Questions about the LRT

Terezinha Bairos Hignett raised a question about the LRT and I responded to her.


The issue you raise is germane and extremely timely, Terezinha. Thank you for bringing it up.

CTV recently reported that the proposed LRT system would likely cost the average homeowner $400 for a single person or $1,600 for a family.

A report (P-05-101) that deals with Regional Growth Management Strategy and Transit Initiative Technical Studies Planning, Housing and Community Services, Transportation Planning, dated November 15, 2005 is very interesting.

It deals with issues such as:

"Amendments to the Regional Official Policies Plan that will: further define a rapid transit right-of-way and station locations; incorporate a countryside line; articulate a Corridor vision...and provide for the necessary." (P. 12)

Consequently, going ahead with the LRT means that not only will land be expropriated, but also that it will encroach on our Green Space.
On Page 13 of that same report, there are some eyebrow raising statements.

"...limit new surface parking facilities: Additional parking supply is counter productive (sic) to increasing transit use and must be carefully managed." (P. 13).

"Reduce or eliminate free parking for CTC Employers." (P. 13).

The language is Orwellian and frankly, frightening.

On Thursday September 02, 2010, a CKCO-TV poll indicated that 87% of our citizens are against paying for the LRT with 13% in favour.

Cost overruns are endemic to our projects.

The proposed cost of a new bridge over the Grand River has more than doubled in two years to $55 million. (Jeff Outhit, The K-W Record, January 29, 2008.) Can you just imagine the overrun on a 790 Million Dollar project?

What about the opportunity costs involved while a proposed LRT is being built?

It will be devastating to small businesses and even larger ones also.

Citizens of Waterloo have been writing to me.

Here is an excerpt from one such email.

"They claim to promote 'freedom' and 'independent choice' for commuters to make their way to work but when people choose to exercise that same freedom and make the independent choice to own and operate their own vehicle, suddenly we see the emergence of our old friend 'authoritarianism'; where those who do not choose to comply willingly are forced to do so through punitive changes to policy and the enstatement of ludicrous parking regulations.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't live in Toronto, I don't want to live in Toronto, and I don't understand the obsession people seem to have with making this Toronto. There is no reason in a city this size and density that they should be intentionally making it so difficult to drive a car. For those that can make public transit work, power to you, but by that same regard it does not seem to me unreasonable to leave the rest of us be. This is the kind of thing you should be focusing on in your campaign platform, Franklin. Representing the concerns of the average citizen against the increasingly forceful nonsense being rammed down our throats..."