Ever the shrewd tactician, Prime Minsiter Stephen Harper delivered one heck of a chess move yesterday when he and finance minister Jim Flaherty announced the Conservative government’s $660 million contribution to the Scarborough subway.
There’s little doubt that this long-awaited federal contribution marks a check mate move for Mayor Rob Ford. Barring a criminal charge relating to Project Traveller, he will walk away with next year’s race, having delivered — as he will repeatedly tell voters — the centre piece plank in his 2010 platform.
It doesn’t matter that the line is different than the one he initially pledged (Sheppard). It doesn’t matter that the whole subway thing came back from the dead thanks to last spring’s timely intervention by councillors Karen Stintz and Glen de Baeraemaker, and their supportive cast of progressives (Joe Mihevc, Paula Fletcher, etc.). It doesn’t matter that the provincial Liberals are fronting most of the cash, albeit for a different alignment. And it doesn’t matter who will foot the cost for that $85 million in sunk costs incurred by Metrolinx in the Scarborough LRT (we will).
None of this matters.
What matters is that the public will perceive Ford to have been the author of a subway deal worth almost $3 billion. Stintz can tweet and correct and debate the mayor until she’s blue in the face. But he will easily deflect the dutiful fact-checking in the press and from his rivals. And truth be told, he can justifiably lay claim to his boast because he, unlike Stintz, never waivered in his commitment to subways, subways, subways. And so it was that Mr. Gravy Fighter brought home the bacon.
More importantly, though, I would argue, this deal permanently alters several key elements of Toronto’s so-called transit debate.
First, and with apologies to chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat, we must dispense with the fantasy that the decision-making process around transit will ever again be driven by technical, financial, planning or consultative considerations.
For the foreseeable future, major transit investment moves in Toronto will be entirely determined by council and its electoral politics, and by the narrative that Ford has provided, which is that we should settle for nothing less than subways — cost, efficacy, and planning considerations be damned.
Second, I predict yesterday’s deal won’t end the debate about rapid transit in Scarborough; rather, Ford will be emboldened by the outcome and resurrect his pledge to put a subway along the rest of Sheppard East instead of that lousy, car-hating LRT. After all, there’s going to be a subway stop up there, folks, why not connect to a subway? It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if a Sheppard subway became the transit centerpiece of his 2014 platform.
Third, Ford has successfully forced everyone — left, right and centre — to play with his football, by his rules. Do you think his campaign team will forget that the leftist likes of Mihevc and Fletcher voted for a subway? No chance. And Olivia Chow? She tweeted wanly yesterday that the fed’s contribution is “a step in the right direction.” So she’s onside (sports metaphor taken advisedly), to the extent that she’s even in this discussion (which she’s not). The provincial Liberals have played their hand. And we know where Tim Hudak stands.
In other words, with the few remaining political proponents of LRTs hiding in the mountains, no one is left to defend the Sheppard and Finch LRTs, and the promise of an extended suburban rapid transit network for the City of Toronto.
Fourth, it’s important to recognize that there will be one notably perverse exception to the foregoing, which is the [Insert Euphemism Here] Relief Line. I do admire Josh Matlow’s advocacy on this front. But Ford will never take up the DRL cause because (i) he doesn’t get the purpose of said extension; and (ii) because the project doesn’t butter his bread, electorally speaking. I’m guessing it will be years before someone with the mayor’s block-headed tenacity emerges to champion a line with a politically inconvenient name and an eye-bulging price tag.
In fact, the sheer heft of the relief line will allow marginally useful yet politically supported subway projects — extensions in the west end to Sherway Gardens or up Yonge to Richmond Hill – to continue to elbow their way to the front of the line, just exactly as the Scarborough subway project did. Indeed, because we no longer care, at any level of government, about subjecting our transit investment choices to a rational policy framework, the most crucial project in the GTA will always lose out in the funding lottery because it has the most diffuse constituency and the most conceptually complicated purpose.
With yesterday’s development, in fact, I’d say I don’t see the DRL getting built for decades, by which time our relentlessly two-dimensional subway network will have been thoroughly and irreversibly overwhelmed, with all the associated traffic chaos and business exodus.
But look on the bright side: at least we’ll be able to get to Scarborough Town cCentre without having to switch trains. Thank Ford for small mercies.
photo by Sam Javanrouh
30 comments
The Feds’ $660 million was always on the table for transportation. It just hadn’t been allocated to a specific project. Since the City still needs about half a billion to pay for the Scarberia subway line (on top of sunk costs). I’m not so sure we’ve seen the end of this saga yet.
