McGuinty puts the kibosh on Stintz's transit plan

[Moviefan-2]

Uh-oh.

The Karen Stintz campaign has hit a major roadblock. The argument that anyone who doesn't support Stintz's transit plan is lacking "vision" may not sit too well with Toronto Liberals:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ont-back-onecity-transit-plan/article4380105/

Gee, I wonder why the government waited until the Friday before a long weekend to make this announcement? :biggrin1:

This is gonna be fun.

 

[dirk076]

Uh-oh.

The Karen Stintz campaign has hit a major roadblock. The argument that anyone who doesn't support Stintz's transit plan is lacking "vision" may not sit too well with Toronto Liberals:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ont-back-onecity-transit-plan/article4380105/

Gee, I wonder why the government waited until the Friday before a long weekend to make this announcement? :biggrin1:

This is gonna be fun.

Stintz is a fucking moron. Do you really buy the koolaid that this can be done for 30 billion? Her figures are pie in the sky and rely on the province and feds to kick in 2/3's and zero cost overruns. Good luck with that. Because of Toronto's woeful councils past abnd present, the city is 50 years behind in transit. The only way a proper transit plan (subways) can happen is incrementally. Guess who proposed that?

 

[oldjones]

Stintz is a fucking moron. Do you really buy the koolaid that this can be done for 30 billion? Her figures are pie in the sky and rely on the province and feds to kick in 2/3's and zero cost overruns. Good luck with that. Because of Toronto's woeful councils past abnd present, the city is 50 years behind in transit. The only way a proper transit plan (subways) can happen is incrementally. Guess who proposed that?

I'll bite: Stintz's plan—the only one tabled since Transit City—covers thirty years, which sure sounds incremental. No other plans have been outlined although there was a mythical cost-free Sheppard subway talked of by the Mayor. But given his fast-and-loose way with language (he also called trolley cars in a tunnel a subway) no one could seriously call that a plan for anything. But I will give you that it wasn't Kool-Ade™. It was GravyMate.

Just BTW, as I read it One City's cost was projected as around $100B. The number you were looking at was the City's share alone.

 

[Moviefan-2]

Just BTW, as I read it One City's cost was projected as around $100B. The number you were looking at was the City's share alone.

I'm too lazy to look for the plan, but the media reports said the total cost was $30 billion:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-debate-promises-to-be-feisty/article4374282/

 

[slowpoke]

Uh-oh.

The Karen Stintz campaign has hit a major roadblock. The argument that anyone who doesn't support Stintz's transit plan is lacking "vision" may not sit too well with Toronto Liberals:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ont-back-onecity-transit-plan/article4380105/

Gee, I wonder why the government waited until the Friday before a long weekend to make this announcement? :biggrin1:

This is gonna be fun.

In all fairness, the province must be getting tired of revisiting Toronto's long term transit plans again and again. The province is already on the hook for $8.4B and transport minister Chiarelli has a responsibiliy to the GTA to get transit built sooner rather than later. I've been pretty impressed with Karen Stinz so far but too much time and money has gone into some of these transit projects to suddenly start the process all over again. I'm sure some of what Stinz is asking for will eventually get built but some of it will have to go ahead according to the original plans and approvals. Stinz's plan sends everything back to the drawing board and is contingent on additional funding from the feds and from the province. It would set the whole thing back by a couple of years and that is unacceptable. At some point you just have to stop planning and and start doing.

This is from your Globe article. I agree with Chiarelli.

..."The light rail lines planned for Eglinton-Finch are expected to be completed by 2020, along with the replacement and extension of the Scarborough rail line. The Sheppard East light rail line is expected to be finished a year later. The province has committed $8.4-billion towards the transit plan.

“Any penalties related to changes or delays of these plans are the city’s sole responsibility,” said Mr. Chiarelli.

Bruce McCuaig, the president and CEO of Metrolinx, was at the press conference to provide additional information. He said construction on the Eglinton-Finch line was already underway and added that $40 million had been spent on planning, design and engineering on the Scarborough RT project. In addition, vehicles had already been ordered for the line.

"That train has already left the station,” said Mr. Chiarelli. “Council has approved it, there are crews working on implementation, and the funding is available to do it. We need to get transit done and we need to get it done now. We can’t have delays.”...

 

[oldjones]

I'm too lazy to look for the plan, but the media reports said the total cost was $30 billion:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-debate-promises-to-be-feisty/article4374282/

Hardly matters what number was given or why, given that sort of disclaimer. But there is a a tad of difference between 30 and 100.

That aside, what the minister actually said in the G&M article in your OP was that the plan had considerable merit, but it wasn't going to interfere with the transit work underway, that hardly amounts to a a roadblock.

Given that Stintz did much of the stickhandling for that work, one might almost call it an endorsement. However the reasonable evaluation would be to say Chiarelli reacted like a responsible public official trying to make sense and get the job done, given the muddy mess the Mayor made of it, and the time lost from Transit City until now.

Like him, Stintz and DeBaermaker are just trying to work with the hand they got dealt. Sometimes there's a card that's just no use at all. As the Globe said in its editorial:

…by putting forward a serious idea of what that expansion would look like and how to pay for it, a group of municipal councillors have significantly raised the pitifully low bar for discussion about how to ease congestion.

We might try to raise it on TERB as well.

 

[Moviefan-2]

Given that what the minister actually said in the G&M article in your Op was that the plan had considerable merit, but it wasn't going to interfere with the transit work underway, that hardly amounts to a a roadblock.

And the fact that the province won't fund it? Or make the legislative changes to allow it to happen?

That's a roadblock.

 

[larry]

i just had an ah-hah moment. yes, we now have a comprehensive plan that can be discussed and funding looked for. i would only hope the other major departments of the city would do the same. how can the city budget without knowing that multi-billion costs are coming up? so we 100 billion for transit. ok. what else? then we can as a city vote for the candidates that support what we want. ford talked good...gravy train. but he has no smarts. maybe the next mayor will succeed.

 

[james t kirk]

1. The McGuinty Government will be long gone before this or any other plan comes to fruition.

2. A lot can change in time.

3. The Province of Ontario is broke and it is very doubtful that it will fund any further transit initiatives in Toronto other than the Eglinton LRT which it is already on the hook for. (This should actually be point 1 in my list.) Ontario does not have the money.

4. The feds will never kick in a dime. The current Harper regime is only interested in Western Canada. Toronto can suck eggs as far as Harper is concerned.

5. Since I don't see the federal liberals or NDP displacing the conservatives any time soon, well, see Item 4)

6. Toronto will have to pay for its own transit dreams. The figure of $180.00 per household per year is a start, but that figure would probably need to be about a grand per year and I doubt that there is the will on the part of the populace to pay that kind of dough.

7. Toronto would be best to separate from Ontario and form its own province. Given that the City of Toronto pays something like 9 billion a year MORE into the provincial pot every year that it never gets back, we could have a hell of a transit system in no time flat. However, this will never happen.