Think big on building transit
Greater Toronto and the entire region have big transit problems, and to tackle them properly we’re going to have to think big.
The Toronto Region Board of Trade has come up with just such a big idea — creating a new provincial agency that would take over the planning, financing, construction and operation of public transit across the whole fast-growing Toronto-Waterloo corridor.
A bold idea like this presents a host of obvious problems that would have to be worked through. But it goes in the right direction: if we want a comprehensive, integrated 21st-century transit network we can’t rely on a dozen local municipalities to deliver it. That’s a recipe for failure — as we’ve seen now for far too many years.
Naturally, the first reaction of the politicians was to dump on the idea when the board of trade proposed it last week. It would trample on local democracy, they said. It makes no sense for the province to fiddle with local bus routes. We should focus on building projects that are already underway.
That would be fine if the existing system was delivering the kind of transit that a burgeoning city-region of six-million-plus people needs. But it isn’t.
As everyone knows, we’re choking on traffic and we aren’t building the right kinds of transit fast enough. We’re throwing big money at politically driven projects such as the $3.35-billion one-stop Scarborough subway while commuters elsewhere fume on clogged highways.
The city of Toronto alone has $20 billion in unfunded transit projects while the province vetoes funding sources such as road tolls. Businesses say they’re struggling to recruit people in key areas because they can’t commute easily from affordable neighbourhoods to work. Meanwhile, local politicians squabble endlessly and mostly fail to get things done.
If we keep going along this path, board of trade president Janet De Silva told the Star’s editorial board last week, “We’re going to look up in 10 years and still have a fragmented system. We’re already trying to play catch-up with our competitors.”
The board of trade’s proposal is for a new provincial agency it dubs “Superlinx,” more powerful than the existing Metrolinx agency that is supposed to co-ordinate transit planning across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area.
The idea, De Silva says, is to “break the logjam on funding.” Instead of municipalities traipsing cap in hand to Queen’s Park for transit money or begging unsuccessfully for the right to impose new levies, the province would take over the whole system. It has a lot more money than the cities and, in principle, should be able to take a big-picture view of what’s needed across the entire region.
Importantly, the Superlinx model proposed by the board of trade would integrate land-use planning with building transit. It would have greater powers than Metrolinx, for example, to take advantage of the rising value of land near transit stations. Instead of building stand-alone stations (which are, amazingly, still being constructed along the new Eglinton LRT), it would develop new housing and commercial centres on transit routes.
This is the kind of superagency that plans transit in major cities like London, Paris and Hong Kong, three models examined by the board of trade. Big, well-funded agencies are better equipped to plan far into the future — and to stick with their plans regardless of changing political winds.
That’s especially important when transportation is about to be disrupted by such revolutionary developments as self-driving cars and big data. We need to develop a network that lets users travel across the region as seamlessly as possible, using one fare system.
At the moment, the Wynne government says it isn’t interested in such an agency and the Progressive Conservatives propose just a half-measure (having the province take over responsibility for the Toronto subway system as it expands into neighbouring municipalities).
That’s not surprising, especially so close to an election. But the idea of a superagency to co-ordinate and finance transit is now firmly on the agenda.
It’s a regional problem, and it calls for a regional solution.
If we want a comprehensive, integrated 21st-century transit network we can’t rely on a dozen local municipalities to deliver it