Death of Transit City leads to surprisingly widespread grieving
We already knew that the allies of former mayor David Miller were angry over the announced death of Transit City and getting ready for a fight to resuscitate it. But what about the people Transit City was supposed to serve? There are a whole bunch of communities across the city that would have been served by LRTs and are now basically going to get nothing new. The Globe and Mail has a good piece dealing with the communities who’ve been abandoned by Rob Ford’s Transportation City Plan:
But Steve Diamond, like anyone eyeing Toronto’s volatile real-estate market, also likes to know what he’s getting into.
“The private sector, in order to make some investments, needs some certainty,” he said. “If we are going to go with a subway system, then we need to know what that entails. If we’re going to go with a light-rail transit system, we need to know that’s certain. And if it’s going to be a combination of the two systems, we need to know that, as well.”
“The uncertainty does put the city at risk,” Mr. Diamond said. “And what we can’t go through is four years where there’s no improvements to the city’s infrastructure in terms of transportation. That would be a disaster.”
The article quotes Karen Stintz as saying that the plans coming from the TTC in January will simply be “tweaks” and that she expects it to all go to a vote before council—two things that both seem to be contradicted by the mayor, at least last week. It’s becoming harder to escape the sneaking suspicion that this may be no more than a rebranding exercise so that Mayor Ford can claim responsibility for Miller’s work.
Meanwhile, in grieving farther afield, the mayor of Thunder Bay also has an opinion on whether the fate of Transit City should go before Toronto City Council or not—because, of course, the LRTs that were going to service Transit City are made in a Bombardier plant in the Northwestern Ontario city. Keith Hobbs and councillors in Thunder Bay are worried that a Transit City cancellation could be devastating, but we can’t stop the gravy without stopping the (light) trains, apparently.
• The cost of putting the brakes on Transit City [Globe and Mail]
• Let’s get on track [The Chronicle Journal]
*cue music* “I’m going off the rails on a gravy train.” All joking aside, perhaps Rob Ford is thinking forward for the auto industry b/c let’s face it, what were they planning to do when vehicles became more environmentally friendly? Get rid of your stock while you can.
Rob Ford is some kind of conservative, but not a fiscal conservative if he thinks the cost of cancelling transit city is acceptable. Where is his regard for citizens/taxpayers and our hard-earned money?! He is wasting our taxes.
“Transit City” is such an overplayed buzzword we no longer even know what it means. Election results show us we certainly don’t need yet another environmental assessment on Streetcars. YES, the overhead wires are unforgivably ugly, the roadwork is extensive, invasive, costly and never-ending. Construction crews are forever building, rebuilding and maintaining even old lines that have been here forever. Streetcars have done nothing but created _more_ gridlock, blocking traffic, idling engines and a dangerous hazard for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists… because yes the passengers have to get off and emergency and other vehicles need to be able to pass them safely etc. At least a bus is designed to be in traffic. Streetcars may indeed be a part of our ‘heritage’ — So as such should be reserved for Museums, the CNE and other amusement parks… but not on 2010 Toronto streets, please!