Greetings, and why not waste…

Greetings, and why not waste a bit more time eh?

So with Toronto especially now, why plan? Why bother? It's a rational position.

Existing plans are not adhered to; they are actually blown up on a pretty regular basis it seems like, and it's gotten worse with our 'Dougtator', all hail, and he is doing better now, but where's the respect for the experts on climate change, and uh, say, transit?

The CIty was pretty broken up/ruled by suburban interests ahead of the Bill 5/halving, now it's really bad, and very very few have any interest, time, nor ability to emerge to challenge the follies that are generally promoted as transit projects, or worthwhile transport projects.

It is Folly to be proposing, and being alright with, further extensions of brittle subway spines, when the real need is for relief function, not necessarily a Relief Line btw.

There aren't goals of any specific reduction in congestion, or GHGs, or transit usage.

The current mess doesn't see anything really amiss with the overloads, and is continually approving more developments, when actually, there's a need for a development freeze, as a starting point, to let transit actually catch up.

Transport and transit planning is even more political, with pretty disastrous result. Of the current 4 transit priority projects; all are a wa$te, and the one that is most needed, Relief, is likely a disaster, or Dougsaster, and is a folly to have an LRT-ish service in to the core, with a subway support in suburbs - the exact opposite of what almost every world-city does. With a stinking 'tilt' to the process of getting a support, without actually doing much real analysis, or being honest with it, and fully exploring all of the options. (Link1; will try to find that Globe editorial of March 2, 1017 called 'TO's transit plan; Pay more and get less', but like Council itself, voting 23-19 to ignore facts in infra decisions, heck the facts don't really matter, including the Metrolinx 'business cases' for subway extensions which say aren't a good deal and meet criteria, but we support them anyways. What's a few billion, eh?

There's also a distinct lack of review to see if previous OPs were adhered to, and the most salient oops now I think, and we have some provincial Conservatives to 'thank', is how the Metro-era OP had a plan for a surface-oriented N/S relief function through the Don Valley up to Thorncliffe, and the GO was to do an EA to adjust the spur line (now a rail trail, though kinda private benefit vs. public) to meet up to the Eglinton/Don Mills area for connection to this Toronto-based transit, perhaps sub-regional.

(That's another Fail of how things are done/not done - we need to have semi-express/sub-regional, not either regional, or milk-run, and it's not OK to dilute regional to fill in gaps in local transit).

What is proposed/approved by the Clowncil is also another sad cycle of planners only doing what they might think the politicans (usually carservative) will possibly approve, and the politicians won't go any further than what the planners suggest, though it's pretty foul, and how many types of transit do we have in the GTA area now? Or Toronto itself? Is it 6 or 7?

Perhaps most importantly now, there is a complete Fail to react to two current emergencies, one being the C-19, and another being the climate emergency, where transport leads emissions. Just today, the TTC is laying off a large amount of its workforce and cutting service; how will this emerge back up again in the near future? Toronto is showing it can't even catch up with Brampton in providing a re-sharing of road-space for peds/cyclists, and we're really world-last. (Link 2)

Both of these should provide a reset, and a re-evaluation of what is proposed. Transit is going to be very challenged, especially as the car subsidies remain hidden and unrecognized by many, and both governments beyond the City, seem unwilling to pick up tabs for the real $hortfalls in revenues from the C-19 reaction, and this may be a longer haul. The climate emergency is very real, or will be, and at least both the federal level and the City have declared it to be an emergency, but the Ford level is still playing with matches basically, while promoting gas use, which ironically is very cheap, and could easily have a 10c carbon hike added to it now.

The federal level has overall authority for GHG's, but they/we are lagging badly, and when compared to the Toronto Target from the early 90s, almost exactly opposite, though Germany etc. has cut.
(Link 3). They need to develop standards, which they're loathe to do it seems, so it's political again. And as a hint of how important/polluting transport is, from the link is this: "Since 2005, the total number of all vehicles on the road, including passenger and commercial vehicles, has grown by 40 per cent, adding an additional 24 million tonnes overall to the country's emissions."

