17 Replies to “Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting 20 Corrupt Politicians Into Your Wallet”

  2. When will they be opening the shuttlecraft space ports? Where is the Jupiter 2? Have they found the Spindrift yet?

  3. As anyone who has driven in Toronto in rush hour can attest, streetcars plug traffic for other vehicles because they can’t pull over to to take on/ let off passengers. Thus traffic only moves as fast as the railcars. Buses are far better and cheaper and more versatile options.

  4. As a recent study pointed out, there is not a single public transportation system in the continental USA that does not lose money – it is only a question of how much. Larger cities lose less because more people use the systems, but they still lose money. So having a local Ontario center like Kitchener and Waterloo put in a light rail system to the tune of 1.8 Billion dollars is classic “I can’t do research, don’t read much, and it is so bright and shiny” reasoning. Meanwhile, Cambridge, which is part of the same region, is getting (get this) “fast buses” running down the main street called Hespeler Road. Cambridge suffers the same kind of stupidity. When the three towns/villages of Hespeler, Preston and Galt were amalgamated together to form the city of Cambridge, the obvious happened – the money gravitated to the largest hog, Galt. So the main bus terminal for Cambridge is located in the dying town center of Galt, about 10KM from the main highway connecting it to the rest of the region and the LRT in Kitchener and Waterloo. The other event at about the same time, when the region was amalgamated, was that the new buses, purchased by the tax dollars of Cambridge citizens, were pulled into service in Kitchener and Waterloo and have never been returned – again, the largest hog at the trough phenomenon.
    As to the amalgamation of the region, which was supposed to save the taxpayers a bundle by the bulk purchase of services and goods, has not yielded those benefits. Again, a recent study of the GTAA amalgamation has demonstrated that such actions do not in fact yield the savings predicted, but just the opposite effect because of the enlarged administrative requirements.
    Politicians are attracted to very public projects not because of sound reasoning, but notoriety. And because the politicians marry in haste, the public suffers the abuse over the long haul.

  5. Right you are Gord not to mention all the half blind little old ladies killed walking out into traffic to get on the streetcar.
    Rubber tired buses and electric rubber tired buses can pull over to the curb when they break down or pick up/ drop off passengers.
    Tracks also make every single streetcar behind it stop when one quits.

  6. When in Toronto I don’t bother with the street cars. I catch up to them at the next street light. Unless of course they’re full. In that case I just walk by all the people standing there with their mouths open, waiting to get on the streetcar that just went by without stopping.
    But seriously they should cut off car traffic to King St and leave it for the street cars, buses, taxis, bikes etc.

  7. Any town with a modern streetcar fleet is pretty much declaring
    itself a rent seeker’s heaven in every aspect of how it functions.

  9. Urban amalgamations are usually costliest for the suburbs. The use the annexed areas as cash cows. Lots of revenue, no expenses. I knew someone from Fort Garry, Manitoba that was merged to Winnipeg in the early 1970s. He remembered the day quite well because it was the last time his street was snow plowed.

  10. Streetcars work great… if there are no cars and no bicycles to screw them up. On routes where they run by themselves they’re fine. Let there be cars, and the whole thing grinds to a halt.
    None of this matters to city planners. They don’t care if it actually works.
    This is the most important thing to remember about city planners.

  11. related : Vancouver rejects a tax increase to “fund transit”. Over 60% rejected it!!! BTW Vancouver has the worst traffic in North America because instead of building highways and bridges they spent billions on a “sky train” that’s down on a weekly basis.

  12. And Mayor Moonbeam’s ENDLESSLY EMPTY bike lanes contribute Massively to the traffic congestion in Vancouver.

  13. Politicians: corrupt or just immoral. I live in a rural area adjacent to a small city. We have two bus lines that carry students (mostly international) from a major shopping area in the north end to the university.
    One travels the freeway, the other through five kilometers of our rural area. We have 5 bus stops, but studies have shown that none of them are necessary or used. No one gets on, no one gets off. In other words, it’s point to point bus service.
    Nevertheless, we all pay a substantial transit surcharge on our property tax bill, despite this having been a ‘pilot project’ that had zero local support. Now transit tells us that if we don’t want the ‘transit service’, we’ll lose our HandiDart service that those with mobility issues rely upon. Never mind that we had the HandiDart BEFORE the pilot project was initiated.
    This was a tax grab, pure and simple. Hundreds of rural property owners contributing – nay, subsidizing, international students while receiving nothing but threats of removal of what is an essential service for the physically disadvantaged.

  14. I love streetcars… if they are in San Fransisco. That is a must do for any tourist visiting the area.
    I also lives in Houston Texas and used the Metro there. It didn’t have to compete with cars for space and with the bus feeder lines, it was a fast and efficient way to get downtown, especially if you were going to take in an Astro’s ball game.

  15. here in Edmonton we have been waiting patiently for over a year for the newest expansion to our LRT system to open. Constant new open dates regularly missed, then pushed farther back and now undetermined. This has been an expensive omnishambles from day one. As expected out mayor is a pie in the sky socialist as bad as, if not worse, then Nenshi to the south. Two great cities in a great province, now completely ruled over by leftist morons, but I repeat myself.

  17. Last evening an associate pointed out a rapidly developing mass transit system, under construction, in Mississauga.
    It basically is a new buses only, fast bus corridor, being constructed on a Hydro tower corridor….
    At least it will not block existing streets.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation