Raise the Hammer

I can appreciate that and I apologize. I tried to read through the 80 or so comments for context, but didn't get through them all. It is a bit concerning to see knee-jerk labeling of someone a troll for having a different point of view - no one will win any debates that way. Sometimes RTH regulars call someone a troll too quickly even though ideologically I agree with RTH principles in every way.

Anyway - although it was emotional, I stand by my comment - we have a serious problem of entitlement, regardless of where you specifically fall. And it costs lives, not just drivers' time, and should be pejoratively denounced as it must change. Changing these systems at that time is painful. There is really no way around that. Habits are already established in large numbers - people are commuting by car, have bought their homes based on commute times that increase as years go by, induced demand has filled up traffic lanes, and so on.

Any lane removals at that point, for bikes, LRT, whatever, is going to be painful. Especially on arterials. Those arterials should have been multi-modal in the first place. But people adjusted to what they do have, and it is frequently seen as some kind of unjust austerity to road-diet the space for vehicles. But the people commuting multi-modally have been neglected, their time and safety stolen, for years, decades.

A teensy bit of austerity for the vehicles for a bigger purpose of rebalancing loads on the networks sucks at first, but gets better as people adjust. Later, everyone has it better. If you choose or must drive, your commute time goes down because many others have shifted to transit, trains, or bikes. All of our time collectively improves. The lost time for commuting in the GTA is well known as a serious quality of life problem, and costs billions of dollars in lost potential.

Sometimes we have to have the courage to make a positive change and try it out. We need all day GO transit between Hamilton and Oshawa at least. Niagara to Kingston is better. We need high capacity transport to be able to express past private vehicle congestion.

I agree that the bus lane is a half assed experiment. The LRT should be under construction, if not finished by now. But, may I offer this viewpoint - the political culture has been SO BAD, that we are only just now starting to break the ice and getting our politicians to even acknowledge the existence of other tools and methods. This is a positive thing. I too would love properly researched and implemented upgrades. I also want a pony and a raise at work, but we have to be realistic. Just the fact that Hart Solomon is out of the way, and the culture in city hall is beginning to shift, is a huge improvement, even if some projects still suck.