But these two emergencies are both making whatever 'plans' have been developed rather tattered, and perhaps useless, especially as we may finally be getting in to some issues about where the huge sums are coming from, and maybe we can start to explore more efficient options? (At times however, no, we need to spend big, and think big, so at least that Suspect Subway Extension has been helpful as money's no object, really, since if we can budget $1.5M per new rider, if it gets built, then we've got lots of room to dream/explore. Right?)

So we clearly need a reset of all initiatives (I can't really call them plans) as a consequence of the C-19, where it is really unsettling a host of situations, and with climate change, we've been refusing to be sensible about 'plans', including a set of surface options using less concrete and more political will, and on a triage/emergency basis. This OP is very limited in consideration, and no protection of any options, catering to political positions first and foremost, and disregarding serious problems with the operation of existing subways by overload, including at B/Yonge, where we're getting committed to a massively complex and costly projects by refusing to look at other options.

One eg. is looking at converting part of the DVP to transit - quickly, and why not? We already own all the land; it's an obvious travel corridor; and relatively speaking, carries few people on it, and there's also been a degree of planning precedent for it. The Valley itself is no longer 'pristine'; largely filled with invasive species now, and we're behind in addressing that, because it costs money that we'd rather burn in Scarborough, or some politicians would.

There are also some other options in the Don Valley itself, about three, including a rail spur line owned by Metrolinx and Bayview.

These current proposals also don't enhance resiliencies with a network as much as is needed now.

And as we won't think of options, (the EA process only looks at any type of subway as long as it's in the corridor assigned), we're condemned to only thinking of costly megaprojects that tend to be of greater benefit to the construction interests than the public interest, which isn't necessarily wanting to go to a mall, and considering all the opportunity costs to projects through the Toronto area, not just including the costs to planning/rationality, we need to be readjusting our thinking to cost-effective and less-concrete surface or near-surface possibilities, as a fresh and critical RCAO report indicates, (Link 4) and also calls for a lot less to none of the 'decision-based evidence making'.

Going on surface shouldn't mean cutting out safety measures or laws of physics, as I think the Ontario Line is likely to attempt to do in the Riverdale area. But while we really need relief, even with this good change to reach up to Eglinton and get better value, we are not rethinking it enough to cut out the Riverdale segment in favour of Don Valley and speed, and are too focussed on core--centric services, as Union Station as well is becoming overloaded. The Ontario Line shouldn't bother going up to Queen; so why is it? There's no open-ness in rationale, and far more bluster and bludgeon in getting it accepted, with a distinct threat of unilateral declarations and disregard of community concerns to do a foolish route, because.

This OP fails to bring forward possibilties of the Gatineau corridor slicing all through Scarborough as an option to quickly and cheaply enhance transit through Scarborough, despite over 12kms of width and what might be a 500m wide corridor, with precedence now of allowing transit on such corridors with the York U busway. There is no interest in saving billions and providing a set of different routes that avoid concentration at a mall, which will have an overload of pollution of course.

The reset should include ALL options for transit in the Don Valley as per the 1995 Metro OP, and also use the Gatineau corridor, and include options for having it feed in to Eglinton, and thus perhaps to the Don Valley transit.

Indeed, there's another missed constriction coming up. When Eglinton gets live, (now delayed a bit more from the C-19 issues, though at least this line was in the 1957 plan), odds are quite high that many of the transit riders will be opting to transfer on to the Yonge line, which is now overloaded, or was. But there is danger already in the over-crowding, and real dysfunction, and there's NOTHING to be providing any relief or easing of pressure from these transfers, assuming that Eglinton actually does as one hopes spending billions does - attracts riders, and new ones too.

