Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
Multiple bad decisions are coming home to roost and he wants somebody else to blame.
1) Higher governments are refusing to fund Stage 3. The same lot also facing bus cuts. This now means more angry suburbanites stuck in traffic.
2) He stuck a massive increase on development fees. The federal and provincial governments will be pushing to reverse some of those. More angry taxpaying suburbanites.
3) There's the Lansdowne boondoggle that is the cherry on top.
Ottawa is now going to see the kind of property tax increases a lot of the 905 gets, as they suburban ponzi scheme unravels. And he knows this is going to end his (and many other) municipal political career. It's going to be a spiral of decline. Transit was just the first cut. Next up, is libraries, roads, rec centres and eventually even police and fire. We'll all be paying more every year and getting progressively less. This is what Ottawa voted for. And I hope this city get it nice and hard. Hopefully no more provincial and federal bailouts for their bad decisions.
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I think your predictions are right on. I have predicted this since phase 2 was funded and they basically said it only worked if ridership stayed the same and interest rates stayed the same. But what could McKenney have done differently? Or do you mean voted for the last 15 years? Ottawa chose to abandon the 1/3 1/3 1/3 split when costs escalated. They could have abandoned expensive stations, branches and let the feds or province pitch in to add them back in. I think that is how the airport station got funded.
It's obvious the 37% tax increase he is talking about is what is needed to stabilize transit. Better to bite the bullet and just do it while also consolidating bus lines and focussing on value. The transit levy should also not be service dependent since the whole city benefits from transit and most of us don't use it in every ward anyway.
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