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TheNewTeddy

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Everything posted by TheNewTeddy

  1. You They'll be at your door in 5 mins Hope you are ready :lol:
  2. Lisbon's trains are narrower http://www.bombardier.com/en/transportation/products-services/rail-vehicles/metros/lisbon--portugal?docID=0901260d8000d175# (saving on tunnel costs by quite a bit) and much much shorter, at 50M. Paris has metro population of 22 million, where as Toronto has one of 5.
  3. You need people to take the subway or it's pointless, and many of the proposed LRT routes do not have the ridership needed for a subway. Also, the trains in Madrid are the size of LRT vehicles. Madrid's longest subway platforms are 115M long, Toronto's trains are 138M long, meaning the subway platform is closer to 145M. The trains are actually as close to as wide as ours our, but the length is a major factor. Rather than a standard 6 car train, it's like they are running less than 5 car trains. Stations are the big cost gobblers in building new lines, so having stations that are 20% shorter means, roughly, 20% less cost to build. Beyond that, the entire "province" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_Community_of_Madrid funds transit for Madrid, would our province funds jack ****. They give us leftovers of the gas tax, and don't even tell the city where to put it (fortunately, they've decided to put it into transit, but they do not have to) Compare this to such "extremist right-wing" places as Alberta, Texas, or Utah, where each of those provincial level governments puts money into the operation of public transit.
  4. I've been following transit very close for a very long time, and in fact, I proposed the "Eglinton Line", with aboveground portions at Weston and Don Mills, just 3 weeks before the TTC "happened" to propose the exact same thing. (this was to that party I was in for a while that got some media attention at the time and has since flopped) There are a lot of things we need to do to improve transit in Toronto. Firstly, we need to get people off the Yonge line. The best way is to divert them down Don Mills. Ideally with LRT/BRT north of Eglinton, funnelling into a subway station at DM and Eg, that'd head from there, down lakeshore way, then curving into the core - something like a Downtown releif line that goes to Thorncliffe. BRT could work on Don Mills. The street is wide as is - all the properties streetside are either large apartment buildings or businessplaces, IE, you are not stealing a front lawn from a house to widen the street - and the stops can easily be far apart. As for more tunnels in the core, I actually support a GO tunnel. Imagine the Milton line running on the tracks north of Dupont, then curving underground and running under Bay to Queen. You could shunt Georgetown trains this way as well, and this would relieve a huge amount of pressure from Union. This would enable you to run trains far more often. Australia has no subways - but they'll tell you they do. Why? The run their commuter rail like a subway system; every 15 minutes all day in some cases. Imagine if we took GO from a rush-hour-only system to something closer to (but not matching) the Australian way. The Yonge line is the huge problem. There are no easy answers. South of Eglinton and North of Sheppard, it's fairly simple to tunnel near Yonge, but in between, you get problems. If, however, you went express between the two, you could get away with a parallel line. You might not be able to run it under Bay if the GO uses that, but you could go down Jarvis, which is pretty darn close to Yonge. I actually think you could more efficiently move riders if you moved more GO buses into the city. The Yonge subway is not comfortable, and I think you could get a fair bit of riders willing to pay a premium to head down Yonge St on a bus (even if it takes 3 times as long) just for the comfort and prestige that comes with the GO Bus VS the dirty ole subway.
  5. I'm not certain you are familiar with the type of voters in Alberta that vote Liberal. There are a lot of "I'm a right-winger, but not extreme, but I'm opposed to the PC Party, and I'll never vote NDP" types that will go Wildrose. This might only be 4% or so of the total electorate, but it's enough to make a close second into a narrow victory in various seats.
  6. I've more and more come around to supporting increased usage of GO. I think if we ran GO much more often, we could take a lot of the pressure off the subway. I support a Don Mills LRT to help redirect people coming in from the east.
  7. There was a period of time where we Liberals managed to consistently win 97% or more of the seats in Ontario. This was a period of time with not only a divided right, but an NDP doing worse in the province than ever before or since. You can not compare this period of time, in Ontario, with any other. Thus, if you want to look at elections in Ontario ridings, you need to ignore the period from 1993 to 2003. Ignoring those years for the reasons I've outlined, we find the Liberals won the riding once (in 1988) by 3%, since 1965. In 1963, we won the riding, but in every election prior to that (back to 1935) it was in fact the Tories who had won the riding. Prior to that, every election was won either by the Tories or Independents. In sum, the riding has been won... 2 times by Liberals outside the 97% era 4 times by Independents 26 times by Tories 13 times by the NDP And 3 times by Liberals inside the 97% era. For a total of 26 Tory wins, 13 NDP wins, and a combined total of 9 wins by others. We Liberals are not going to win the riding, not should we. There is no Liberal base in the riding, and outside the 97% era, there never was. If you think this riding is the Liberals to lose, than so is Niagara West, Leeds, and Halton Hills.
