Print

E-mail

Text

They never cease to amaze me. Our city politicians, that is. They are embarking on a grand new vision for a Toronto where everyone uses public transit and there isn't a private car on any road. I can hear birds twittering in a field of butterflies and daisies. Utopia. (Millerland)

The grand and lofty plan, now in the public input stage, is so amazing that I can't help but share my humble thoughts with the community. The proposal I'm discussing involves a light rail transit (LRT) plan for Finch Avenue West. It sounds like much-needed, fast, clean electric transit to connect across the top of the city as it never was before. Brilliant. Except for one small detail.

This grand socialist vision glosses over the minor point that the LRT is to operate on "dedicated transit lanes separated from traffic."

Let's say that again so nobody misses it; "dedicated transit lanes separated from traffic." Now just how the heck is that supposed to work? Are our councillors and his royal Miller-ness sipping brandy at council meetings? Have they completely lost it?

We only need to look at what they did to St. Clair Avenue West to see what it might look like. A raised platform blocking the middle of the road (two lanes) so the car, truck, emergency vehicle and other peasant traffic is shunted off to the narrow curb lane on each side of the concrete platform. No way to make a left turn over these tracks. No, sir-ee.

The only way to get around this monster is to find a level crossing. Got one every now and again, I hope. The idea is to find a level crossing, turn around and join the gridlock going the other way.

That seems a bit like fuel inefficiency to me but our councillors tell us they know better. Hmmm.

There's more. I told you it was a grand plan, touching on brilliant. Why, the traffic congestion caused on one after the other of our major arterial roads will encourage the use of public transit. Sure, if you can't drive anywhere because of the tracks down the fastest streets, you have no choice. Right? Oh wait a minute. I think people might be able to get out of the gridlock planned for arterial roads by driving in the quieter neighborhood streets. Takes a bit longer but surely it's not as bad as the inadequate public transit we have in Toronto.

Do you think the plan is intended for businesses to get off the arterial roads? Close shop? Go to the box-store malls located in the outskirts of town? Ask the shopkeepers on St. Clair West. No way. Nobody will be able to get to the box stores because nobody will own a car and, we all know, it would take the better part of the day by bus or LRT to get there. There must be something else behind this folly.

I think Miller and his inanely supporting lefty councillors have decided that people should leave Toronto, never to return. It's got to be that simple. They double tax us for buying a home, they make us keep garbage for weeks on end to help feed the hungry rat and raccoon populations, they ignore important infrastructure initiatives like sewer backup prevention and they enjoy more potholes in city roads than any previous, central committee and somehow they manage to spend more money than anyone ever to accomplish all this. Now they ask us to endure manufactured gridlock.

If anyone is listening, voice your outrage over this latest insanity and write to the Public Consultation Unit, City of Toronto Metro Hall, 19th floor, 55 John St., Toronto, ON, M5V 3C6 or send them an e-mail to finchtransit@toronto.ca,

Incidentally, there are a lot of excellent, workable ways to put in transit and not destroy our arterial roads. One solution would be to put the tracks in the network of hydro corridors throughout the city.

Another would be to actually build some subways that actually go where people need to go.

Excellent subways exist in every decent city everywhere in the world. I wonder if any of our councillors has ever visited Paris, London, Seoul or Kuala Lumpur? They probably don't even know what good transit looks like. We surely know that they have no idea how to build subways when the idea strikes them because Toronto subways can only be installed with major excavation of roadways and years of detours rather than by using the underground boring technologies available everywhere else in the civilized world.

And lastly, if the LRT was not on "dedicated lanes separated from traffic", ugly as that would be, it may yet be a workable compromise.

Help me tell Miller it's time to get with the program. Nobody could possibly plan more stupidly than this. Could they?

Oppose the isolated dedicated transit lane LRTs or kiss your city goodbye.

Roman Serbinski