Alternative to transit deal is destructive
Considering the prospects for transit planning in Doug Ford’s Ontario just six months ago — they were bleak, depressing and, at best, a purgatorial mess — Toronto commuters are breathing a sigh of relief again.
Forgetting how we got there — that is to say, unnecessarily and to stoke the confounded ego of the Ford family — some citizens, politicians and media took time to exhale last Wednesday and exclaim our good fortune at avoiding total disaster.
This is a, er, good deal struck by the province and the city, they said, checking their pulse and their wallets. By what standard, pray tell? Is this an arrangement you’d recommend?
Or is it one to stomach because the alternative is so destructive?
Upon careful review, the transit deal for Toronto is tantamount to having your son home on bail for Thanksgiving, allowing you to temporarily forget that the court case is still to be tried.
Under the deal, endorsed by Mayor John Tory, recommended by city staff and announced by the provincial government, the province will build and own a new and expanded downtown relief line using light rail; extend the Bloor-Danforth Line 2 by three stops up to Sheppard Avenue East; extend the Yonge Line 1 by six stops up to Richmond Hill, and extend the Eglinton West LRT out to Pearson airport, mostly underground.
As transit proposals go, one can make a case for all of these. Some business cases don’t make sense, but who is checking. Commuters are so fed up with changing and dueling transit plans that they don’t care about the details.
The subway to Scarborough is a gross over-build that won’t pay for itself in generations?
“Don’t care! We’ll vote for anyone who will just build something.” So what was the problem? Doug Ford, that’s what. As soon as he became premier, he bad-mouthed the city and the TTC, claimed no transit was being built because of political infighting (forgetting he and his brother, Mayor Rob, were responsible for much of the more recent delays), and argued that he needed to take over the subway system to guarantee progress. Armed with the supreme power of the province, he would simply force Toronto to pay for the projects that King Ford devised.
The offer that Toronto had no power to refuse? Lose control of assets the city built. Pay for subways the province will own. And be saddled with operating them, with no guarantee of provincial operating subsidies.
And the Scarborough subway? Yes, the premier said, “This one’s for Rob.”
Even the most pliable politician would protest this. Pushed by city council, mildmannered Mayor Tory pushed back.
Toronto council preferred a different downtown relief line; voted for a one stop subway to Scarborough, instead of three stops; did a review of the Eglinton West LRT and concluded it was not needed any time soon, and not buried; and supported the Yonge subway up to Richmond Hill, but after the relief line.
Besides the rhetoric and political hubris and the disrespect of riding in to seize the city’s subway system for no good reason — a good reason would be to fund it for the good of the province — both sides were not that far apart.
As Ford’s popularity waned, dissolving to protests piling up from one group after another, the premier must have come to his political senses.
Why steal the city’s subway in broad daylight when you can get what you want with slick manoeuvrings?
He removed the red flag from the suddenly bullish Tory. You can keep your subway! City council cheered. (And Ford’s advisers secretly applauded, knowing this freed the province from billions of dollars in subsidies to maintain existing assets that need as much as $33 billion to keep running.)
The new agreement has the province building and owning the new transit projects and Toronto would not have to pay for the capital costs, an amount the province estimates at about $6 billion. Use that money on transit projects of your choice, the deal says to Toronto. But, of course, Toronto had only $1 billion of that money and will have to source it, although not from Queen’s Park.
The TTC can operate the new systems and keep the fare revenues, under the new plan. Yeah!
But the fare revenues are never nearly enough to keep the trains running.
Where is the promise to provide subsidies to cover the anticipated shortfall?
The current capital repair backlog stands at $33.5 billion, two-thirds of it unfunded.
Add the provincial lines and watch the maintenance budget skyrocket.
Two decades hence, the city will be crying a river as it strains to pay for subway lines that were built to buff the legacy of the Fords, not move passengers.
But the smell of leftover turkey is still in the air. Be thankful! It could have been worse.