First of all, I urge you to check out a Metrolinx Regional Transportation Plan public meeting and open house if you haven’t already had the chance to. It’s your chance to see details of The Big Move up close, give your feedback directly to the agency, and even chat personally with high-ranking Metrolinx staff members. Information about upcoming meetings are available on the Metrolinx web site.

At the public meeting at the International Centre on Tuesday, I found myself in a small, diverse discussion group giving and listening to feedback on the RTP. One of the members of the group was a representative from the Weston Community Coalition, a group primarily opposed to the Airport Rail Link proposal known as Blue 22. Since the improvements necessary to implement a Union-Pearson train will also allow for GO service expansions to Brampton (the closest station to my family home), Georgetown and beyond, I thought I might weigh in to look at the issues and see how we can collectively move forward to improve transportation in this corridor for all.

If you can recall the proposal, Blue 22 would have run trains every 20 minutes or so from Union Station to Pearson Airport, making only one stop at Bloor GO (to connect to the subway). The trains would have been refurbished Budd Rail Diesel Cars, be operated by SNC Lavalin, and would have charged a $20 fare. The community group representing local residents raised several concerns about this proposal, and while they may have been painted as irrational vanguards of the status quo by some, the group’s points are reasonable and deserved to be addressed. (more…)

Taxis. You see them everywhere and they’re an inescapable part of the local transportation system.

You hop in a cab when it’s raining and you’re in a rush to get to your next meeting a few miles away. You (hopefully) call a taxi after a night out partying and you’re in no condition to drive.

You may not think of them every day, but taxis are essential to any region’s transportation network.

But all is not well right now in taxi-land.

I recently had the chance to speak to Roger, a Toronto independent taxicab owner, about a legal battle between the City of Toronto and the city’s airport taxi operators, and the role of the Toronto Taxi Industry Association in that battle.

While Toronto’s taxi battle is taking place in the courts, far away from the sight of most people in the city that use cabs every day, the ramifications of the eventual ruling will have an impact on all of us.

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