that this plan will probably be debated until the bitter end (ie. look at the Toronto Sun’s front cover). However, it does and should open serious discussions on transit needs in Toronto – and because this is such a “Grand Plan” it should remain a topic for quite a while and a lengthy and serious debate on transit in this City, I feel, is long overdue.
I think someone has already said that if 1/3 of this plan is even built, it would be monumental.
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While I don’t think it’s justifiable, I guess they are meant to serve different purposes. If Scarborough Express is just beefed up service along the existing GO route, then it has one stop at Kennedy, one stop at Sheppard and one stop at Steeles. About a third of the station density as on Scarborough Subway, meaning truly express service – at least until you have to hold for an hour outside Union Station due to congestion. Unfortunately, I’d like to point out that GO already runs rush hour service for these stops. That service is currently barely used at all. There’s maybe two or three dozen people who get on the 7:27 at Kennedy with me.
The Scarborough-Malvern LRT is five kilometers further east which doesn’t seem that unreasonable a distance for spacing. Personally, I’d put this line as the priority. There are a lot of people in Malvern and they currently have bus-only transit service. Markham and Morningside bus routes are each at 20K daily ridership, and the 3 express buses through there (Nugget, Nielson and Progress) are each 5K to 10K. Unfortunately, this plan still drops them off at Kennedy Station, one of the least pleasant transfer points I’ve ever been in.
I guess that with SRT nearing the end of its service life, there’s more immediate pressure and incentive to address it. I just think it would be a shame if eastern Scarborough and Malvern ended up not getting improved service because, hey there’s a new subway stop five kilometers over that way.
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Even if the province and the feds don’t contribute, the remaining $10 billion (from higher local taxes) could build quite a lot of new public transit especially if it’s on the surface.
Building a subway from Kennedy to STC (instead of an SRT rebuild) for less than $500 million extra sounds attractive.
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Just when I thought Karen Stintz had learned to shut up and leave well enough alone… Does anyone realize that this proposal can effectively throw us back into months of debate and what not without shovels still not being put into the ground on the projects we have going now…
I think I speak for most of Toronto when I say “SHUT UP AND BUILD SOMETHING!”
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I can’t believe that “I-METRO-E” and the Yonge extension made it onto the map. Talk about horse trading. Someone else in a previous thread suggested fusing the Richmond Hill GO line and DRL proposals into a rapid transit route by building a subway portal between York Mills and Lawrence. That’s something ambitious that makes sense . . .which is exactly what Toronto city council knows nothing about.
Then again maybe the point of this is just to get the tax through council, with tacit assumption that this “plan” will be revised later.
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Although I would generally support the idea of raising property taxes (on residential properties) to fund transit, this seems to me to be a mishmash of transit projects that makes little sense, and undoubtedly the list of projects that a property tax increase would fund will be radically different if/when city council ever approves this. For instance it makes no sense to build a subway on Sheppard West but a LRT on Sheppard East, and support from any of the right wing members of council will likely depend on a Sheppard East subway extension. Furthermore having LRT on Don Mills north of Eglinton makes no sense, as anyone familiar with the DVP/404 will know that it is much busier north of Eglinton than south of Eglinton, making me suspect that a full Don Mills subway up to Finch or Highway 7 would get high ridership for its entire length (and would almost certainly outperform the Spadina subway north of St. Clair) and also the Richmond Hill line takes such a convoluted route through the Don Valley that it misses most of the trip generators on Don Mills Road. Finally other projects like the Zoo LRT are a waste of money, and the need for replacing the Scarborough RT with a subway is questionable if the Stouffville GO train line will get double tracked and higher frequency service as well.
I hope that this plan evolves into a sort of “Measure R” type of plan, where a referendum is carried out to approve higher taxes for transit. Higher sales taxes and/or road tolls will be needed for the portion provided by higher levels of government because there is no way that Ottawa and Queen’s Park will be providing any money given high budget deficits. Furthermore this sort of proposal would be much more viable if it were GTA-wide, and included projects such as the Lakeshore/Milton/CP GO upgrade and the Hurontario LRT. The lack of anything beyond Toronto’s borders in this plan, and in Mississauga in particular, is puzzling. There should be a region-wide referendum to implement a property tax hike, a 1% sales tax hike and a 10 cent/km (less than half the 407 rate) rush hour only road toll on all highways to fund a basket of transit projects, particularly GO train expansion and the Don Mills subway line.
Steve: It’s a Toronto plan, not a GTA plan, and that’s why there’s nothing beyond the city boundaries. Nothing is stopping Mayor Hazel from saying “hey, that’s a great idea” and going after local tax revenue to build transit in her city too. Don’t hold your breath for Metrolinx. They have known what the shopping list of revenue tools looks like for years, but Queen’s Park is terrified of actually trying to implement any of them.
