General Politics Discussion

[Pheidippides]

I understand the current desire to change away from the Liberals (how many times will they promise better GO service before we see it -- even the current promise is 2 elections away)

I’m sure the issue of 2WAD GO service has been slightly strung out over several elections as a perpetual carrot, much like the highway 7 expansion, and will be, as you said, for a few more, but I’m not sure why so many people think that the roll-out and ramping up of GO train service is even an issue at this point.

There really isn’t much any party can do to speed the process up. It isn’t like in other countries where you can suddenly throw 100,000 workers and a bunch of money at a project and have it done in few months (or literally overnight).

Metrolinx has a plan (the Georgetown/Bramalea bypass, the 401 tunnel, changes to fleet, etc.) and they are working through it, but it is a complex infrastructure project that is simply going to take time to work through our system of EAs, RFPs, QA, etc.

I suppose if a party eliminated all environmental legislation, just awarded contracts (got rid of the RFP process), overpaid CN exorbitantly for access to the bottlenecked track section, closed the 401 completely to speed the tunnel construction, and gutted safety laws (inspection, sign-offs, worker protections, etc.) a bit of time could be saved, but probably not a large percentage.