http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...9/01/09/how-toronto-went-cold-on-subways.aspx
How Toronto went cold on subways
Posted: January 09, 2009, 3:58 PM by Rob Roberts
TTC this year embarks on construction of Transit City, its plan to build a 120-kilometre network of light rail lines over the next 15 years. Peter Kuitenbrouwer continues a series of columns on the $8-billion project, which the province has endorsed but not funded, and which remains largely a leap of faith for city hall.
In 2006, the Province of Ontario gave the TTC $670-million to extend the subway north from Downsview to York University and onwards to the City of Vaughan. The province later gave the project another $200-million. In 2007, the Government of Canada gave $697-million for the subway extension to Vaughan.
The money is in a trust fund; the TTC has not begun to dig the subway.
“I just don’t understand it and it’s driving me crazy,†says Councillor Karen Stintz (Ward 16, Eglinton Lawrence), who has emerged as city council’s most vocal supporter of expanding Toronto’s subway network. She frequently rides the Yonge subway to City Hall.
“When you think about the benefit of getting a subway for 50,000 students at York, it blows my mind that they still haven’t started digging. They’ve spent the last two years moving hydro poles and letting contracts for stations.â€
The Toronto Transit Commission has recently blanketed billboard space and even those little TV screens in the subways with ads heralding its Transit City initiative, a plan for which neither Queen’s Park nor Ottawa has pledged funding. Look at a map of Transit City and one thing becomes clear: the city and the TTC are focused exclusively on building rapid transit within the boundaries of the City of Toronto.
A second plan for a subway extension outside city boundaries, up Yonge Street to Richmond Hill (which seems like a no-brainer) took a hit this week. The city’s Executive Committee, chaired by Mayor David Miller, said it won’t support the extension unless the province gives the TTC $5-billion (double the project cost) to also redo the Yonge-Bloor subway station and make other changes to help accommodate the new riders.
Ms. Stintz calls the TTC parochial. The TTC fears that if it provides regional mass transit — as promoted by Metrolinx, the province’s regional transportation agency for the GTA — Toronto will have to cede some control of its transit system.
The delay in building the subway to York and Vaughan, “is a clear example of how the city is not buying into the Metrolinx vision of a regional transportation system,†she says. “They don’t care whether it gets built or not.â€
Adam Giambrone, chair of the TTC, disputes this, noting that the TTC is busy designing the stations and tunnels on the subway to Vaughan. “Work is being done†on the line, he says, promising completion in 2016.
Even though subways are the city’s fastest and busiest mode of transportation, Toronto has gone cold on subways; the last subway to open was the Sheppard line in 2002, just five stations long. The line appears destined to remain a runt: the city has decided it will build a light rail line on a dedicated right of way on Sheppard East. After riding five stops on the subway, passengers will have to change for a streetcar, stopping at every traffic light, to get to Scarborough.
Ms. Stintz wants a subway on Eglinton Avenue, which would run through her ward. The TTC plans a light rail line on Eglinton, from Pearson Airport to the east end — running through a tunnel in the central piece — saying a subway is too expensive.
“It would cost $8-billion to $10-billion for an Eglinton subway, which would have exceeded by far any reasonable amount of money that could be spent on that corridor,†Mr. Giambrone says.
Metrolinx has yet to sign off on the Eglinton light rail solution, Rob MacIsaac, the head of Metrolinx, says.
“We have to study the economic, social and environmental impacts and make a recommendation,†he says.
Ms. Stintz points out another benefits of subways: she suggests the TTC could could make deals with developers, who would get ownership of the air rights above subway stations to condominium or office developers in exchange for building us a new subway line.
Air rights, of course, don’t exist on light rail, which has only a little electric wire above, to power the train.
Told of Mr. Giambrone’s comment that we can’t afford to build a subway on Eglinton, Ms. Stintz says “If we had taken that approach in 1950 with the Yonge line, we would not be the city we are today.â€