What we need is an organization like Waterfront Toronto to manage transit projects across the city in a step-by-step fashion, with dedicated, regular funding. And since the mayor and the suburbs seem to prefer subways, and the rest of council and downtown see the value in LRT, what about mirroring the Spadina LRT in the east creating a “U” line.
“Thank Ford for small mercies.”
was that a ‘Brave New World’ reference? 🙂
Our Mayor is a Delta, at best…
This has nothing to do with Ford, he is a pure populist his agenda is what “the people” (read: voters) want nothing more nothing less. His singular skill is reading which way the wind is blowing and getting there first which is why everyone else is playing catch-up. The people who broke evidence based transit planning were the provincial Liberals when they delayed the transit city funding at the end of Miller’s term and then when they showed that they will do ANYTHING to protect seats with the gas plant scandal. Indeed had they sat on the sidelines even after Stintz and De Baerdemaeker’s gambit we would still be sitting pretty but they thought they needed by election votes and here we are. There is room to accomplish anything now even a DRL, the rules are set, all we need is a referendum vote…
Adam Vaughn’s comment is right. Ford smelled it and so he dealt it. Now all the social policy loser experts will continue to be losers because they think the world should revolve around their great ideas. Ford is the most malleable politician around and its because he has always pandered to his constituency.
@miken: We have just such an institution and it’s called Metrolinx. Didn’t help..
A big win for Ford. Second only his having saved the TO taxpayers something like a bajillion-trillion dollars (so far).
“the rest of council and downtown see the value in LRT, what about mirroring the Spadina LRT in the east creating a “U” line.”
There is no Spadina LRT. There is a Spadina streetcar. There really needs to be clarity in the semantics of the transit debate, because currently there is no true LRT running in Toronto. LRTs are like a midway point between subways and streetcars. LA has them all over and they’re great. Seattle has one running between Sea-Tac airport and downtown Seattle and it’s great. Runs at grade, elevated, and below ground at times. Definitely not a streetcar.
“A big win for Ford. Second only his having saved the TO taxpayers something like a bajillion-trillion dollars (so far).”
You realize this pointless subway is costing far, far more than the LRT, right? Plus the sunk costs of the LRT? This is a huge financial waste.
Nice try. Dumb and dumber are both in over their heads. By the time the Federal and Municipal elections roll around they will both be made to realize that their idiotic ‘optics’ could save them from defeat. Say amen, somebody.
“And truth be told, he can justifiably lay claim to his boast because he, unlike Stintz, never waivered in his commitment to subways, subways, subways.”
Except, of course, for when he signed an MOU with province to build the Scarborough LRT. Not to insist that the facts will, for once, stop Rob Ford. But they are, as usual, against him.
If anyone at Queens Park has half a brain (which is a serious question at this point), they will quietly accelerate work on the Sheppard and Finch LRTs, while putting off the Scarborough subway, whatever form it may take. It just makes sense. After all, look how long those other routes have been ready to go and how many times they’ve been approved now. If the city and feds are so keen to get their sticky fingers all over the Scarborough subway mess, let them have at it for a while — we’ve got a network to build.
The goal should be to ensure that work is well underway on the LRTs before the next provincial election. There should be shovels in the ground and major costs associated with canceling it. If the tunneling at the west end of the Sheppard LRT cannot be done yet, start from the east and build westward. Do both lines at once — it’s just surface construction, after all.
Whatever. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the deadheads of Ford Nation to:
— pry their asses out of their cars
— quit bitching about gridlock
— quit bitching about overcrowding on the TTC
— quit their hate-on for bicycles.
LRTs are Destroying Our City, you know.
John’s take of the situation is quite negative, including the likelihood of a DRL in the near future being apparently dashed. While he certainly may be right about this, his thought process does strike me as a bit of a uniquely Toronto/Ontario way we have about thinking of transit expansion. For instance, if a hospital is funded, we don’t automatically assume that that other city with a dire need for a hospital too isn’t ever getting funded. If a school needs build in one area while another area needs a school more, we don’t decry how that other area will never get a school for 40 years. Yet with transit, it’s always in these terms of “if we build this, we can’t build that.” I certainly understand why, as recent history has sort of proven that with funds so limited it generally is that case. But a lot can change… and sometimes quickly.
Toronto will now be building/planning three concurrent “subway” lines and a rail link to the airport all at once. Whether or not they are all the right ones is a big deal, but probably not as big of a deal as the fact that we are getting a lot built finally, albeit delayed. If governments can come together to make that happen in these times of hyper-partisanism, there’s always a modicum of hope. As I said, things can change quite quickly and election(s) can get people to notice things and the talking points to suddenly change quite fast. If someone like Olivia Chow or John Tory ran against Rob Ford demanding that the DRL be an urgent priority, you better believe people will start taking it more seriously (including Rob Ford). If revenue funds were to pass provincially, the DRL is pretty assured too in some early stage at least.
The other issue is that the more we keep funneling people into the existing core subway network with these extensions (which is already pretty-much at capacity), the more problems and backlash elected officials will receive and effectively push the DRL via crisis. Whether its Andy Byford putting down his foot or the big bank’s CEOs calling the PM and saying “my employees can’t get to work on time anymore,” you can bet things will change quickly. It shouldn’t have to come to that, but it may.
re: “[…] the most crucial project in the GTA will always lose out in the funding lottery because it has the most diffuse constituency and the most conceptually complicated purpose.”
A diffuse constituency strikes me as being a benefit. Look at it the other way: it has a broader constituency and benefits people across a wider area. Even for people that live in Etobicoke and would never use a DRL, it provides the benefit that they can actually get on a northbound Yonge train in the afternoon.
And, if anything, a DRL is conceptually straightforward: the Yonge subway is packed to the gills downtown; the Yonge/Bloor interchange platforms dangerously full; Union Station is going to become a capacity limitation in the future on the GO side. It’s the details of alignment and stations that are complex.
If something dooms the DRL, it’s the lure of incrementalism. In part, this is because a DRL would need to be built as a stand-alone facility and would likely result in sticker shock compared to an extension of an existing line (not to mention having to tunnel through the downtown and interchange with three subway stations!). But it’s also because it is so tempting to say, “If we only apply [insert magic solution here], we can squeeze another 5% capacity on the Yonge line for a fraction of the cost of a DRL!”
Toronto is just short of a transit maturing process where we begin to look beyond technology and begin to see transit as a service and medium for movement. In this way we focus on building greater availability, reliability and convenience by building an interchangeable, easy to understand/access/enjoy network.
Luckily, Toronto has done the first part by connecting the surface network to the subway. The Eglinton Crosstown line will further blur the definitions “it’s an LRT *AND* a subway? Whoa”) and bring the focus back on the service itself. At this point it is important to revisit the Ridership Growth Strategy and ensure a stable source of operations funding is available.
The next step is fare integration and the judicious expansion of interchanges and mobility hubs to connect multiple transit agencies. Interchange examples are Kennedy, Leslie TTC & Oriole GO, Dundas West TTC & Bloor GO. Mobility Hub examples are places like Kipling (TTC, GO & MiWay in future) and Agincourt (far off in the future). I think that an expansion of the GP Transit Stouffville line should be brought forward by Metrolinx as a better connection between GO and Toronto. Similarly, Milton line trains stopping at Bloor GO would be an alternative to taking the TTC from Kipling to Dundas West. Once the service is available some people will use it because they will see the value of spending more money for a faster trip.
Finally, there needs to be a “GO Toronto” service of reliable, frequent and fast trains and buses connecting people to more places in the inner GTA. Think of the number of people who would switch from driving if they could take “GO Toronto” to point in Toronto other than Union Station. Just as an example, a Crosstown GO line on the North Toronto railway subdivision might not be a great connection to the TTC but it could connect Milton to Agincourt without having to take the 401.
This is not to say that we aren’t going to build local rapid transit or expand (and possibly extend) Toronto’s subway network. But before we can do that successfully we all need to take a step forward and stop thinking about transit in “TTC only” / “Toronto only” terms.
Metrolinx *has* quietly been working on integration and inter-agency cooperation but it is time to go public and make this a serious part of our transit plans for the GTHA.
Agreed that transit planning is hijacked by Ford’s tunnel vision.
“at least we’ll be able to get to Scarborough town centre without having to switch trains.’
STC station on the city’s route is actually about where the current McCowan Station is on the SRT. We may end up rerouting the line to the west plus adding a station at the densest part of the route on Eglinton West.
Ford will likely get a bump in the polls from this but the needed tax hikes he’ll have to champion won’t help. Expect weak politicians to punt most of the costs down the road and cost overruns, like buying new subway cars & yard to replace the ‘spare’ ones that will expire soon after the line opens, to be somebody else’s problem. Still I expect a good race and am not ready to declare a winner yet.
Feds shrewd? Before Murray’s announcement the Feds were already leaking that they were going to offer $500 – $600 million for a Scarborough subway which TO was then requesting. Considering the hate-on for the Provincial Libs, it is very unlikely that they would choose to instead take up Murray’s offer to use their money to beef up the Lib’s problematic route, and I suggested as much on Steve’s blog.
Eglinton East (above)
I think the tone of this article is overly negative. There is no guarantee ford is re- elected, his image is damaged to say the least and I’m sure more dirt will come up between now and the election.
The existing Sheppard line has a terrible reputation, and extending it east screams gravy train. If ford is smart, he campaigns on extending it west, which makes a lot of sense.
I think it is accepted at this point the DRL has to happen. If for no other reason, it would allow the Yonge line to extend north to Vaughan.
It seems like this Scarborough subway was an exception as the existing RT had to be replaced
The biggest failure of all of this that I see is the presentation by all levels of governments that LRT is inferior to subway
Speechless, really.
Sort of sums up Mayor Rob Ford’s game plan in one fell swoop. “Consult” with a few frustrated bus riders at a Tim Hortons at Lawrence and Midland. Turn that into a, “Subways, subways, subways” slogan. Forget about, and have no clue about the facts, and what the actual professionals who do this sort of thing for a living have to say on the matter. Keep the real financial facts, and costs, secret. Ask Feds for a handout. Look like a hero!
It’s all truly extraordinary.
It seems bizarre to me that so many people would trust the word of Mayor Ford, more on this issue( or any one for that matter), than what Metrolinx had suggested after a highly consultative process. The Mayor, blusters, blunders, makes stuff up, and lies. Yet is somehow, the trusted source for the direction that transit needs to take in Toronto.
@G
“I think the tone of this article is overly negative. There is no guarantee ford is re- elected, his image is damaged to say the least and I’m sure more dirt will come up between now and the election.”
The tone of this article is entirely appropriate given the tragedy that has transpired this past year. John Lorinc, Matt Elliott and others have been playing the role of Cassandra in a Greek tragedy over this ‘debate’, ever since opportunistic Toronto councillors and provincial politicians re-opened the debate on a subway vs LRT for Scarborough. If it were up to me, each would suffer a week in the stocks, with rotten vegetable pelting for all involved. This project *will* be a true transit disaster, mark my words. It will be expensive, it will be disruptive, and it may be both those things without even getting built. Shame on anyone who supported this folly.
“I think it is accepted at this point the DRL has to happen. If for no other reason, it would allow the Yonge line to extend north to Vaughan.”
Accepted by who? Not by the people who make decisions on which project to fund. Did you read the article? If not, allow me to summarize: transit planning decisions in Toronto are no longer being made on the basis of merit by planning professionals. They are being made by politicians, and are based entirely on the expected future votes the announcements will render. The end.
@Jason Paris
“John’s take of the situation is quite negative, including the likelihood of a DRL in the near future being apparently dashed. While he certainly may be right about this,”
He is.
” his thought process does strike me as a bit of a uniquely Toronto/Ontario way we have about thinking of transit expansion. [hospital example] I certainly understand why, as recent history has sort of proven that with funds so limited it generally is that case. But a lot can change… and sometimes quickly.”
Evidence please? Ontarians think they have been taxed up the wazoo, with Torontonians especially espousing that notion (never mind it’s not true). Why should we think that the public will quickly accept the argument that consistent investment in transit infrastructure is needed province-wide, and decide to support any of the suggested revenue tools proposed by Metrolinx? I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I don’t see any other way to express my frustration right now. It’s hard to convince people we’re the frog sitting in a pot of water whose temperature is slowly rising.
“The other issue is that the more we keep funneling people into the existing core subway network with these extensions (which is already pretty-much at capacity), the more problems and backlash elected officials will receive and effectively push the DRL via crisis.”
The capacity crisis on the Yonge line has been a reality for years now, why will people suddenly take it seriously now? The Scarborough Disaster won’t be built (assuming it ever gets built; the announcement of a subway is as good as the real thing for the politicians who curry votes by announcing such dreck) until 2023 at the earliest. The Crosstown won’t be operational until 2020 or so. The Airport Rail Link doesn’t add much to network capacity. The YUS extension into Vaughn would be adding load to the presently under-capacity West branch of the YUS, no problems there. I don’t see how the DRL is going to win popular support, it’s already been sandbagged by cynical politicians. In an ideal world, where our transit planning was largely directed by planning and transit professionals, the DRL would be recognized as *the* top priority for a healthy transit network in Toronto, to the benefit of *all* who need to get from A to B in the city. But as recent events have plainly shown, we do not live in that world.
This may have swayed a handful of voters to Ford, but really who it helps is Harper in Toronto, which was exactly why he did it. Ford supporters will only like him more; they would have voted for him anyways, and this isn’t swaying anyone who wouldn’t have voted for Ford in the first place. Whether the subway was going to get built or not is irrelevant. What is, is that Ford made comforting fantasy promises and told people what they wanted to hear (reality be damned) which is why the supported him in the first place.
