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Toronto-Age |OT4| Molested by a Burger Priest

A

Azih

Member
I just find it odd to shit on the TTC while also acknowledging how under funded the system is. Crap funding distorts everybody's incentives. Management won't be concerned with improving the system as their marching orders will be to keep things running with short term bandaid solutions. Workers are going to be motivated first and foremost with protecting what they have.

You can't make long term plans in this kind of environment.

Maybe the TTC would waste better funding. But there's no reason to believe that based on the current evidence of a system starved of stable long term funding. I don't think the TTC was very different in structure or even personnel back in the 80s or whenever when Toronto was thought of as "New York run by the Swiss".
 
D

Divvy

Canadians burned my passport
It's not just the funding either. The current TTC has to deal with all the poor infrastructure built by the TTC of old. So much of it is crumbling that they have to spent so many resources and so much time to patch things.
 
L

LevelNth

Banned
The TTC being underfunded is a myth based on the wanted propagation of the same crappy and broken practices they employ right now.

Management is a disillusioned mess that just hides behind whatever excuse they can find, and the Union hamstrings any improvements that management should* implement.

*Emphasize should, not do, because they are all worthless and do nothing.

An underfunded transit service couldn't have spent the billions required for the new subways AND streetcars AND double-length buses the TTC has added, all in the last decade.
 
K

Kuro Madoushi

Unconfirmed Member
LevelNth said:
The TTC being underfunded is a myth based on the wanted propagation of the same crappy and broken practices they employ right now.

Management is a disillusioned mess that just hides behind whatever excuse they can find, and the Union hamstrings any improvements that management should* implement.

*Emphasize should, not do, because they are all worthless and do nothing.

An underfunded transit service couldn't have spent the billions required for the new subways AND streetcars AND double-length buses the TTC has added, all in the last decade.
Click to expand...
The TTC doesn't get much money from the city and province, unlike other systems. The money we gave them to for new subways (Bleh) and other shit was earmarked for that.

That said. I simply don't trust the union there with their bullshit wildcat strike and inability to negotiate a new deal without holding the goddamn city hostage. A deal that was good for years suddenly isn't good enough for another month or whatever it takes for them to hammer something else out? The strikes were simply used as a tool to get a greedy Union what they wanted. Like I had mentioned before, a friend who had joined the TTC had 2 raise in his first 6-8 months, and then got a retroactively raise at the end of the year.
 
K

KnightHart

Member
jl4855 said:
that and the fact that the HK metro absolutely decimates the TTC in every facet.
Click to expand...

Comparing Toronto or almost any city in North America or Europe to Tokyo or Hong Kong is blatantly unfair. Tokyo and Hong Kong are two of the most densely populated cities in the world. There's nothing to gain by comparing Toronto to those two cities other than to find just one more reason to complain about the TTC.

It's more fair to compare Toronto with a city like Chicago. They might as well be our sibling city. But even so, we should worry about ourselves and focus on making our city better, instead of twiddling our thumbs and crying about how we aren't like other cities.

You Are Viewtiful said:
On the topic of comparisons to small European cities, am I weird for not wanting too much transit or high density? xD

snippy snip snip
Click to expand...

I think most people in this city actually dislike the idea of higher density, or have no idea what that even completely means or entails. There was entire thread on that Toronto sub-reddit asking what people dislike about Toronto and I swear to god half of the complaints boiled down to people just disliking living in the cities in general.

I think even the notion that you can't raise children in cities is going away, or has been going away for a while. I'm biased in this matter though. My parents were raised on farms in the Philippines, and then they went to school and worked in cities like Manilla, Singapore, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. Then they came here and decided to raise me in the city because they said "it's the best and easiest option for us." Followed by "It's fucking boring living outside the city." (those are my mother's exact words)

We're seeing a cultural shift where people are starting to move back into the cities, after decades of urban sprawl, industrialization, and essentially expanding outward instead of upward (in Hong Kong's case they didn't have much of a choice). Even if people complain, even if people throw their arms up in the air and scream at the top of their lungs, a higher density City of Toronto is inevitable at this point. And we're REALLY growing fast as a city. The problem here is that the TTC and infrastructure can't keep up. It feels like we got caught with our pants down at some point a few years ago and now we're in trouble.
 
A

Azih

Member
LevelNth said:
The TTC being underfunded is a myth based on the wanted propagation of the same crappy and broken practices they employ right now.

Management is a disillusioned mess that just hides behind whatever excuse they can find, and the Union hamstrings any improvements that management should* implement.

*Emphasize should, not do, because they are all worthless and do nothing.

An underfunded transit service couldn't have spent the billions required for the new subways AND streetcars AND double-length buses the TTC has added, all in the last decade.
Click to expand...

There's a difference between the subway and LRT funding and what the TTC gets for day to day operation.

The first is Capital spending. It's the shiny shit that politicians like to splurge on once a decade or so as they get to snip red ribbons with giant scissors while wearing bright yellow hard hats in a photo op.

The second is Operating expenses. That's what gets spent on actually running the damn things and maintaining and improving them. That's what's chronically underfunded at the TTC because Maintenance and Infrastructure aint sexy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=457YW6B-2fw

In other developed nations the levels of government that have access to tax revenue that grows in pace with the economy (stuff like income and sales tax) have stable long term programs that go into that sort of stuff (or they're so dense like HK and Tokyo that public transit actually turns a profit). Canada and Ontario don't got that so Toronto has to fund the TTC off of property taxes and fares.
 
Y

yyzjohn

Banned
Kraftwerk said:
13+ degrees on Thursday. I'll be hiding near the ac.
Click to expand...

B8qt14n.png


*bites lip*
 
C

crimzonflame

Member
There should be two more lines. East to west that run along Eglington and the other one Finch. I dont know why they built that stupid Sheppard line.
 
D

Divvy

Canadians burned my passport
They should have just extended the Yonge line up to Steeles. Putting that terminal at Finch was the worst idea ever.
 
E

EvilMario

Will QA for food.
crimzonflame said:
There should be two more lines. East to west that run along Eglington and the other one Finch. I dont know why they built that stupid Sheppard line.
Click to expand...

Projected growth being a key factor. People should cringe every time a politician shouts about a subway over an LRT, because 'if you build it, they will come.' Build what makes sense, not what you hope will happen.
 
S

Sober

Member
Divvy said:
They should have just extended the Yonge line up to Steeles. Putting that terminal at Finch was the worst idea ever.
Click to expand...

Man the number of times where I leave the city late, get to Finch and none of the blue night steeles buses even come down to Finch Station. Fuck that bullshit. Although it serves me right for not living in the city I guess.
 
A

Azih

Member
"If you build it, they will come" is a grand idea but only after you've built lines where people are already crammed onto overloaded buses. Build it where people have already come first. Seriously.
 
Z

zroid

Banned
the city council voted on whether Rob Ford should take an "Anti-racism course"

they voted... on whether... a councillor... should learn to stop being racist

ok

Toronto politics, everyone
 
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