ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[KevinL]

Laurier/Waterloo Park/Seagram (I can never remember what they finally decided for this station's name) is coming along.

Laurier - Waterloo Park. But I had to look it up. 

[YKF]

Another Outhit strike out: Your rail transit bill has now reached $473 
Well, d'oh! Is it possible that's because the LRT hasn't been built and isn't in operation?


Meanwhile Jeff's bosses are wringing their hands over why they have to close down newspapers, most recently The Record's sister publication in Guelph. If only they'd read one of Jeff's pieces the answer would become instantly clear.

Exactly. It's garbage like Jeff Outhit's that stop me from being a subscriber to The Record. I don't mind seeing opinions different than mine, but drivel such as blaming an unbuilt LRT for not being used is beyond the pale. I wonder how it ever got past the editor.

He's married to the editor, that's how...

[MidTowner]

Exactly. It's garbage like Jeff Outhit's that stop me from being a subscriber to The Record. I don't mind seeing opinions different than mine, but drivel such as blaming an unbuilt LRT for not being used is beyond the pale. I wonder how it ever got past the editor.

I used to be a Record subscriber. I have in various cities been a daily subscriber to some truly crappy newspapers (the London Free Press...) because I value newspapers and want to support their continued existence. But I cancelled my subscription to the Record because of Jeff Outhit. That's not an exaggeration: I read a particularly egregious piece of nonsense by him about five years ago (related to transit and the fact that we transit users are soaking the people that pay taxes, and forget about the fact that we're among those tax payers) and realized I didn't want to help pay his salary. I switched to the Globe.

That article is brutal. "To date, there's no evidence that rail transit is getting people out of cars or drawing jobs to all 19 future stations." No kidding? The under-construction system isn't getting people out of cars yet? Christ.

Edit: Oh, yeah, and "Grand River Transit functions more as a social service than as a transportation option, shunned by commuters, embraced by students and by others who can't afford cars." Well, Jeff, I'm a commuter who owns a car and could afford a second one, but embraces GRT. And won't be considering a Record subscription.

Okay, I'll calm down now.

[clasher]

I can't even access the record's site anymore; :amazon cloudfront has blocked access from my country". So far I'm not really missing the crap. I won't miss the record when it finally goes the way of the mercury. Jeff Outhit's work is akin to an internet troll in printed form.

[Lens]

What a pointless, terrible piece by Outhit. Instead of providing actual facts he shows his bias pretty strongly.

"To date, there's no evidence that rail transit is getting people out of cars or drawing jobs to all 19 future stations. But there are job sparks at King and Victoria streets in Kitchener."

SERIOUSLY?

Earlier in the week they also ran something along the lines of "tech boom fuels condo market explosion" which is not true and they mostly pointed to student building construction. They also did not take any places to grow planning changes into account.

Also, his wife is not longer the EIC, she retired last year.

[ijmorlan]

That article is brutal. "To date, there's no evidence that rail transit is getting people out of cars or drawing jobs to all 19 future stations." No kidding? The under-construction system isn't getting people out of cars yet? Christ.

Yes, note the careful wording: “there's no evidence that rail transit is … drawing jobs to all 19 future stations”.

That is, there is lots of evidence that some station locations are seeing development activity, just not all of the stations.

That’s almost as good as “I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist”.

[ijmorlan]

Another Outhit strike out: Your rail transit bill has now reached $473 

But there are job sparks at King and Victoria streets in Kitchener. There's evidence of housing drawn to stations. 

I'm not sure why "job sparks" (whatever they're supposed to be) are restricted to one intersection. There's ample evidence of new building construction all along the LRT route.

I can’t help but feel that my kids’ elementary school teachers would probably suggest an improvement in wording for “job sparks”.

This latest article really is scraping the bottom of the barrel. I think we can take it as evidence that there are no significant problems with our LRT project if this sort of brain-off logorrhea is all he can come up with.

[Canard]

I wouldn't worry about good ol' Jeffy. I think he's running scared since he's realizing the project is more and more likely to be a complete success, and he'll have to eat his hat. If the Record is still around in 2017.

I think once our system is open, a lot of people from all over North America are going to be using our system as an example for their own cities of how to do Light Rail right.

[MacBerry]

Another Outhit strike out: Your rail transit bill has now reached $473 
Well, d'oh! Is it possible that's because the LRT hasn't been built and isn't in operation?


Meanwhile Jeff's bosses are wringing their hands over why they have to close down newspapers, most recently The Record's sister publication in Guelph. If only they'd read one of Jeff's pieces the answer would become instantly clear.

Exactly. It's garbage like Jeff Outhit's that stop me from being a subscriber to The Record. I don't mind seeing opinions different than mine, but drivel such as blaming an unbuilt LRT for not being used is beyond the pale. I wonder how it ever got past the editor.

 The WR_Record Publisher/Editor is his wife!

[SammyOES]

That article really is a great example of why regional papers are dying.

I'm generally in the 'we can have a public transit and car friendly city with reasonable compromises by both groups of people (with many people in both groups)' so I sympathize with most arguments pro/con for things like the LRT. But he doesn't even make those arguments.

He's trying to cause division between the two groups of people but it's so badly written it doesn't even accomplish this.

[Canard]

Sounds like some Letters to the Editor are in order!

[Viewfromthe42]

I once had a subscription to The Record, and I too canceled it because of Jeff Outhit, and the kind of reporting I've seen by him and to a lesser extent Paige Desmond. In general, the paper too often reads like a reflection of ignorance, anger, and misunderstanding. It does little to help shape understanding in the region, often fomenting misunderstanding and divisions. (I also switched to the Globe in the end) I similarly ended my Maclean's subscription of a couple decades as they had a similar shift. I can understand that I won't love every piece a publication writes, but eventually the scales are so shifted that I can't keep supporting it.

[ookpik]

I once had a subscription to The Record, and I too canceled it because of Jeff Outhit...

I wouldn't blame it all on Jeff and his ilk, although that's a huge factor.

Another is the increasing dependence on third-party news sources to fill the paper. Why should I pay for that when I can get it and far more at no cost on the Internet? And then I also don't have to wait for it to arrive in daily doses.

But then they compound that with unprofessional, if not outright sleazy, practices that even their owners, The Star, doesn't dare stoop to. Here's a good example since we're talking about LRT-related matters:

Record: Tech boom fuelling condo buying frenzy in Waterloo "Waterloo Region Record, By Katia Dmitrieva [article] Bloomberg" leaves the false impression that this article was written by a Record reporter. You have to read the entire article and scroll all the way to the end to realize that it just ain't so. [via Google, "Katia Dmitrieva is a reporter for Bloomberg News in Toronto."]

Star: Condo buying frenzy in Waterloo as Google moves in "By: Katia Dmitrieva Bloomberg [article]" makes it clear that the Star is publishing an article that was written by Bloomberg.


P.S. I also stopped subscribing to Macleans after they were bought by Rogers and began promoting a hard-right political slant.

[clasher]

Peter Shawn Taylor is an editor at Macleans and also writes what amounts to troll columns for the record. The only thing I like about the record is the "local news" articles that aren't really syndicated anywhere else but most of them are pretty inconsequential and certainly not worth a subscription. I would be surprised if it's still around in 10 years.

[Canard]

Future Cedar stop:

   

   

   

Work at the intersection of Charles/Queen: