The tl;dr is baby boomers are used to getting their way, but they didn't get their way this time. They have cars and giant houses and wouldn't be seen using public transportation anyway. They will be retired or dead before the existing road infrastructure is completely overwhelmed so thus they don't want to invest in the future. They don't care if we have to struggle in the future, as long as they can keep sitting on their golden clouds they will tell us to get off their lawns. Of course they ignore the fact that their $11/hour PSW can't afford a car & that LRT will literally enable them to sit on their golden clouds for longer, but thinking about others to that degree is not a strong point for the majority of boomers. (The relatively few boomers that do think from the perspective of others have long ago figured out the easily-exploitable tendencies of their contemporaries have been getting rich via obvious schemes for decades. They certainly aren't going to rock that boat.)

It's unfamiliar territory for North American boomers to not get their way 100% of the time. Since being born 50+ years ago they have been told they are special and that they deserve everything just for being alive. Their parents lived through the depression and two world wars so it kinda makes sense. But that sort of childhood programming is not easily undone, as we can see when boomers frequently clash with their kids, when the kids are promised the same stuff by for-profit enterprises who are struggling to maintain year-over-year profit growth as the boomers age. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But the government has had no chance over the years due to the historic skew of demographics. That's why the numerous local youth clubs were dismantled in the late 70s thru early 90s for example, the boomers were done with them and instead wanted government subsidies to go to the next thing boomers needed in life. When was Centre in the Square built again? Anyway, when you see "Kitchener downtown youth problem" and then boomers say "it wasn't like that when I was a kid", they are absolutely right. They got great services (voted for by their parents) and then pulled the ladder up behind them. Rinse and repeat across many types of services. Their consistently ignorant rhetoric is so obvious when you think for 30 seconds and consider the info they decline to include. It really highlights their obliviousness. I'm not sure how willful it is, but that aspect is ultimately irrelevant.

Finally in this region the yuppy voters outnumber the boomer voters, so we are actually able to have nice things for people under the age of 55. Instead of having a government mandated to siphon every available resource towards the boomers, we are able to build towards for the future. In 20-50 years KW will be much better positioned than many other cities simply because the local governments stopped catering to the greatest entitlement generation that the world has ever seen. All thanks to the universities and tech sector. But it pisses boomers off like no other. A group who has never lost finally loses. It's hard to teach old dogs new tricks, so they just spaz out.

NOTE: There are certainly KW boomers who are pro-LRT even though it doesn't directly benefit them. Unfortunately the majority of their contemporaries are uncompromisingly self-centered.

NOTE 2: Not all KW residents against LRT fall into the group I describe. Many people have legitimate criticisms of the plan. For example it's disingenuous to ignore the fact that LRT is not fair to Cambridge & there is no guarantee that their "part 2" will happen. This is not the only aspect with legitimate concerns/issues. To be completely honest, I believe that the incessant whining coming from boomers feeling scorned has undermined discussion & prevented some legitimate anti-LRT views from being honestly considered. I consider that unfortunate because it's usually beneficial to amend systems in advance to accommodate legitimate criticism and/or implement compromises.

However, people with legitimate anti-LRT views generally state the particulars of their concerns. The passive-aggressive predictions of doom and gloom do not fall into this category, nor do the toddler-style tantrums I've seen repeatedly peppered in The Record's opinion section. I can see how emotionally manipulating the younger generations through vague yet authoritative-sounding statements rooted in the anecdotal experiences of recklessly self-centered individuals has worked in the past, but I'm tired of that crap and will not let it slide anymore.