Driving along Eglinton with my brother-in-law, we stopped at a red light beside the empty Keelesdale LRT station. “Is there an open date?” he asked. The government doesn’t have one, I responded. “But what are they saying?” he asked. I said the government is saying they’ll tell us when they tell us. He said, “Imagine if we told the government the same thing when it came to our taxes?”
This November marks our 13th year without our LRT.
Anyone can see the new stations, like the pristine Oakwood LRT station. It’s lit up. Immensely tall ceilings, white interior; it looks like a glass covered cathedral. Majestic and completely empty.
I told my friend about it. He laughed. He told me about his friend from Switzerland who is amazed by Torontonians. His friend said that if his government tried to do what they do here, there would be protests on the streets. Switzerland? We’re more passive than the Swiss? Ok. If you think about it, it makes sense. The Swiss have one of the best commuter rail systems in the world. Maybe you can’t get rail done without speaking up.
My dad recently came back from Quito, Ecuador. They have the same LRT we’re supposed to have here. Except theirs was done for a fraction of the cost. And it’s finished. My dad took the LRT while he was there. He said being an older person, he was more sensitive to the air conditioning and ventilation of the trains. It wasn’t working too well. But people were using it in the thousands.
Back in Toronto, we’ve paid more than $13 billion in taxes for a ghost train.
“We’ll tell you when we tell you.” I wonder what the provincial government would do if everyone who lives along Eglinton said the same thing when it came to paying their provincial taxes. “We’ll get to it when we get to it.”
We don’t have to throw a Boston tea party yet. We can be like the Swiss. Just speak up. Doug Ford is itching to have an early election. And he’s the boss of the LRT. We can send him a message then.
