aderfp633
Inscrit le: 27 Sep 2011 Messages: 7915 Localisation: England
|
Posté le: Ven Sep 06, 2013 2:09 pm Sujet du message: Toronto council’s follies leave Scarborough with |
|
|
{Toronto council’s follies leave Scarborough with no rail or subway: Editorial}
Congratulations Scarborough! You started out with a light rail line, switched to planning for a subway,[url=http://www.michael-korshandbags-outlet.org]Michael Kors Handbags Outlet[/url], and now you’ve got neither. That’s what happens when you encourage politicians to put pandering ahead of sound transit design. All that’s been accomplished, for certain, is that thousands of commuters will have to wait even longer for better transit — and for no good reason. After spending $85 million on early work to replace Scarborough’s aging rapid transit trains with an ultra-modern light rail line, Metrolinx has officially dropped the project. Final “sunk costs” could add up to a lot more, but the agency in charge of transportation planning throughout the Greater Toronto Area had no choice. Toronto city council,[url=http://www.michael-korshandbags-outlet.org]michael kors canada[/url], flip-flopping yet again, decided last month it would rather have a subway.In response to that folly,[url=http://www.michael-korshandbags-outlet.org]Michael Kors Outlet[/url], Metrolinx CEO Bruce McCuaig has sent the city a letter saying it will no longer fund work on the light rail line, effectively shutting down the project. But the subway that’s supposed to replace it is nowhere in sight and may never arrive.Provincial funding, originally meant for light rail, will be available for subway construction. But, as McCuaig’s letter makes clear, the city will get $1.4 billion, not the full $1.8 billion it expects. The province is dug in on this point. But city council’s subway resolution made getting the full $1.8 billion a condition for going ahead with an underground system.In other words, the letter in which McCuaig formally stops the light rail line also derails the Scarborough subway, at least under the conditions currently governing the project.That’s not the only problem. Council also made subway construction contingent on receiving a big cash injection from the federal government. Mayor Rob Ford is confident his Conservative friends in Ottawa will deliver. But he has a poor track record of obtaining federal money.Former mayor David Miller did far better, successfully snaring hundreds of millions of dollars, year after year. He was a dynamic leader who relentlessly pressed Toronto’s case at the federal and provincial levels. Ford, in contrast, has spent much of his term mysteriously absent from city hall, coaching high school football and being photographed partying with gang members. He’s neither an experienced nor an inspiring urban advocate.Right now,[url=http://www.michael-korshandbags-outlet.org]Michael Kors Handbags[/url], Scarborough’s light rail line is dead but the subway to replace it remains far from being born. Indeed, there’s every reason to fear it will miscarry. So much for Ford’s promise of “subways, subways, subways.” As of today, Scarborough residents have got nothing, nothing, nothing. _________________ People watching the forthcoming beginning of the German half of the inhabitants of Berlin are no interested in co-optation |
|