Tory makes unsubstantiated claims in support of subway plan

Before debate resumes at city hall, council members challenge wisdom of one-stop subway plan

Thestar.com
March 27, 2017
By Jennifer Pagliaro


Mayor John Tory, who promised to make evidence-based decisions on policy matters, cited unsubstantiated numbers in defence of his preferred Scarborough subway plan Monday, contradicting both data from staff and independent academic analysis.

Tory touted the plan to build a one-stop, $3.35-billion subway extension as a wise investment during a lunchtime speech in front of an enthusiastic Scarborough business crowd before debate resumes at city hall on Tuesday.

That investment, he claimed, could substantially reduce the time residents spend on transit while arguing that critics of the subway plan already live in areas well-served by subways.

“They can walk to a subway stop and yet they ridicule the saving of 15 or 20 minutes twice a day for Scarborough residents who presently have much longer bus rides to the Kennedy subway station, or over to Yonge Street, than they will after the planned extension us built,” Tory told the luncheon.

But that claim of time saved is more than twice what’s been calculated by city staff, who have estimated that replacing the existing Scarborough RT with a subway would save eight minutes on travel between a proposed Scarborough Centre station and west of Kennedy Station.

Speaking to reporters after the speech, Tory, who criticized those who have previously challenged city staff, said he talks to “real people” who have estimated the time they might save on a line that has not yet been built.

“And I believe them because they travel that route every single day. And so I’m just relying on what people tell me - not one person, not three people, lots of people - and they say they’re going to save 15 or 20 minutes each way every day.”

That number does not account for what travel time savings could be achieved with a subway when compared with a seven-stop LRT that was previously proposed and later scrapped by council under former mayor Rob Ford. Staff have not done and were not directed to do that or any other comparison of the subway and the LRT, which was to be fully funded by the province.

The eight-minute savings estimate also does not account for the extra time most residents would spend on the bus getting to the subway.

A study by Ryerson University researchers, reported by the Star on Monday, found on average that a transit user would spend an additional 6.8 minutes on the bus to get to the closest rapid transit station, compared with the LRT. In some cases, additional time spent on the bus would be significant, the analysis found - as much as 19 minutes.

Asked about that study, which analyzed publicly available data from the federal census and Google, Tory said: “I don’t know how anybody can possibly reach those conclusions.”

He said bus routes would be rerouted once the subway extension is completed.

A TTC spokesperson, Brad Ross, earlier told the Star in an email there would be some re-routing: “As for travel times, most bus routes remain unchanged and travel times for customers to Scarborough Centre Station will be the same as today, notwithstanding changes to roadway congestion in the future.”

Asked for clarification of his remarks Monday, a spokesperson in Tory’s office referred a reporter to his earlier statements.

“I am just utterly shocked that the mayor of Toronto would consider spending $3.5 billion on what amounts to a hunch,” said Councillor Gord Perks, who has opposed the subway plan and been chiefly critical of the mayor this term.

Councillor Josh Matlow, who has advocated for an LRT network, said the subway will serve far fewer people for more money.

“The data on trip times in Scarborough factually supports what most reasonable people have known intuitively for a long time, which is that replacing a rapid transit LRT network with one subway stop will leave more Scarborough residents on the bus,” he said.

Matlow made several official requests to staff before Tuesday’s meeting, where council members will debate a staff recommendation for a McCowan Ave.-aligned subway. His questions noted unexplained contradictions with information earlier presented at council that cast doubts on returning to the LRT plan. Those answers were not yet available Monday.

“This is a manufactured war. The mayor might be waging a war, but we’re just sharing the facts,” Matlow said. “And unlike the politically driven rhetoric that the mayor and the one-stop subway proponents have been using, I believe the facts speak for themselves.”

At a packed town hall on transit - the second well-attended discussion in Scarborough in just two weeks - residents were split, with hearty cheers for a presentation demystifying exaggerated or false subway claims from Councillor Paul Ainslie’s (Ward 43 Scarborough East) and applauding the proposed one-stop extension.

“We want to move people here!” one man shouted from the crowd as Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, a leading subway advocate, made a presentation about the one-stop extension. De Baeremaeker said he would not support a study by staff comparing the subway with the LRT.

“What about the evidence?” someone shouted.

Monday was not the first time Tory has used a speech to fight for a position on a major transportation project using torqued numbers.

In fighting to rebuild the Gardiner East, instead of replacing it with a boulevard, in 2015, Tory repeatedly claimed that the teardown would create a 10-minute delay - a number provided in a study for a scenario not considered by council.