Subway will be luxury wrapped in opulence

I understand that $3.2 billion and counting for a one-stop subway extension to Scarborough may indeed be dreadful in some eyes. But what a subway. What a stop.

To the Romantic poets, “dreadful” was a synonym for “sublime” applied to both Alpine peaks and funiculars. At peak times, as many as 7,300 Toronto guests will travel, and sublimely so, from plucky little Kennedy Station — once known as Ice Station Zebra but now the very Heathrow of Toronto transit — to the stately pleasure dome of Scarborough Town Centre itself.

The line costs maybe a million or two. On what will the billions be spent?

In winter, guests will be draped in fur lap robes, in summer fanned by thoughtful staff who will take care not to disturb anyone’s cascading curls and décolletage, or for women, chest hair.

Upon boarding, guests will be served Mimosas, unlike the flat Proseccos that so often disappoint on Line 1. Guests may select bubble size, as well as pulp/ no pulp orange juice. This will be followed by hot chocolate so thick that guests may stick a fork in it and hold the thing high, licking, while an attendant gently mops errant drops from one’s chin with a cloth of Venetian silk.

Too tender for our rough hands, guests will not be touched. If you are touched, press the scarlet button on the handcarved armrest and the attendant will be removed. We are criminally overstaffed.

Music will play. After years of consideration, Albinoni’s emotive Concerto No. 9 for the oboe was chosen, as his violin concerto was “too stringy and bestial” for our consultant, a sensitive man. For those who dislike the 18thcentury oeuvre, each guest is given an iPod with a Spotify selection that senses what is needed for emotional succour. Guests may take them when they leave.

For those nervous in the planned “tunnel”— Samuel Taylor Coleridge called it the “deep romantic chasm which slants down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!” — look upward and see a ceiling of fretted golden fire, look down at the baby sealskin wall-towall carpeting, steamed nightly. Look sideways and we will close the window blinds against the beauty rushing past. Wallpaper by Timorous Beasties, blinds by Tom Ford, the designer’s first foray into window coverings, for us. We offer sedatives. If you board at the rear, Choir! Choir! Choir! will sing early-career Bowie and then rush to the front of the train to sing “Lazarus” as the train glides into its special final slot. “Look up here, I’m in heaven,” sang Bowie just before he died. He wasn’t wrong: leaving the train will be like a death. We will cry softly as you depart from the best 10 minutes in your life, bugles when you arrive.

Mayor Tory calls it one short subway. Short for “Victory,” he said, “and we can symbolically abbreviate that to, oh, ‘Tory.’ ” We asked him to stop.

We wanted the line called Alph, the sacred river “five miles meandering with a mazy motion,” but our Mr. Coleridge was opiated when he wrote that, a poor example for our infant guests who will travel in French Immersion and arrive bilingual, we’re that good. It costs $4, 267 per baby but we’re not short of high-denomination bills.

BTW, most of the $3.2 billion will go on horsehair cushioning, rainwater shower heads and Japanese warm-seat toilets that play music and wash and dry you off. You will never be this cleansed, this calm, again.

Other suggested names were: Scarb Subw; Brief Encounter; the Scarborough Bluff; Only the Lonely: Bessarion II; Last Spike; I Fought the Law and the Train Won; The Little Engine That Could; Short & Sweet; Train Wreck; I Like Riding on a Choo-Choo (Mr. Mayor, just stop).

When you leave Kennedy Heathrow, you will ride the Brief Encounter to Scarb Twn Ctr, which we see as Toronto’s Ithaka. Odysseus sailed for 10 years to return home to Ithaka. Your journey will take four, maybe six minutes.

“As you set out for Scarborough Town Centre, hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery,” the Greek poet C.P. Cavafy wrote in his 1911 poem, “Ithaka.” It is a favourite of ours.

Cavafy was famous for his luxurious wallowing. “May you stop at the mall to buy fine things, mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind — as many sensual perfumes as you can.”

And at the end, “she gave you the marvellous journey. Without her, you wouldn’t have set out. She has nothing left to give you now.”

Cavafy’s right, the ride back to Kennedy is even more opulent. Guests get a Lawren Harris and a grand piano. Yes, to take home.

Most of the $3.2 billion will go on horsehair cushioning, rainwater shower heads and Japanese warm-seat toilets that play music and wash and dry you off