Toronto lags behind other cities in transit built over last decade: report

CP24.com
Sept. 5, 2014
By Chris Fox

The average Torontonian takes more trips on public transit than residents in other major cities, but when it comes to the amount of rapid transit available per capita Toronto has some catching up to do, according to a new report from an environmental think tank.

The report from the Pembina Institute found that city residents use the TTC or GO Transit an average of 133 times every year, which compares favourably with public transit usage in Ottawa (104 times), Montreal (93 times), Calgary (74 times) and Vancouver (52 times).

The report, however, found that the city sits fourth in terms of rapid transit per million residents (32 kilometres) among the five cities and is behind every city with the exception of Montreal when it comes to the amount of rapid transit constructed over the past 10 or 20 years.

“Well the good news is that we have the highest ridership and a really great culture of transit use but the bad news is that we are not keeping up with population growth and are starting to fall behind other cities,” Pembina Institute Regional Director for Ontario Cherise Burda told CP24 Friday. “In the last decade Toronto has built seven kilometres of rapid transit and both Calgary and Vancouver have built three times that much.”

While the report showed that the city continues to have the most rapid transit in Canada with 89 kilometres of subway, light rail and dedicated streetcar lines, it also provides a cautionary tale by highlighting the amount of transit other cities were able to build while politicians at Toronto city hall argued the merits of light rail versus subway and approved and then scrapped several overarching plans, Burda said.

For example, over the last 20 years Vancouver has built 44 kilometres of SkyTrain and bus rapid transit (BRT) while Calgary built 29 kilometres of light rail and BRT.

“These cities have been able to deploy this technology a lot more quickly and it is more cost effective, so they have built more of it,” Burda told CP24. “In that same period of time we have been very focussed on debating technology as you know and what we have learned from our research is that Toronto isn’t the only city that debates technology, but we are the only city that stops building because of it.”

Though major public transit investments have been scarce in Toronto in recent years, that could be about to change.

According to the report, the city has approved 59.2 kilometres in new rapid transit lines, including the ongoing extension of the Yonge-University-Spadina line into Vaughan, the planned extension of the Bloor-Danforth line into Scarborough and LRT lines for Finch and Sheppard avenues.

In contrast, Vancouver has 14 kilometres in new rapid transit planned while Montreal has 11.

The study defined rapid transit as subways, light rail, streetcars and buses that operate in dedicated lanes.