One of Rob Ford's favourite tactics in his ongoing War On Facts is to complain about the streetcar Right-Of War on St. Clair West. The project went over budget and took longer to finish than expected (in good part thanks to delays won by groups opposed to the project). And now that it's finished, well.... it's a big success. But Ford doesn't let inconvenient little things like the truth stop him from complaining that St. Clair is "bumper to bumper" on a Sunday morning. Or from calling it the "St. Clair disaster" every chance he gets. "It drives me nuts, it drives me absolutely nuts," he told the Toronto Sun, as if that's why the guy is nuts.
So if it's anecdotal evidence our mayor likes, here's a time lapse video posted by YouTube user joedrew. It shows what people who live near the Right-Of-Way (including a couple of our own editors) already know: what traffic looks like during the morning rush hour on St. Clair between Bathurst and Yonge.
Of course, making up your mind about the success or failure of the Right-Of-Way based one video of one intersection would hardly be fair. And further to the west, there are sections of St. Clair that don't have as much room for traffic, where we've definitely seen things more backed up than this. So it's probably best to base your opinion on the facts instead: as the Globe and Mail reports, since the completion of the line "overall traffic and peak-period volumes have fallen sharply; transit ridership has jumped 13 per cent... service frequency has improved; and collisions and personal injuries have plummeted by a third".
What a disaster.
2 comments:
Cool video, but the correct backing track would have been Autobahn by Kraftwerk. They could cut out two minutes from around the 4 minute mark.
it is becoming abundantly clear to me that all of ford's issues with transit have to do with his personal impatience and inability to wait in traffic. i'm pretty sure if rob ford never had to wait behind another car or another red light in his life he would probably stop caring about transit, pedestrians and cyclists altogether.
i think what we should do is issue an "EZ Pass" to mayor ford et al, similar to the system they have at disneyworld. passholders always get to move to the front of the line and don't have to wait. maybe the easiest way to achieve this would be to outfit all their cars with lights and sirens or let them drive ambulances or police cars so they can get around without impediment or pesky waiting.
hey, it's a small price i'd be willing to pay to get ford out of the transit debate.
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