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It seems like the map is largely a way to sell the taxes necessary to fund *any* serious expansion of transit in this city. People won’t be happy about taxes for generic “transit improvements” but if you give them something to look at which gives a sense of real progress they may be more inclined to bite. Think of the LA referendum.
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One statement that jumped out at me from Stintz open letter was: “It will give Toronto “skin in the game”, to help get Toronto the transit everyone demands, sooner rather than later.”
I think this is exactly right and very wise. Toronto should have insisted on paying its third of Transit City. This would have prevented McGuinty and Ford from making changes without Council.
By putting some of money in the City and, to an extent, Torontonians have a much stronger voice in the decision-making process.
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It’s easy to get lost in the details. And there are many shortcomings in the plan. It is basically a “chicken in every pot” approach of giving everybody what they want instead of making difficult, informed decisions.
However, it accomplishes two very important goals that we should not lose sight of:
One, Ford no longer owns subways as an issue. His councillor brother was trying to describe this as a flip flop: first they were against subways then, sensing trouble, were for them. I think the public will understand that some subways make sense and some don’t.
Two, there is a huge public debate about raising money to invest in transit expansion. I don’t think anybody who believes in sustainable cities and providing mobility to non-drivers can find any fault with this.
Arguing about which transit projects to build first is a victory because it assumes that transit is the only way to provide mobility to the city – and that we will be investing in expansion.
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Steve said:
In all fairness the TTC and now Metrolinx have gone to some lengths to create this apples to oranges comparison, going back as far as he Soberman study. Beyond that, given the commitment to Sheppard light rail there is effectively a commitment to take whatever rapid transit exists in Scarborough beyond STC to at least Sheppard. I’ve said this before, but if the SRT project is or must be a line to Malvern the marginal cost of a subway is very low, and I really can’t bring myself to believe that pushing most riders bus to SRT transfer deeper into Scarborough is greater than eliminating the SRT-Subway transfer.
That said, there are undoubtedly problems with the subway proposal, most notably the loss of the Humber connection and the reality that with Eglinton being built the SRT-Subway transfer will certainly diminish in proportional significance as a component of Kennedy’s passenger flow. Ultimately though my feeling is that if this gets to council, whatever happens, the subway is what we’ll get and the deciding factor will be Councillor’s realisation of how big an impact the conversion time for the existing line would have.
Steve: Yes, the TTC was responsible for seriously misrepresenting the comparison between keeping the RT and doing anything else for quite some time. As you say, the fact that the subway goes up to Sheppard is an important part of this plan compared to all previous schemes where it ended at STC leaving riders north of the 401 stuck with bus feeder services.
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I’m shocked to see this proposal from Stintz & De Baeremaekar. How can she play with the “by-no-means-a-pet-project” Air Rail Link and turn it into her pet project Etobicoke Express?
More importantly, why go through this pointless exercise of rehashing old proposals & sticking them all together without figuring out their weaknesses & strengths? I’ve heard of “old wine in new bottles” but this is which is really nothing more than the same old wine(s) blended together into an old bottle and just scribbling over the old label.
How about one time where the people in charge actually trying to understand the details of those plans to know that would make them work or fail – before launching the plans in the public. How about telling us & showing us that they have done their due diligence & evaluated the proposals (like the Jane LRT) first?
Scarborough & Etobicoke “Express” (really limited stop rail) lines are nice, but should the TTC run them? Will GO’s contracted out crews operate the lines on behalf of the TTC? What kind of trainsets will they use? Who will be responsible for maintenance & storage? Would the Don Mills express use the same technology as the Scarborough & Etobicoke Express lines or something different?
The Scarborough Subway concept seems like a good idea, but didn’t Scarborough councillors already accept the SLRT as a better choice with more stops? Also, one has to wonder what will happen with the SRT / SLRT. With the Scarborough Express proposal, could this mean that the SRT / SLRT have to be sacrificed to find room in the rail corridor to double track (or triple track?) the GO rail line? Or could the SRT tracks be incorporated into the GO rail line/Scarborough Express (with the power rails & reaction rail removed)?
I have other questions (as I’m sure that you, Steve, and everyone else does) … but I will ask them later on.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: The plan is a compendium of just about everything proposed at one time or another by various politicians and planners, tempered by a bit of common sense (taking the “Don Mills Express” (DRL) to Eglinton). They seem to have left the bad news piece of learning about the technical constraints for staff to handle in a follow-up report. This gets the general political approval for the funding mechanism rolling without getting bogged down in debates about just how worthwhile or practical some of the routes are.
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This new plan is overkill and makes Stintz and DeBaeremaeker look very indecisive and foolish. The Fords were right — Stintz can’t seem to make up her mind.
Why is she now supporting Sheppard W. and BD subway extensions? Kennedy will have to be redesigned once again. Also, what happens to the SRT elevated guideway and stations? Do we tear them down, or just abandon them? Did they factor that cost in? We’re not talking about simply tiling up the stairways to Bay Lower here — taking down the SRT will cost big bucks.
Finally, why does B-Y need improvement with a DRL, and why does it stop at Queen and Yonge? … because of “Queen Lower”? A certain Commissioner has obviously been twisting her hair curlers too tight.
Steve: At the press conference, it was clear that the “DRL” could end at King or Queen Stations. My own preference (as stated here before) is for it to go in via Wellington which makes easy connections to both the Yonge and University lines, and also provides a comparatively easy path to the proposed new GO terminal west of Spadina and Front and, thence, to the CNE. Coming across Queen or King pretty much ensures that the line won’t go further west.
I don’t know the details of the proposed improvements at Bloor Yonge which, obviously, don’t need to be as extensive as once planned.
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If the property tax portion got approved, then at least the city would have a constant source of revenue to pay for projects on its own, independent of other levels of government. Progress would be slow but steady. If council could refrain from redrawing the map every year just to prove that their spaghetti is better than the last one’s…
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My impression of commentary on this site:
All this grumping smacks of not-invented-here syndrome. One City is a huge win for Toronto, and I’m going to be ringing my councillor’s phone off the hook demanding that he support this plan.
Steve: The writer’s tongue was firmly in cheek. It’s a joke about the horror that we might actually build something rather than talking and posturing endlessly.
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Steve, Why have no local Conservative MPs gone before the Tory caucus to put forward that Toronto is owed! Why, well we had the G20 foisted upon us a few years back by the feds because their planning was all wrong for small town Ontario.It certainly helped Huntsville(with the odd buck thrown here and there) and with everything that occured and all the damage….well, there should have been some and transit financial help as a thank you for everything!!Take care.
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The ‘take over’ of the GO lines are (I think) versions of Markham’s plans for short trains running on a turn-up-and-go frequency. Not intrinsically a bad idea – I’d love to see what passenger numbers it would yield.
Steve: The big difference here is the through-routing of the Scarborough Express from the Uxbridge Sub through Union Station into the Airport Express on the west side.
This does seem to be Transit City + Every Other Suggestion Going… a subway on Sheppard *and* and LRT on Finch seems excessive. (Personally, I’d like to see a link between Finch West and Sheppard-Yonge, by extending either the Sheppard line to the Finch LRT).
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I see this as having more emphasis on a ‘process’ as opposed a ‘plan.’ If all of these different lines can be evaluated using a common cost benefit analysis it will take out a lot of the pitting technology & neighbourhoods against each other that the Ford’s and their associates have used to some affect. This also meets the amendments at last LRT debate proposed by Fillion and McMahan to provide some real guidance on priorities which will inform not only councillors but newspapers, citizens etc.
Secondly, a dedicated tax into a ‘lock box’ may prove effective. Such an approach is how the Spadina subway extension was financed. If the highest priority project already has X in city money and needs 2X from the province and the feds it may be easier to focus their minds. In any event, the outcome can not be any worse than what has been accomplished since the 60s.
Coming up with a plan, without funding, isn’t bad. What comes first: the plan or the funding? The original Transit City was announced without any funding and then several months later the province agreed to financing. Though they later cut back on the scope and extended the time line I suspect without the initial fund less plan the province would have subways going to Richmond Hill instead of LRT on Finch, Shepard and Eglinton.
I hope the evaluation is a little broader than the literal lines and considers alternatives such as those discussed on DRL that was held on this blog.
This also gives opportunities for other jurisdictions such as Mississauga, York to mesh and hopefully have an effect on Metrolinx and the province.
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One thing I don’t follow is why the plan assumes zero borrowing for such massive capital expenditures. Why not? Would it not be faster (and less dependent on the vagaries of “senior” governments) to use that >$1bn per year to finance such a transit expansion?
I suppose the other issue is that this doesn’t cover operating or ongoing capital expenses – and *those* certainly should be supplemented by revenues from either the feds/province or equivalent taxes/revenue tools available to them but not the city.
Steve: I agree that the City should look at the new tax revenue stream separately from year-by-year cash flows and use short-term borrowing to deal with peaks in spending that are inevitable in this sort of environment. As for ongoing costs, the question did come up, but De Baeremaeker was quite firm that the new tax revenue should be earmarked for capital construction so that people could see where it was going. If more money is needed for operations, that would be a separate matter.
The level of distrust that the City would actually use the money on transit projects rather than diverting into other accounts is quite high. Speaking on radio earlier today, I suggested that taxpayers might want to pay with marked bills!
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The problem is, the attractiveness fades fast when you realize that you need to build the entire plan for that area of Scarborough to properly replace the RT which would result in worse transit for up to ten years for some of the current riders; assuming the subway extension is completed by 2020 with the RT somehow surviving that long and the other components being completed by 2030. And when you factor in our “plan five times to build a quarter of it” transit mindset in this city, it’s highly probable that not all routes on the plan will be built.
