Quote:
Originally Posted by counterfactual
I think Toronto is a great city. We could certainly learn a lot from how they do some planning and development there, especially on intense density, height, heritage/community signage, and the value of mass public transit. On the latter point, just for a sense of the difference, the most conservative candidates in the mayoral race (the "cost cutters") are out there pitching subway expansion while lefties are pitching surface subways. I mean, that's the frame of the debate; subways or LRT. Pick one.
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Agreed on all points. Except, allow me to rant about transit in Toronto:
After spending five years in Toronto, there probably isn't a city in Canada with a more frustrating discussion around public transit, and it is almost guaranteed that none of the plans being discussed by current mayoral contenders will ever be substantially built, and certainly not any time soon. I think Halifax needs to back very far away from the TO model on transit.
Background: When Rob Ford came in back in 2010, he cancelled a fully funded, far-reaching LRT called Transit City that would've gone a long way toward making up for the fact that the city's transit infrastructure is about two-three decades behind where it should be, for that population and land area.
Instead, Ford pitted suburbs vs. downtown and promised a Scarborough subway, which would end up eating up all the Transit City funding for a few measly stops in an area of low population density (because subways are vastly more expensive than LRT). His whole thing was "downtown has subways, so should the suburbs" which is absurd given the difference in density, cost, etc., but cost-benefit analysis is not Ford's strong suit.
Anyway, the city's single best transit hope was destroyed and will probably never come back, since Ford totally changed the conversation: It's now all about what the suburbs "deserve" vs what downtown "deserves", and the sense of anger and bitterness and entitlement between the two have complete driven the political discussion about transit ever since, and into this election, drowning out rationality—which is why David Soknacki, the only candidate with a rational transit plan, was polling around 6% and dropped out of the race.
Chow's plan is second best, but even she's pandering somewhat, and she's almost certain to lose the race. John Tory's Smart Track plan won't work at all, given that he has no viable funding plan and the details feel, as columnist John Barber wrote, like "
back of the napkin improvisation." Ford's plan exist only in Ford's head, since it hinges upon the private sector magically paying for the many billions of dollars it will cost, just for the right to build some condos nearby.
The most important single piece of infrastructure, the downtown relief line, is still controversial, still not firmly planned, and won't be carrying passengers for well over a decade, even as the Yonge and Bloor-Danforth lines are well beyond rush-hour capacity and plagued by constant breakdowns, making commuting a constant frustration, to put it mildly. And many citizens and more than a few of the debaters in the political sphere still don't even understand the difference between LRT and streetcars. (Or, like the Fords, pretend not to.)
The political discussion is not driven by vision or by a genuine sense of what the city or region needs, but by transparent vote-grabbing and pandering to various NIMBY interests. It is a profoundly depressing vision of non-cooperation and self-interest, and it's actually becoming a real threat to the city's long-term viability. It's horrible.
Transit in Toronto is totally screwed and will probably get a lot worse before it gets better. I actually feel it's possible Halifax might have a meaningful rapid-transit expansion before another line even opens in Toronto (save the under-construction and three-decades delayed Eglinton LRT, killed my Mike Harris for exactly the same pandering political reasons).
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