Visions for the GTTA

Semantics are fun!

A friend of mine who supports Transit City sent an email to Karen Stintz, and got a response from which I will now quote:

"As you may know, Transit City was not fully funded by the Province of Ontario or the Federal Government. The transit plan that has been funded is the Metrolinx Plan and that plan includes transit investment on Sheppard, Eglinton, the Scarborough RT and Finch. Stopping Transit City does not jeopardize the Metrolinx Plan."

While I do have the utmost respect for Karen Stintz, and have considered living in her ward, it must be said that the above quote is either factually mistaken or inadvertently misleading. The Metrolinx Regional Transportation Plan identifies numerous policies for improving transportation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, and building physical infrastructure is a part of the RTP. Transit City is the marketing name for a subset of projects within the RTP, and those projects include the half tunnel, half surface Eglinton-Crosstown LRT; the fully grade-separated Scarborough RT upgrade; and surface LRT lines on Finch, Jane, Sheppard, Don Mills and Eglinton/Kingston/Morningside. The first phase of some of these projects have been funded, but others are unfunded at this time.

Transit City is a part of the Metrolinx plan. In my opinion, it's an integral part. As such, cancelling it is cancelling part of the Metrolinx plan. If cancelling part of something places the rest of it in jeopardy, then cancelling Transit City jeopardizes the Metrolinx Plan.

My position on this issue was made quite clear several posts ago, so I'm not going to repeat it. However, if we are going to have a discussion on these issues of the day, then we need to make sure that we're debating with facts - not with lies, hearsay and misinformation.

Labels: GTTA plan, light rail, municipal sillyness, politics, ttc

posted by Andrae Griffith @ 2:18 p.m.