I just think that's viewing history through rose-coloured glasses. Phase 1 was a political knife fight and I have to think that if you polled KW residents, you still might even get a majority or plurality who still think it was a big waste of money. The thing that got it over the tipping point was almost-normal costs* and a larger-than-average bloc of academics and urban-dwellers to endlessly advocate.
I don't think any other Ontario city has those features - which means that we will literally never see transit like this built anywhere else either. A significant chunk of local leadership in Cambridge has been writing all sorts of statements and letters of support, but the state of local news is so tragic and comatose that I bet nobody here has seen them and still think that Doug Craig is the only voice in town. KW had and still has plenty of Doug Craigs - they were just (temporarily) defeated for Phase 1. It seems like nobody has the political will to bother doing it again and thinks it's easier to just assume Cambridge is a basket case without even trying.
* it's so frustrating to have this debate and conversation while the absurd cost topic is hanging over us, completely unaddressed by the levels of government who could address it but refuse to
I don't think any other Ontario city has those features - which means that we will literally never see transit like this built anywhere else either. A significant chunk of local leadership in Cambridge has been writing all sorts of statements and letters of support, but the state of local news is so tragic and comatose that I bet nobody here has seen them and still think that Doug Craig is the only voice in town. KW had and still has plenty of Doug Craigs - they were just (temporarily) defeated for Phase 1. It seems like nobody has the political will to bother doing it again and thinks it's easier to just assume Cambridge is a basket case without even trying.
* it's so frustrating to have this debate and conversation while the absurd cost topic is hanging over us, completely unaddressed by the levels of government who could address it but refuse to
local cambridge weirdo