05-26-2020, 10:12 PM
(05-26-2020, 09:06 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:Unfortunately I don't know or care enough about Toronto's transit the understand the history and specifics your link is discussing. But skimming through it, is there actually evidence of malice over gross incompetence?(05-26-2020, 08:14 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: Thanks, this gave me more to read, and I think I understand the situation better now. However, blaming it on the PCs seems incorrect unless I have the timeline wrong here. It seems like Metrolinx initially pursued the freight bypass, which the Liberals approved. Further planning for it showed the costs were higher than initially thought, so they began to consider alternatives. And from what I could tell, it seemed like Metrolinx was the ones to recommend sharing the Halton subdivision as a better option, not the PCs overruling them.
Although the dates I'm seeing on these articles and documents are all over the place, so I'm a bit confused since I wasn't following this in real-time.
Lets just say, I strongly doubt Metrolinx's claim to being a politically independent and business case driven organization.
They have a long track record of building politically motivated projects, rather than business case driven ones, even up to right now, where things like the scarborough subway whose business case is not justified, even though they went with an obviously misleading business case assessment [1].
So at the end of the day, I don't trust them one bit when they say stuff like this, I fully feel they are just a puppet for whatever the governing party wants to do.
While I do think the freight bypass would have been expensive (frankly, unjustifiably so, in my mind, but I also don't see why a small single line transit station should cost 140 million dollars either), but I do think that the demand for transit in this corridor is so high, that it's probably justified.
Of course, it would be more justified if we hadn't just invested many many billions in locking in a future of more lanes and more congestion on the 401.
[1] https://stevemunro.ca/2020/02/29/a-preli...extension/
Phil Verster (I believe it was an interview on The Agenda) said in his view, as a government agency of a democracy, the decision making should ultimately be left with elected officials. Democracies aren't about doing what is best, it's about doing what the people want (and the elected officials are supposed to be a representation of that). While I don't necessarily agree with that, I understand the reasoning. It's just strange to me for him to take the position that the government can ultimately do as they please regardless of what's recommended, but then also cook the books in favor of what the government wants.
I do want to be clear though, I'm not in any way ruling out that possibility that their business cases aren't as impartial as they should be, I just want proof of that before I believe they are more than just incompetent.
This is off topic now though, maybe it can be moved to the GO thread.