Toronto’s politics sour what should be transit joy

A raft of new projects should be making us hopeful. So why is Toronto so cynical? wonders Royson James.

Thestar.com
June 6, 2016
By Royson James

If this is the golden age of transit building in Toronto, why are the advocates and supposed beneficiaries so discomfited?

Because too many of the projects are too politicized to give an independent observer - like the commuters and the citizens who pay the freight - any confidence that the right project is being built along the right corridor, at the right time, using the right transit mode, for the right price.

We love all the projects: Crosstown. SmartTrack. LRT. Relief line. Yonge subway to York Region. One-stop Scarborough subway. Malvern LRT that doesn’t go to Malvern. Love them all, but not effervescently so. We know we are being used. Our leaders have ground the confidence out of us and replaced it with cynicism.

The fear is we’ll wake up 30 years hence to find that we squandered an opportunity to realign our transit needs and deliver a city region equipped to handle its burgeoning future. We fear we’ll fail - not because of lack of money or an appetite for improvements, but for lack of guts to speak the truth.

This week the province boasted it will spend $160 billion on our transportation needs. Facts and careful consideration of the alternatives should determine where projects go.

On the day that embarrassingly low ridership numbers for the one-stop subway to Scarborough became public, the provincial government sprung into action, arm in arm with Mayor John Tory, with a curious transit announcement. Was it designed to deflect attention? Why announce $150 million for design studies of the downtown relief line, a transit route not yet approved?

Within 24 hours another reason emerged. Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca assembled the media to tell citizens his government is spending $50 million for studies on pushing the Yonge subway line north to Highway 7, quickly using up the Yonge subway capacity freed up by the relief line.

The flurry of announcements only muddled the thinking around the timing of the Yonge subway extension to York Region. And it failed to eclipse the fuzzy reasons for choosing to build a one-stop subway extension from Kennedy to the Scarborough Town Centre.

A short summary to capture the tortuous path to this point, and explain why not even the loudest proponents sleep well with the Scarborough subway on their minds:

The SRT (Scarborough Rapid Transit) opened in 1985. Left to rot, basically, it needs rehabilitation. Former mayor David Miller proposed an LRT replacement; the province agreed and said it would pick up the full $1.4-billion cost.

Enter Rob Ford. The late mayor pushed council to vote for a three-stop subway instead of LRT. The province balked and refused to pay. The project is now Toronto's cost.
Enter a provincial byelection. The ruling Liberals back the subway and candidate Mitzie Hunter wins in Scarborough. Full election follows and sees Liberal candidates all promising a subway.

Enter John Tory. Campaign platform promises SmartTrack - essentially, frequent service on GO lines inside Toronto, including a route right next to the planed Scarborough LRT-subway route, already approved.

Everyone points to the obvious conflict and argues that SmartTrack and the subway would cannibalize each other. Brad Duguid, the influential cabinet minister from Scarborough, refuses to back down on the subway. Tory has to salvage SmartTrack in the Scarborough corridor because the western segment proves absolutely unworkable.

Enter chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat with a political compromise. She moves the subway farther east - to McCowan, adding cost, now pushing $2 billion. To check further cost escalation, the subway will not stop between the Kennedy-Eglinton station and Highway 401 - the system’s longest distance between stations. This means, even though the subway veers east to McCowan, it won’t stop at Lawrence, to capture the thousands who travelling to the Scarborough General hospital.

The mayor, the chief planner, the province all cheerily quote strategically placed statistics and data to camouflage the conflicted, contemptible process.

If the RT wasn’t orphaned; if Ford hadn’t killed the LRT replacement; if the provincial Liberals hadn’t bought Scarborough votes with promise of a subway; if Tory hadn’t campaigned on a competing transit line right next to the proposed subway; if Tory and Duguid hadn’t insisted on keeping their projects - then we might have a transit plan that actually serves all of Scarborough.

Our leaders sow sadness where there should finally be joy. We should remember this every time we see them making announcements, bribing us with our own money.