  8. Paralell would be difficult north of Eglinton, as it would mean under all the buildings. There are no easy fixes.
  9. Saganash will withdraw. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/02/09/romeo-saganash-ndp-leadership-race.html
  10. From my old account From the "When will the NDP form a government" thread I remember old "predict the election" threads here on this forum. I'm wondering how well you've personally done in the past? Me: In this most recent election I ran ridingbyriding.ca which has since lapsed (I've not paid the bill) http://calgarygrit.blogspot.com/2011/05/predicting-unexpected.html Of everyone projecting actual seat projections (not just numbers, seats) I got closer than anyone else. This is thanks to my mega excel file called the ElectoMatic (which I'm happy to share)
  11. I found my old account http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showuser=178
  12. You can not build another subway under the yonge line. I've discussed this with transit planners and construction experts (I was once involved in an attempt to start a municipal political party) but if you head down Duplex, once you get to Yonge itself, the Subway is off to the side, and, you can shift back to the Bay area once you get south of Bloor. There thus is room for a second subway from Eglinton to Bay and Queen.
  13. I remember posting on this website sometime in 2003 and/or 2002, but I can't remember my username, password, and e-mail; the latter of which I almost certainly do not have. I don't know what my username was but there is a list of common ones I use. Teddy, Nickjbor, Pellaken, Weimar_Republic. It's likely one of those. I wanted to make full disclosure since I've decided I like this place and want to stick around.
  14. Transit in Toronto is about 40 years behind the times, and when you factor in build time, we really are 60 years behind the 8 ball.
  15. This is the reverse of the Ontario PC Party in the 90's. The caucus and membership are divided.
  16. I'm wondering if it'd be out of place for me to create a thread for the coming Election in Alberta. A unified place to discuss polls and events etc, until the polls close; and then to discuss the results of course!! Polls currently have the Tories up at 40%-45% while the opposition parties are battling with one another; with Wildrose having an edge in that department. My personal projections are for a PC majority, with a Wildrose opposition.
  17. I wasn't sure where else to post this, but someone should explain to the Globe that you are supposed to presume that readers are not idiots. http://www.globalnews.ca/jargon+in+the+census/6442576173/story.html They've managed to include "Province" as "jargon", or, confusing terminology that's in the census. I find that a bit sad and insulting really.
  18. Topp is not what the media makes him out to be. If you round my numbers a bit, you get Mulcair at 30, and Topp, Nash, and Dewar tied at 15. I think the final (first) ballot might look like that. Movement between the #'s 2, 3, & 4, candidates will all be a result of the "bottom tier" dropping out.
  19. Stinz should run for mayor IMO. There are those firmly on the left who want good transit because it's part of their ideology of socialism; but Stinz wants good transit because she... you know, wants good transit!!! That's my kinda person. I voted for the runner up in the past two city elections, but I hope that if she runs, I'll be able to vote for the winner.
  20. I've been keeping track of the metrics. There are three ways to know what's going on in a leadership race. Public Polling. This is unreliable, as only 2% of Canadians are members of any party. Beyond that, many are members of other parties. Perhaps only .5% are NDP members. Thats 1 in 200. You then need them to admit it, which lowers it even more. Add to that you really need at least 300 respondents per area to get a reliable count, and with the variances in NDP membership numbers by province, this is important. You'd need to use at least 6 regions, which means at least 1800 respondents. In order to get 1,800 NDPers on the phone who will answer questions, you'd need to actually call 8,000,000 Canadians, which, frankly, polling companies are not about to do. Endorsements. This is also unreliable, but if you want to keep track, use 308.com Fundraising. I've actually found this to be the most accurate in the races that I've followed. http://www.punditsguide.ca/2012/02/ndp-leadership-fundraising-predicted-first-ballot-outcome-in-2003/ has an excellent sum of what's been going on so far. If I were a betting man, I'd take 50%* of the latter, 25% of the polls, 25% of the endorsements, and come up with a "prediction" as to the winner. * split half-half between total funds and persons For anyone curious, those numbers would be Mulcair - 28.25% Topp - 18.57% Nash - 17.22% Dewar - 13.35%
  21. Not made a fool of himself
  22. Every time Holliday has to clean up Ford's mess, I wish he was the mayor.
  23. Take a ride on the VIVA. (Its free for the next 2 months) and then take a ride on YRT route 99. Go out to Mississauga, find the nearest bendy bus, and hop on board. All of this should cost you less than $10 and is a great way to see parts of the GTA you might not normally go to. While on your trip, take note of your ride. The bus, the route, the crowds. VIVA is nothing more than a bus with a snazzy paint job, yet, people treat it as though it's special. BRT they say! VIVA is not BRT. Not yet anyway. So why do people ride VIVA? Cause it's sold as something special. Selling an underground LRT as a Subway means more riders, more money for the system, and less traffic. I like to think of Eglinton as a "Subway, that you can also run in the middle of the street" in Etobicoke and Scarborough.
  24. If I was PM I'd fund a national transit plan, but to be honest, I'd rather be Premier, many more things are broken at the provincial level.
  25. In fairness it both is and is not. Toronto streetcars are just as wide as Montreal's Metro cars. If they were level with the raised subway platform (and adding a piece of plywood at the door would make this the case), you could string them together and make a "subway" out of them that could move the same number of people as the Montreal Metro. If you ran it totally underground you could call it a "Subway" and nobody would really complain. If in the other hand you did with it what the TTC has done with Queens Quay, then you are right, its most certainly not a subway, but then again, you'd be hard to find someone from a country that has real LRT who would agree that Spadina or St. Clair have LRT.
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