I feel sorry for them. But then again, this is what they want.

  • They oppose making parking expensive.

  • They oppose bus lanes

  • They oppose bike lanes.

  • They oppose trains

  • They oppose train stations.

  • They oppose congestion pricing.

They oppose any measure that might reduce car dependency.

    • Typhoon@lemmy.ca
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      13 days ago

      Doug Ford wants to build a tunnel under it to add more lanes.

      Yes, he’s as stupid as he sounds.

      • tempest@lemmy.ca
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        13 days ago

        No he doesn’t he just wants a convenient way to funnel money to people paid to ‘study’ this boondoggle.

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    13 days ago

    Worth calling out who “they” are, cause I know a LOT of people who don’t want this.

    The federal government certainly doesn’t seem like they’re doing much to reduce car dependency right now with the motion to fast track oil and gas pipelines. (Worth editing in this part for those in the UK: Yes, the current government is led by the same Carney you might know.)

    The provincial government, where this highway is situated, proposed adding a tunnel, yes you read that right, A FUCKING TUNNEL!, underneath this highway TO ALLOW MORE CARS ON THE ROAD.

    The Toronto City Council (which, to be fair, has less sway here) is filled with car-brained nutjobs from the suburbs who oppose every measure that they perceive makes it harder for them to get into the city.

    • tempest@lemmy.ca
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      13 days ago

      It’s around 18 or 19 at its widest so it isn’t like they aren’t trying.

      • TBi@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        This topic just reminded me of AI. We are told we just need to build more capacity and AI will get better and more reliable. Just one more lane(data centre) and we’ll solve all the issues.

  • NotSteve_@lemmy.ca
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    13 days ago

    I feel sorry for them. But then again, this is what they want.

    No, it’s what the GTA suburban people want. I live in Ottawa but travel to Toronto quite often and the actual city doesn’t want any of that shit but our province is run by a petty mob boss

  • AzuranAurora@piefed.ca
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    13 days ago

    You can thank my fellow Ontarians for being fucking morons and electing Doug Ford who rewards his contractor buddies with expensive projects like making another layer of highway instead of improving our ailing railway infrastructure.

    • CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      Doug Ford wants to double it by digging a tunnel underneath the 401. Not for electric trains. But more cars. Because I really want to drive in darkened smoggy tunnels.

      • AzuranAurora@piefed.ca
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        13 days ago

        I can’t wait for the entire tunnel to be closed by an accident. If you thought being stuck on the 401 was bad enough when there’s an accident, now try having absolutely nothing to look at while you do so! And if something catches fire, it’ll be far worse than above ground.

      • VAK@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        Tunnel ventilation is a solved problem. I’d actually prefer if all city highways were underground.

        • CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          Ok. You got me there. In a perfect world, fast subterranean mechanized electric transport would be ideal, freeing the surface for more parks, forests and bikepaths.

          Edit: that is not what Douggie is planning.

  • Kind_to_Everyone@slrpnk.net
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    13 days ago

    Metro Toronto is a disappointment. It should be have been doubling its subway network every 20 years. Instead it shut down a line, added a few stations on another, and built LRT that’s slower than the bus it replaced.

    It needs express subway tracks, GO with 10 minutes headways, and transit oriented development able to house 10k people within a ten minute walk of every GO stop which means zoning for density,

    Pay for it by owning the land around stations like HK or Singapore and leasing it to developers for 40 story affordable apartments, increasing the gasoline tax, and putting tolls on the 401 and Gardiner.

    Toronto is a transportation nightmare. It’s time to adopt successful models from Asia to make transit fast, convenient, and cheap while making driving fast, convenient, and incredibly expensive. Fill in with protected bike lanes and the city will be liveable and affordable with great air quality

    • NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca
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      13 days ago

      Toronto is one Ford family grift piled on top of another. All city planning is based on favours owed to their buddies or to keep their degenerate relatives afloat.

      • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        The Ford brothers have been a disaster for Toronto. Starting with cancelling Transit City, demolishing the waterfront, encouraging sprawl with no transit option in the Greenbelt. Doug Ford should be in jail. Everyone intelligent said that developers are sitting on 10’s of thousands of approved building sites, and colluding with each other about how many homes get built a year. Now, even though Ford has demolished most of the environmental laws, developers aren’t rushing to build. The developers always had their own schedule. They’re now building fewer homes a year, than when Ford was elected.

    • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      The underground portion of the Eglinton LRT could have been great. Each station having a residential 30 story tower above it, and lots of retail underground to lease out. Instead each station is larger than a palace, seems empty, and has no retail.

  • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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    13 days ago

    No one is pointing out the other side of this that gets neglected and that is “the demand to live just outside the core but commute to the core daily”.

    That just does not work, full stop. There was a time that it seemed to work but we already reached the capacity.

    Even if we have great transportation, having people move so much on a daily basis is a bad idea.

    We really need to move away from the one big city mindset, but it’s not easy to do

    • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Work from home should be encouraged. It helped a little during the pandemic, places outside of Toronto saw an influx of people; Orilla, Peterborough, Owen Sound. But Ford ordered all the employees back to the office, and now that model is suffering.

    • grepe@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      one big city is fine as long as you don’t want to have city where you work separate from the suburbs where you live. this is one completely artificially created expectation that only exist in america due to a century of car lobby and propaganda. if your work, doctor, pub, park and shop are all within 5-15min walk from your home and you can get everywhere else by public transport it’s ok if the city stretches wide and it is actually quite pleasant to live in (ymmv).

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      11 days ago

      It works if you just have railways, the finger model is extremely good.

      (Finger model means cities like Copenhagen and Stockholm, where you have “fingers” of development stretching away from the “palm” in the middle, with each finger being built around a railway)

    • ivanvector@piefed.ca
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      13 days ago

      If I’m right about where this is, it’s also right by Pearson Airport, and is the busiest stretch of road in North America by average daily traffic.

  • slaacaa@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    just one more lane bro. i promise bro just one more lane and it’ll fix everything bro. bro… just one more lane. please just one more. one more lane and we can fix this whole problem bro. bro c’mon just give me one more lane i promise bro. bro bro please i just need one more lane

  • aceslip@lemmy.zip
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    13 days ago

    401 is a disaster but I disagree with some of your points. Parking is expensive as fuck, especially downtown. Trains are available, they are actively building a new LRT system. The city is dense as fuck so where would you propose putting more stations?

          • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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            13 days ago

            Try planting a tree in a paved over parking lot.

            The comments on this thread are exactly why transit expansion has been “planning” for 50 years in Toronto. Every year they fuck around with NIMBYS the cost and time increases.

            • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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              12 days ago

              Ford keeps calling for building more subways, but never really does.
              The Eglinton W. LRT extension tunnel is a waste of billions of dollars. Eglinton is so wide near Royal York, it could have easily been built above ground, and should have been complete by now. But Ford loves to waste money. The Ontario Line was more or less approved before Ford even took office.

              We need a subway up Bathurst, from the Lake all the way up to almost Newmarket. We need a subway under Lawrence from the Airport to Oshawa. We need a subway under Dundas. We need to extend the Sheppard line all the way across the city, into Ajax.

    • akwd169@sh.itjust.works
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      Lrt is kinda hot garbage though and had eglington area shutdown for like 15 years to build a system that’s slower than a bus and added insane complexity to every traffic light sequence at each intersection

      For the above ground portion anyway. They are fucking morons for not making it above the road, seperate from traffic and intersections… its just a longer slower bus that needed all that extra infrastructure built just to follow the existing road

      Parking is super expensive. Even employees at Sunnybrook hospital pay exorbitant rates

      Really wish they would add more subway, fully underground only (or above road!), fuck congesting roads further, look at the extension through YorkU into Vaughan, 50 mins from Union to YorkU? That is a thing of beauty

      • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
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        13 days ago

        Are they talking about the LRT that someone beat from one end to the other by racing on foot? Yeah… that’s totally a great LRT!!!

