You really need to be a Torontonian to recognize the absurdity of the Ontario government’s latest plan for Toronto transit. It seems to be a right of passage for Toronto politicians that they all have to give transit another kick in passing. Premier Doug Ford should be passing out cigars for this baby.
The new scheme has the Ford signature subway to Scarborough. It will probably get the title of the Rob Ford Memorial Ditch if it ever gets dug. Built is yet another problem.
The parsimonious progressive conservatives of Ontario do not have the money. And they really have no intention of finding it.
As frightening as the plan might be, it does provide the odd chuckle. Why do you think the government wants a subway terminus at Ontario Place? It sure is not for the last half of August each year to bring people to the Ex.
And you hardly need to look at that proposed transit map for long to wonder what idiots did this design. Did they even look at bus use, traffic patterns, population demographics or densities?
Mind you, they must have some better vision of what the city should have in high speed transit than the ridiculous maze that cut King Street West off from logical traffic. The city needed to have some adults take control.
This Ford government experiment in transit planning is somewhat whimsical. And if not that, the timelines are mythical and the cost estimates hysterical. And this is so much that Toronto needed—one more damn plan that people will argue over for years instead of getting anything done.
I expect it is an unfair comparison but I have always compared Toronto’s transit solutions with those of Chicago, Illinois. Both cities have the problem of being built upside a lake. Chicago’s Els that are based on the city’s train network, are noisy and smelly and ugly. Chicago city is equally badly run—if not worse.
But Chicago’s Els are people movers and they have done the job over the past century. Toronto just needs to grow up and tell Ford’s phonies to get their hands out of the city’s cookie jar.
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Copyright 2019 © Peter Lowry
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