rfmcdonald | [LINK] "A futuristic vision for the TTC

The Toronto Star's Iain Marlow chides Toronto for its transit problems. As the article's title says--"A futuristic vision for the TTC - from 1910"--they've been seen well in advance.

The tale of the present-day TTC's mediocrity seems to have been a tale foretold – for a fee, to be precise, by a New York City consulting firm called Jacobs & Davies, Inc.
In 1910, the company's engineers produced a report for Toronto's council on the feasibility of an underground rail network, recommending the system's creation with reference to the flourishing underground systems in London and New York.
Three things about the report are noteworthy, nearly 100 years after it was submitted.
First, noting the "fan-shaped" nature of Toronto's development, it favoured the construction of a subway that looks astonishingly similar to the downtown "relief" line featured in Metrolinx's regional transportation plan from 2008 and debated by council in late January: "We believe the wisdom of this proposal is indubitable ... some diagonal routes would seem to be strongly needed, and of course the longer they are delayed the more expensive this surgical operation will become..."
Second, the report predicted the current situation of Toronto's public transit under the city's control: "...we would not be understood to favour municipal operation, as we are convinced that such operation, even with the best will in the world, is usually incompetent and wasteful and unsatisfactory to the public."
And third – ironically, considering this report resulted in city council commissioning another report, which ultimately voided the first – it prophesied the difficulties associated with having transportation subject to the political whims of councillors, noting the difficulty in creating and sustaining a rail network "with ever changing government."
In late January, city councillors voted 31-13 to ask Metrolinx, the provincial agency tasked with rolling out the region's transit system, to prioritize the "relief" line over a Yonge line extension into York Region – moving it from a 25-year plan into a 15-year one. The line is designed to loop from Pape or Donlands down through Union Station and back up again to Dundas West.
The move symbolizes the desire of some councillors to thicken the downtown core's strained transit network over expanding into the suburbs. But York Region's vice-president of transit and Metrolinx's chair both seemed anxious about Toronto not playing by the regional plan's rules. And so again, the debating continues; meanwhile the TTC rusts.