Of course, the biggest problem with the BD extension instead of rebuilding the RT is that the need to replace the RT this decade forces it to be prioritized over the “Don Mills Express” line when the Express line should be built first.
As a result, it would make more sense to continue the conversion as planned and spend the money to complete the line to Malvern Town Centre while pushing back the BD extension towards the end of the plan; which would be around the earliest point when the city would be beginning to plan the replacement for the Flexitys currently on order. Then service along the RT route can be abandoned in stages once the extension opens, and possibly turning the trimmed RT line into a branch of the Scarborough-Malvern line, while maintaining the infrastructure as a link between the Sheppard East Carhouse and the Crosstown.
Steve: The political problem is that the Scarborough Subway is essential to get Scarborough Council onside and undercut any hope the Fords might have of derailing the whole scheme.
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The map should, and will be modified over time. I am less concerned with the details of the map than I am with philosophy behind it: that Toronto needs an aggressive, comprehensive, long term transit plan that includes all modes, serves all parts of the city and is appropriately funded with a large, predictable, dedicated new revenue source. I agree with all of that.
Moreover, I respect Stintz, et. al. for openly calling for new taxes and taking the heat that brings. There are far too many politicians and provincial agencies (not to name any names) who are afraid to have this adult conversation with the public.
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What is “TTC express rail” and how does that differ from GO Transit since it appears to mirror go routes?
Steve: There is some inconsistency in naming of routes. The Don Mills Express is a subway line and it’s “express” only in the sense of providing an alternate route out of downtown that avoids Bloor-Yonge. The Etobicoke and Scarborough Express lines (actually a single line) might be subways, or LRT or commuter rail, or who knows what. This is the vaguest part of the whole proposal and appears to simply be a lightly-brewed version of the I-METRO-E scheme of Markham Councillor Jones and proposals by various groups agitating for the Air Rail Link to be converted to a local, regular fare line.
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Which is what vexes me the most about how badly the Fords have poisoned the transit well in Scarborough because rather than having the attitude of “we’re getting multiple transit lines including a subway by 2030”, they now are thinking “we’re getting nothing until a subway is built”.
Frankly, I feel that a Scarborough LRT belt line based on merging the Scarborough RT and Scarborough-Malvern lines with a subway cutting across the centre would benefit the residents of Scarborough far better than a “subways or bust” plan that OneCity suggests for them.
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Hello Steve,
Care to explain the Wilson BRT to me?
Steve: I suspect this relates to Wilson’s faded status as a major terminal. Otherwise it is a puzzlement.
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I’m no numbers guy, but I’m finding it hard to grasp that a totally new tunneling project could possibly be almost as cheap as the full SRT replacement and extension. I would have expected that the Scarborough Subway would be at least 3-4 times the cost.
Also, I wonder what the sunk costs would be with the abandonment of the SLRT plan?
Steve: I too find the high cost of the SRT/SLRT conversion a bit hard to swallow. Some of this is related to structures needed at Highland Creek, and some will definitely be both for fleet costs and for a share of Conlins Road Carhouse which will still have to be built, but no longer can be partly billed to the SRT project. The TTC won’t need more subway cars for the extension as they have far more T1s than they need to operate the BD and Sheppard lines. This is a side-effect of fleet planning before the decision to go to the Toronto Rockets on the Yonge-University line when these surplus T!s were counted as part of the YUS fleet.
I suspect that the OneCity assumption that all of the SRT money is actually available to be redirected to the subway proposal may prove false.
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Steve if you could please clarify some of the details regarding the Etobicoke, Scarborough Express Rail. Will this line require tunneling for its approach to union? Will there be another station at the foot of Yonge? Is it much the same as the Toronto Board of Trade’s proposed all day two way GO service?
Steve: The details of these lines are murky, and neither Stintz nor De Baeremaeker were clear on what technology they would operate with (subway, LRT or mainline rail cars). There is also a question of track capacity at Union Station. This is the least well thought out of all of the proposals. If you go to the OneCity website, you will see just how threadbare the announcement is for specifics on individual routes.
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Since the Guru of transit, Steve Munro, is so against all components of this plan, perhaps he can suggest a plan himself?
Steve: And which Steve Munro would that be? I happen to support much of what is in this plan, and would love to know where you get the idea I am opposed to it. There are big issues with funding, with money for future operations, and for the details of some routes which have not been reviewed carefully, but all of these can be addressed. I will be doing a line-by-line review in the next day or so.
As a footnote, yes, it suits some people to portray me as an aging curmudgeon who doesn’t like anything he didn’t propose, and isn’t too sure even about that. That’s not true, but anyone who actually reads what I write would know that.
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