Tory rejects fast-tracking bus lanes
Advocates say adding more routes is tool to address city’s inequality
Mayor John Tory’s executive committee approved a plan Tuesday to implement bus priority lanes on the Eglinton Avenue East corridor this fall but resisted calls from transit users to speed up similar measures on other routes.
More than a dozen residents spoke remotely to the committee about the plan, which will go to council for final approval later this month.
Many of the speakers urged members to move quickly to build a more extensive network of bus lanes in order to improve service and reduce crowding as part of the city’s COVID-19 response.
“I am extremely disappointed by the lack of any sense of urgency in implementing bus lanes in our city,” said Ketheesakumaran Navaratnam, a resident of Scarborough’s Malvern neighbourhood, who accused the city of “resorting to a piecemeal approach which does nothing to address the critical problem of overcrowding” on TTC buses.
Noting that many of the bus lines that have remained crowded during the crisis serve parts of Toronto outside of downtown where both poverty and infection rates are higher, Navaratnam framed bus lanes as a tool to address inequality.
“When you say ‘not now’ to a bus lane on Finch Avenue East, or ‘maybe later’ to a bus lane on Lawrence East, you are sending the message that some people just don’t matter as much as others,” said Navaratnam, who has worked with transit advocacy group TTCriders.
He urged the committee to emulate cities like New York, which announced plans to install 32 kilometres of bus lanes by October to help with its COVID-19 recovery.
In a speech to the committee, Mayor Tory defended what he described as “fairly harsh criticism” of the pace of the bus lane plan, which he said was being advanced as quickly as possible.
He said that he supported speeding up implementation, but he stressed the need to allow staff time to perform public consultations and design work.
He said critics of the plan risked “misleading” the public.
“They comment as if we’re all sitting around here finding ways to bog these things down, when in fact we’re sitting here talking about ways in which we can accelerate them,” he said.
The plan the committee approved would have the city install bus lanes on the majority of a 10.9-kilometre corridor along Eglinton Avenue, Kingston Road and Morningside Avenue, between Brimley Road and Ellesmere Road, by November.
Bus lanes would be installed on Jane Street, between Eglinton Avenue West and Steeles Avenue West, by spring 2021.
The city and TTC had already been planning to build bus priority lanes on the corridors, but transit agency staff told the committee the plan would accelerate the projects by about six months.
According to the plan, the city will also install bus lanes on Dufferin Street, Steeles Avenue West and Finch Avenue East by 2022 or later.
The TTC board has also asked city and transit agency staff to study potential bus lanes on Lawrence Avenue East and Sheppard Avenue East.