Another FAIL of all bodies of paid people is a Relief West beyond the regional service, and we should also include a Relief NorthWest as well, like the 1985 DRL using Weston corridor.

There could/should also be some assurance that we could provide a 'U' of Relief using the rail lines' link between Main/Danforth, Union Station, or environs, and Dundas/West, or Lansdowne/Bloor.

UITP, or APTA, or Mexican /Curitiba experts might well be required to ensure the smooth and safer integration of rail lines with transit - they won't be worried about a career of doing nothing and being well-paid, or speaking truths and being fired for it. But astoundingly, we do have a good example in Ontario, but in Ottawa, where somehow, a reasonably good and efficient transit service was brought in to being, including using a single track, but for a very very cheap sum, comparatively. (Link 5)

WIth Relief West, as seen in a 1957 plan, would be most helpful, though of course GO does wonders in bringing in massive numbers of people to the core, or has, prior to the C19. But there remains a strong need for some form of improved transit that is more fair and done faster than, say, the DRL of 1985, where now we at the City have voted to approve a roadway in the transit RoW north of the tracks from Strachan to Dufferin, as one example. If we wanted to burn more gas and waste years, and melt the ice caps I don't think we could have done much differently, and it is criminal, or should be, at least for climate criminality.

It is worth noting that though surface King was seen as inferior to a DRL in 1985, it has been very very good for many transit riders, (when we had them) as well for taxpayers, being perhaps 1,000 times better a deal than some other transit projects for the real boost in riders.

It is however, harsher on the local communities in some ways, and it remains as a brittle system, if we have the misfortune to have a blockage, like a film festival, combined with no political will to not sell out transit riders. An option is needed, and we should be protecting a rare linear option in to the core via Front St. to provide more resiliencies, and not build a park unnecessarily on a transit option as the RailDeck proposal impinges on the easier doing just south of Front St.

We also should embrace a reversibility like Jarvis St, though make it safer by having transit on this new and reversible transitway. Now, as we've likely built the options shut from stupid and very short-term buildings in RoW options, we may need to have that precious land of the Weston corridor doubled up for transit, including any expansion to the north side being built with a lower-deck TTC/streetcar route from Queen and Dufferin to Front and Bathurst area.

Of course that's being missed in this OP, it being a new idea for maybe 15 years.

Transit is only part of the solution for a climate-change program, which we are very behind on, and do not measure concrete in emissions profiles or EAs, another wrong. But in order to make room on our roads for more pedestrians and bikes, we have to have better transit first. This is a conflict with the West Toronto Railpath project, where at times the highest/best use of lands is likely for improving our transit, and if that occurs, then we have to make our core roads far far far safer for biking, including a set of repairs and cautions about the streetcar tracks, and disrepair of trackbed areas.

In this OP, there's some mention of the 2001 Bike Plan as being a foundational document, but for far too much of the City, this is not the case, and it's not a good legacy or foundation. In the core, the push was for side streets and indirect routes, and we still lack really good and long routes to ease the transit pressures, though of course we were seeing the Richmond and Adelaide lanes often have very intense usage, as did the small bits of Bloor bike lane, where we still haven't done a bit of the 2001 Bike Plan on Bloor St. E for c. $25,000.

BIke lanes are often done only through councillor approval; standards vary as well. Councillor control when compounded with an irregular grid - eg. west-end TO - tends to mean shortfalls and risks, and at times, some deaths. Main streets remain hazardous, though there have been decades of statistics to show these are the hazardous roads, and we have a different set of standards for harm/crash to bike riders as we do transit riders.

Even now, in the pandemic, we refuse to even begin to catch up with Brampton, let alone many many many other cities. Cars come first.

In Scarborough, the 2001 Bike Plan had a marvellous and fully connected set of routes proposed for on-road bike transport. But very very little was done, at least on-road.