        Trains are technically available in Canada, but let’s be honest, they aren’t reliable, have bad schedules, are unnecessarily complex in certain cases (I have seen that they weigh your luggage like you are boarding an airplane…) and just are not a good service in general.

        Toronto has promise from what I can tell because they are trying to build a new metro line, but it has been delayed many a time sadly (common trend) and has ballooned in cost. Just gotta hope.

        • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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          13 days ago

          Vancouver skytrains are great. Autonomous elevated metro, every 3-5 minutes in some cases.

          There’s a new line going in to extend even further outside current metro boundaries.

          • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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            12 days ago

            Ironically the Scarborough RT, that is now shut, was exactly the same technology as the train in Vancouver. Except Vancouver paid the have it upgraded, and Toronto shut it down to build a subway extension on orders of Ford. An extension that will take a least another decade, that follows the same route as the Scarborough RT that was already running.

            • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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              12 days ago

              I don’t understand why he gets voted back in, he actively works against progress and good things.

              • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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                12 days ago

                He only got 43% of the popular vote. The ridings are too big, at 100,000 people per riding. The ridings should be 30,000 people. That way more people would be engaged, you’d get a few more regional parties that represent their specific interests. I can see a rural party starting in the NW of Ontario, that actual represents them.

                I don’t understand how the Conservatives hold together. The rural voters should be pissed about the billions he is unnecessarily wasting in Toronto with having the Eglinton LRT West buried for no reason, the billions for gutting Ontario Place, cancelling the Beer Store contract 1 year early, etc…

        • Knoxvomica@lemmy.ca
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          13 days ago

          I think Calgary and Vancouver have decent trains to be honest. Montreal seemed good when I was there too.

      • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        These are the dumb compromises that the left needs to make with right wingers like Ford to get things like the LRT build. The left governments propose a proper LRT built like they are in Europe. Ford and his followers scream about giving cars priority to turn left and right in-front of the trains. Ford, and his friends, demands that all the good plans be changed to ones that priorities cars driving by the LRT, to get approval. And we end up with a dumpster fire of a slow LRT, slow Spadina streetcar, slow King streetcar.

        It’ll only be when Ford is gone that we can really start to do changes.

      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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        13 days ago

        Regardless, more subways won’t fix the problem of people living in Whitby and working in Mississauga, or buying a house in Barrie and working in Toronto.

        Fucking Ontario can’t do simple math. These morons are working for their commutes.

  • ceenote@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    Who is “they”? Traffic reducing measures are generally popular with people living in cities, but stopped by suburban NIMBYs who commute. Just because someone is driving a car doesn’t automatically make them part of the problem.

    • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      It should be reduced to 80km/h through Toronto, to prevent accidents and make it more of a predicable and steady ride. It’s not just congestion, it’s everyone cutting each other off that makes this drive so bad. There should be speed cameras every kilometer to make sure everyone obeys the speed limit. Dropping from 100km/h to 80km/h through Toronto isn’t going to lose anybody any time, it’s backed up half the time anyway, and it’ll make it safer at night.

      • ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca
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        12 days ago

        I agree, So many people were straight up racing across traffic. Zig-zagging everywhere. And who the fuck passes from the right??? I nearly had a deadly collision with some lady driving a huge pickup truck that decided to pass a van from the right. And when I tried to merge in front of the van, she came in from the right lane at full speed without even looking. Absolutely insane!

        Drivers in Toronto are fucking bonkers. Some of the worst I’ve ever encountered. And I’ve driven in several countries across the globe.

        In Toronto’s defence though, the city did improve its roads in general with added bike lanes. I went last year and it was my first time since 2011 I think. The lanes are smaller and traffic slowed down, but it’s not frustrating.

        In Montreal, they’re re-doing a section of Hochelaga in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighborhood with added bike lanes on each side. Traffic already slowed down, it’s less noisy, there’s less pollution. And I get to feel a lot safer on that street on my bicycle now.

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 days ago

        Funnily enough lower speeds also makes the road fit more cars, so it might actually help congestion slightly.