Jennifer Keesmaat slams John Tory for ‘transit planning chaos’

Thestar.com
August 14, 2018
Ben Spurr

Mayoral candidate and former chief city planner Jennifer Keesmaat is taking aim at the mayor’s record on transit, slamming John Tory’s signature SmartTrack plan as a flimsy scheme devised merely to win him votes.

But in a biting news release issued Monday, Keesmaat provided no details of how she might change course on SmartTrack, which was among the projects she spent three years helping Tory advance before she stepped down as one of the city’s most powerful bureaucrats last September.

Jennifer Keesmaat says John Tory’s SmartTrack transit plan has been drastically revised from the version Tory pitched during his successful 2014 mayoral campaign.

“People expect their mayor to deliver, and our current leadership hasn’t gotten the job done,” Keesmaat said in the release, citing “transit planning chaos” and inadequate subway service she said has left station platforms “dangerously overcrowded.”

She noted SmartTrack has been drastically revised from the version Tory pitched during his successful 2014 campaign. He originally proposed 22 “new” stations on existing GO Transit lines and a new heavy rail spur to Pearson Airport.

The plan is now for just six new stations, which would be added to existing GO lines as part of the province’s proposed regional express rail (RER) expansion. The rail spur has been replaced by plans to extend the Eglinton Crosstown LRT further west.

“SmartTrack no longer exists as John Tory promised it to you during the last election,” Keesmaat said. “It is nothing more than a mirage that was designed to get him elected.”

But in a followup interview Monday, Keesmaat clarified that despite her criticism she had no intention of cancelling plans to build the six new SmartTrack stations. She said there remains a “strong planning rationale” behind the new stops.

Keesmaat, who made an eleventh-hour entry into the mayor’s race last month after the Star broke news of Premier Doug Ford’s plan to slash the size of council, said it’s important to recognize the original SmartTrack plan Tory promised is not what’s being delivered.

“It really was a branding exercise,” she said. “I would argue that these six stations are stations that in any circumstance the city of Toronto would have negotiated through the implementation process of RER.

“So, what did we really get at the end of the day? We got the price tag.”

Council voted in April to contribute up to $1.46 billion to the province’s RER plan to pay for the new SmartTrack stations and related work. Keesmaat said she wanted to ensure “what we’re getting from the province ... is good value for money” but didn’t say how she might alter the agreement with the provincial government.

As chief planner, Keesmaat was one of the most senior members of the team of city staff advancing SmartTrack to the current stage.

An October 2016 staff report bearing her name recommended council commit to funding all of the capital costs for SmartTrack, and the following month she told council that along with the relief line subway, the version of SmartTrack with six new stations would “play a critical role in responding to ridership demands in the system.”

Tory’s campaign seized on her previous statements Monday, sending the Star a list of quotes dating back to 2016 in which she expressed support for the city’s transit plans as developed under Tory.

“Toronto residents have yet to hear what Keesmaat’s plans are for transit. Is she planning on redrawing the city’s transit plan now that it is finally approved and after John Tory worked to secure $9 billion in funding from the federal and provincial governments?” a spokesperson for Tory’s campaign wrote.

“What is her plan and is that suddenly different from our transit network plan that she was proud to champion as chief planner? Why does she want to once again create transit chaos and indecision in the city by derailing a plan that is on track?”

In the interview Monday, Keesmaat explained she didn’t speak against SmartTrack in her role as chief planner because bureaucrats are “hamstrung” when they aren’t provided “courageous leadership” from elected officials.

“When I’ve been directed as a bureaucrat to implement the will of council, that’s exactly what I did,” she said. “And that was my obligation at that time.”

On top of her characterization of SmartTrack as a “mirage,” Keesmaat said the project had been a “distraction” from building the city’s transit priority, the relief line subway, which she claimed has fallen 18 months behind schedule.

City staff confirmed to the Star earlier this year they were behind on the line’s planning process, but would still report back to council in 2019 as scheduled.

In her release, Keesmaat promised Monday to accelerate the construction of the $6.8-billion first phase of the line, which would link the eastern arm of Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) to downtown, by starting property acquisitions “immediately”, “kick-starting” required utility work, and “bringing forward” the procurement for tunnelling and station construction.

Tory’s campaign said work for the relief line was already well underway. The spokesperson said property acquisition for required utility work has already begun, and contracts for design of stations and tunnelling have already been awarded.

Although Tory’s 2014 transit platform included three key promises -- to build SmartTrack, the Scarborough subway extension and the relief line -- Keesmaat’s release Monday only spoke to SmartTrack and the relief line.

Asked again Monday about the Scarborough subway, she said there would rolling out more details of a transit plan at a later date.

“Keesmaat has not mentioned the Scarborough subway extension at all. Is she committed to building transit for Scarborough residents?” wrote the mayor’s spokesperson.