The City alleges it wants to fill in gaps, but I don't think bothers to publish any list of these gaps, nor do serious work on filling them, such as is occurring on the Queensway now, with an item paused from the C-19 issues. The King/Queen/Roncesvalles/QUeensway intersection is proposed for some realignment and change, which is good in many ways, but the conditions for cyclists are worsened in that corner and curve area, and overall there is a FAIL to extend the existing Queensway bike lanes from Etobicoke in along this near-highway to Roncesvalles; far more political and carservative than what is needed for safe bike travel, and an option to transit.

The OP also doesn't make a needed distinction between small e-assist bikes and the heavier and more dangerous e-mopeds, following a more European distinction.

The CIty is very willing to bend over backwards however, for enhancing and enabling a new and likely dangerous tech of 'driverless' cars, as they're cars, regardless of the consumption of space and the dangers that they still represent to unarmoured civilians, who may have a different skin colour, or may be walking a bike, and not riding it. Scads of resources are going in to it, with lots and lots and lots of cross-departmental co-ordination, but to develop a simpler cross-town bike route atop the subway - oh, we're studying it again.

And it should be spelled out as part of the C19 process, that safe, continuous biking must be an option that has ongoing and strong civic support. Indeed, clean air seems to be a public health idea.
(Links 6 and 7)

All of this OP stuff is divorced from financial realities that will bite us more, and are, apparently, with a set of TTC lay-offs, and worry about excess cash outflows in response. By refusing to be realistic with how to do transit, and only focussing on the costliest way to blight our budgets, refusing to have user-pay anywhere near the TTC farebox for cars, and with larger scale works like the Gardiner repair vs other options (never ever including a transitway on the Gardiner;), we are blighting all other options, and making the road system progressively less safe through disrepair. There's at times some worries about incompetence too; but this may be deliberate, somewhere. Road safety has already nosedived from a lack of enforcement in the last c. 8 years, and people have died. Uber/Lyft don't help either, but the CIty is weak on regulation and enforcement.

The climate emergency should mean specific goals for reductions of GHGs from cars, and at this 2020 point, given the Toronto Target of 30 years ago, where we're now about 20% above those levels, we also must be including all of the secondary and tertiary emissions of vehicles and infrastructure. This is NOT a new concept, at least for some of us. Honesty in accounting is like the degree of integrity in a few subway proposals however; not really there. Self-driving and electric cars will still be a big drain and source of GHGs; though even bikes aren't so green as all that from AL usages, and imported parts like tires and virtually everything.

The C-19 emergency is meaning a full reset or pause is necessary on processes and plans/schemes. We may need to adjust ALL the land use including stable residential areas to allow for a bit more of a work-related nature/use to cut out the commuting, or reduce it to a bike ride.

Transit may really need substantial support - which is likely less than the health care costs of cars as we've been experiencing them - and levels of ridership will NOT be there, nor will people be thinking of being on an overcrowded transit line worth that much more, if anything. Overbuilding may be the result; and bad news it will be if we persist in real follies like the SSE and a Richmond Hill Extension and the Eglinton Ave. W. burial, and don't spend smartly in a Relief project, or set of projects, which are remaining unexplored.

The Council that approved this OP has been brutalized in mid-election, and what has emerged, limping, is by no means as sound a body as the previous Clowncil was. By interfering so badly in the civic election, a more diverse and fresher set of minds may well have brought a much different set of priorities to a plan; core councillors now are overwhelmed on a daily basis, exacerbated by the major set of development pressures still ongoing, though perhaps maybe the bubble is deflating.

Entrenching bad ideas in the OP, and failing to identify and protect corridors and mobility hubs like a few mentioned, (not so much up at Eglinton/Don Mills, but maybe development freeze there too, not just in the core), will be costly, atop costs from not doing logical things like the 1957 plan, where now, even at the enlarged Ontario Line Relief, it's still only a half of what proposed then, with a Queen St. transit line going out to Islington.

Thanks for wading through this; the billions and future of the world should matter.