TRANSIT
•
• • Transit moving at snail’s pace [ Toronto Sun ]
• Cities get ‘historic’ fund to rebuild infrastructure [ Toronto Sun ]
• Harper loosens purse strings for transit, roads [ Globe and Mail ]
• Feds, Ont. commit $6.2B to boost province’s infrastructure [ CBC.ca ]
• Blindsided Bombardier defends disqualified streetcar as ‘safe’ [ Globe and Mail ]
• Eglinton subway strategy gets more traction than streetcar, councillors say [ Globe and Mail ]
•
•
•
• Time to import N.Y. bike culture? [ National Post ]
MISCELLANEOUS
• CHUM building purchased by developer [ Globe and Mail ]
4 comments
Sigh. The TTC gets thrown a bone but only to make it even more into a commuter system. The city missed its chance, lost too much wealthy population to the suburbs, and now survives at their whim. When all those people now in Vaughan were living within the city limits Transit City, the Eglinton subway, airport link, Downtown Relief line and all those other transit dreams stood a much better chance.
I concur. Why do both these subway propositions/plans (Eglinton & the York extension) extend into nowhere? Why is everyone so intent on taking the TTC out of the city? Something tells me a subway is more apposite downtown than out of town.
uSkyscraper- There were once multiple municipalities pressuring the province for rapid transit. It then stood a better chance. Yet there has been quite a lot of gentrification in the past 20 in various parts of the city.
A.A.McQ.- These subways do lead to areas of interest. From Midtown going west for instance, Eglinton goes through dense York, some suburban areas where stations could be supported by feeder routes from the north, then a large cluster of offices, and it ultimately ends at the airport.
Given that so much of the congestion that comes into Toronto is from Vaughan, I’m not so sure that the extension is a bad idea. I’m not sure it is a good idea… but one this is for sure. If we don’t start thinking about transit infrastructure that will work at a regional level (as opposed strictly within a specific municipal boundary), reducing the number of cars on the road in toronto and across the GTA will be extremely difficult. Too many people think that the municipalities that make the make up the GTA should all function as their own little fiefdoms — and it’s that kind of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place (sprawling development, over-reliance on cars because of region-wide low-density).