New transit plan is as good as we’re going to get
Allowing transit planning to become political sport has lead us down a troubled road, writes Royson James.

thestar.com
March 9, 2016
By Royson James

If David Miller had returned as mayor in 2010 instead of quitting after two terms, LRTs would be running along Finch West and Eglinton East and Sheppard East up to Malvern - plus light rail lines coming soon to Jane St. and Don Mills Rd.

If Premier Mike Harris had not killed the Eglinton Subway, westward from the Allen Expressway in 1995, we’d be riding those trains already, instead of waiting for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT to grind into operation around 2021.

If Miller hadn’t given way to Rob Ford who bellowed “subways, subways, subways,” we’d soon be riding a brand new, fully-funded LRT from Kennedy to the Scarborough Town Centre and Malvern. Instead, city councillors are still wrestling with how to get passengers from the town Centre to downtown.

And if John Tory hadn’t inserted SmartTrack into the transportation dialect, we wouldn’t have lost a year talking and funding and studying transit options that many observers said were unworkable. Neither would Toronto councillors be on the verge of spending enormous sums of city tax dollars for transit projects to be owned and operated by the province.

But, all things considered, given this city’s political reality, and the tortuous path we’ve travelled, the transit plan heading to city council later this month is as good as we are going to get. And it will cost us more than we realize.

The mayor is right when he says the vast majority of Torontonians just want to move on and build transit, any transit. He’s right, but he has contributed to the dysfunction that pushes residents so close to the brink of transit fatigue that they will accept anything.

The package that landed at the city’s executive committee Wednesday would be welcomed with less cynicism if city staff had not been pressured into submission - despite their vows Wednesday that the mayor did not hold their hands and write their reports.

One operative who has seen and participated in the staff deliberations around the transit plans filed Wednesday says this: “I have never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever seen transit planning this political.” Yes, six “ever”.

Setting aside the key issues with the transit plan - are the ridership projections fanciful; are there better solutions; are we building transit projects that are needed or ones that fill a political mandate; will the plans attract new riders out of their cars - planners John Livey and Jennifer Keesmat told the executive committee that the future success of the plan depends on two things:

How much do you charge for fares? And how frequently do you run the service?

When the TTC built, managed and operated transit, the solution was simpler. Now, the city is partnering with Metrolinx and the province and the marriage will be costly. And Mayor Tory has opened the city’s piggy bank for the province to dip into it.

“How did Toronto become the revenue tool for the province to build transit?” asked Councillor Josh Matlow. “Why participate in the willful downloading of some of the most expensive projects to be built in Ontario?”

A few years ago the province was about to build about $17 billion worth of light rail transit in Toronto. Fiscal realities dropped the promised gift to $12 billion, then $8 billion. Rob Ford arrived and looked the gift horse in the mouth. Now, instead of pocketing all that cash from Queen’s Park, we are about to pick up huge amounts of provincial costs to deliver what is, in effect, GO Transit improvements.

When the provincial government unveiled a $13.5 billion plan to electrify the GO lines and provide all-day, two-way service along its GO corridors, this so-called RER plan was universally acclaimed. But Tory the mayoral candidate had another idea.

Why not piggy back on the provincial plan and create new stops on the GO lines inside Toronto and brand the new service as SmartTrack? He won the election. Much of what he wanted can’t be done. But he has to maintain the brand, so SmartTrack remains.

And here is the surprise: It’s going to cost billions of dollars, for sure. And it duplicates service in the Scarborough corridor.

Besides, the city will now have to pick up a portion of GO’s costs for new tracks, overpasses, bridges, trains, operational costs to cover the insertion of SmartTrack service.

There’s also this. GO operations costs more than the TTC’s. The government subsidy, per ride, is higher. Fares are higher. The city insists that we need a TTC fare for SmartTrack to work. And frequent service as often as every five minutes.

So, who will pick up the difference in the subsidy? City staff is concerned about where the closed-door negotiations are headed.

CFO Rob Rossini told executive committee: “To make all of this a go, we are going to have to look at a broad range of approaches. This is an ambitious undertaking, particularly in 15 years. It’s well beyond our traditional (funding) tools.”

TTC Chair Josh Colle voiced concern. “My fear is that Toronto gets the shaft,” he said.

Committee approved the new plans unanimously.