@ Lee Zamparo
I agree transit planning in Toronto is a disaster, which is why the city has such a terrible transit system. This is what happens when you amalgamate a city with a serious transit deficit in all of its boroughs, have poor leadership, and not a whole lot of money to go around.
The DRL has one thing going for it. Which is that you cannot extend the Yonge line any more north without building a DRL. I think there will be increased pressure to extend the line to Richmond Hill, as the article mentions. But this cannot be done without building a DRL.
Any money available for the Sheppard LRT (including the $333 million just promised by the Harper government) should be used to build the Eglinton Line as a subway. Just build whatever subway you can on Eglinton and frequent articulated express buses with all doors boarding will do the rest (a lot of time is wasted on boarding and disembarking on regular buses but this can be speeded up dramatically with articulated buses and articulated buses also provide very high capacity). The last time you tried to replace a subway with an LRT, we are now already having to replace it (SRT). SRT is very new compared to the Yonge Subway Line for example but already we are having to replace it. This would not have happened if a subway was built in the first place. Eglinton Ave East will become another St Clair with streetcars running on the middle of it. Eglinton tunnels are of a higher diameter than our subway tunnels so it is still not too late for a subway on Eglinton.
Dumb and dumber.
“The last time you tried to replace a subway with an LRT, we are now already having to replace it (SRT).”
There is a major fault in your theory. The SRT is a proprietary tech owned by bombardier that uses linear induction to levitate trains it operates more like a subway system than LRT. The reason it’s obsolete before it’s time is that Bombardier bought the tech and invented a newer version Mark 2 which can’t run on Toronto or Detroit’s tracks and discontinued the MK1s. Both subways and LRTs use standard tracks that are in widespread use worldwide and made by many manufacturers and so do not at the mercy of manufactured obsolescence by a private monopoly.
This is just one of the numerous myths being spouted by suburban subway supporters in an attempt to justify another gravy train. Admittedly Bombardier opportunistically uses the (non-copy write) LRT term in an attempt to market its much less successful ART technology. Toronto, the original guinea pig for ART, dumping it is the latest black eye for the technology.
You know what frustrates me? Not what this article is telling people but the fact that seems to serve no more purpose than to share despair. Is this the sign that Spacing will leave on their door as they close up shop? “We lost, guys. Sorry..”
For some reason *this* is sort of the thing that that pushes my buttons more than anything else these days. Sharing despair without solutions and basically saying “There *are* no solutions.” I call bullshit on that. I also call bullshit on the idea that Ford is a doomsday sentence for our city. You know what’s a doomsday sentence? Giving up.
I’m late on responding here, but I totally agree with Todd and that’s why so many urban affairs type stories really bother me. It’s been my problem with much of Chris Hume’s writing as of late in the star as well. While both Hume and Lorinc have great insight into what makes the city run, every time something doesn’t go according to how they feel it should, it pretty much marks the inevitable decline for the city and proof that Ford and his cult have won the day. Yes, I agree that the dysfunction of city council, the ridiculousness of the urban/suburban divide and the slow pace of any meaningful change are absolutely frustrating, but taking one’s proverbial ball and going home to wait out some sort of inevitable urban apocalypse is just plain annoying.
Hey, Todd, hey Matt, Hume and Lorinc might sound negative, but it’s only because they are honest. The war is over, and it’s lost. The mayor has successfully killed any hope of any proper transit initiative in this current generation. He has completed a process started by Art Eggelton and fully nailed down by Mike Harris. Toronto will never have any decent transit in our lifetime.
Perhaps future generations will re-learn how to design and fund proper integrated urban and suburban transit systems, but this lost art seems to be passing into mythology now.
We need both the downtown relief line and the Sheppard subway. There is an enormous amount of condo construction along Sheppard Avenue right now, this is the second largest concentration of residential development in the city after downtown. Most parts of the city outside downtown aren’t seeing this much development. Also the downtown relief line needs to be extended north along Don Mills up to Finch/Don Mills and cross the extended Sheppard subway, creating a major subway interchange at Sheppard/Don Mills right next to the very busy 401/DVP/404 interchange. Finally the Eglinton light rail ought to be replaced with a subway with elevated sections at the east and west ends to increase capacity, and the GO train system needs to be expanded. LRT may make sense on routes like Finch West, which isn’t seeing very much condo development, but Sheppard East is probably seeing 10x as much condo development as Finch West.