Liberal leadership candidate would cut transit fares, take over Gardiner and DVP

Thestar.com
May 23, 2019
Robert Benzie

The front-runner for the leadership of Ontario’s Liberal Party says he would upload responsibility for the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway to the province and introduce half-price TTC and GO Transit fares at off-peak hours.

Steven Del Duca, who served as transportation minister from 2014 to 2018, also said a government led by him would restore a planned doubling of provincial gas tax revenues for municipalities, which was recently cancelled by the Progressive Conservatives.

“The most important thing we can do for commuters ... is to provide urgent relief to both their commutes and their bank accounts as soon as possible,” Del Duca said Wednesday.

Styling himself in contrast to Conservative Premier Doug Ford, the Liberal hopeful said Queen’s Park must work with local communities instead of imposing its will upon them.

“What I’m pushing forward is what we can produce when we’re working in partnership with municipalities,” he said.

Asked why the Liberals did not take over maintenance of the highways and slash TTC fares when they were in office, Del Duca said “we actually achieved a lot,” including the extension of the subway to Vaughan.

“But the bottom line is progress never stops, progress never ends,” he said.

Under his plan, all transit systems in Ontario could provide a 50 per cent discount for off-peak fares -- with peak hours being defined solely as one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon on weekdays.

All other times and all weekend and holiday transit would be considered off-peak.

Del Duca said the hope is it would create “more balance in our commuter patterns” and give businesses and employees “more flexibility.”

The financial incentive to commute during off-peak hours should alleviate rush-hour traffic, he said.

“This is all about relief for communities. We can’t ask commuters in this region that are cramming onto streetcars, buses, and trains like sardines to wait another decade for relief.”

Because transit lines are running all day anyway, it would also make them more affordable for seniors and students and “generate revenue for transit systems by attracting net new ridership.”

Along with reinstating the plan to double the municipal share of gas tax revenues that Ford cancelled last month, Del Duca would discuss the upload of “provincially significant” highways with the city of Toronto and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.

These include the Gardiner Expressway, which was downloaded to the city in 1997 by then Conservative premier Mike Harris, and the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto, Hamilton’s Red Hill Expressway, and the E.C. Row Expressway in Windsor.

The former transportation minister said the province has the fiscal capacity and the expertise to maintain the highways, which “significantly lessen the burden of communities across Ontario.”

A spokesman for Toronto Mayor John Tory welcomed Del Duca’s initiatives.

“The mayor has previously supported the idea of the province helping pay for the DVP and the Gardiner because they are regional highways used by many non-Toronto residents,” said Don Peat, Tory’s executive director of communications and strategic issues management.

“And the mayor has also been clear that the gas tax funding should be restored,” said Peat. “He pointed out again today that the current government promised to continue that funding if elected and has now broken that promise.”