Raise the Hammer

Sorry this is a long comment but it is a reflection on my opinion on this subject and urban affairs in general. As a Torontonian who now lives in the former city of Scarborough (but did used to live in Hamilton too), I must say that the problems of transit service funding and deployment are not merely limited to Hamilton. Here in Toronto a single ride is $2.75 and service at times can be best described using unfavourable language. Whether its the TTC's crumbling subway stations (or housing or roads) one cannot help but feel that the future is bleak. All I can say is that if I were confronted by a politican asking how it could be fixed I would say this: tax me! Its very simple people you get what you pay for. It seems that with the emergence of the suburbs and their accumulation to the point where the suburbs and its culture control most of the government's decisions, it suddenly beomes more important to build the red hill creek expressway or 407 or support the auto and oil industry than build an LRT through Hamilton and Toronto's Transit City plan. Because of the influnce of the suburbs, funding is diverted away from our downtowns and redirected to suburban cities like Vaughan with no street life whatsoever and which requires heavy subsidies to service and maintain (the 407/400 interchange in vaughan takes up almost as muach land as that of downtown Toronto). Nowadays you've got Steven Harper and Dalton McGuinty announcing the construction of a subway to Vaughan's corporate centre instead of building a subway along King or Queen St, where both streetcar lines along these streets carry as many or even more passengers than all of GO Transit (I know the GTA is unrelated to Hamilton Wentworth but from what I read and see the conditions doled out by the province and feds are very similar). So here is what we must do, we must stop urban sprawl now! The planet consists of a finite volume and finite resources, a densely built downtown neighborhood like Hess village or Queen St. West in TO is more efficient with energy consumption and land use than Mississauga or upper hamilton (where people are forced to drive everywhere because everything is spread out along eight lane arterials). With an end to urban sprawl we can end the sucking of life out of our downtowns in order to subsidize people's desire to drive an SUV resulting in creating a QEW like Main stret or freeway like conditions as seen at the south end of Spadina Ave. Urban sprawl encroaches on native peopoles land, elects governments like the Harris PCs (whom were elected mostly by suburban communities) and leaves those who choose or have no choice to take the HSR or TTC with expensive fares and poor service. With global wraming and incraesing traffic congestion, it is only a matter of time before Canadians (and Americans) wake up and realize that North America is not a land of unlimited resources where key decisions can be put off. Hamilton's transportatation problems are but one part of a big socio-economic challenge facing the west. Luckily the echo baby boomer generation is reaching a mature age, a generation that is well versed in high-technology and the internet. Even in China the Communist government's propoganda is no match for its people's ability to fight back through the internet. Its only a matter of time before things change, the only question is when?