{"id":45711,"date":"2013-09-24T10:03:42","date_gmt":"2013-09-24T14:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=45711"},"modified":"2013-09-24T20:36:55","modified_gmt":"2013-09-25T00:36:55","slug":"lorinc-subway-nation-rises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2013\/09\/24\/lorinc-subway-nation-rises\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Subway Nation rises again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2013\/06\/27\/lorinc-how-to-keep-metrolinx-honest\/feature-lorinc-3\/#main\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-44316\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-44316\" alt=\"feature-lorinc\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2013\/06\/feature-lorinc.gif\" width=\"600\" height=\"85\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s $660 million contribution to the Scarborough subway.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s 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\u2019s race, having delivered \u2014 as he will repeatedly tell voters\u00a0\u2014 the centre piece plank in his 2010 platform.<\/p>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t matter that the line is different than the one he initially pledged (Sheppard). It doesn\u2019t matter that the whole subway thing came back from the dead thanks to last spring\u2019s timely intervention by councillors Karen Stintz and Glen de Baeraemaker, and their supportive cast of progressives (Joe Mihevc, Paula Fletcher, etc.). It doesn\u2019t matter that the provincial Liberals are fronting most of the cash, albeit for a different alignment. And it doesn\u2019t matter who will foot the cost for that $85 million in sunk costs incurred by Metrolinx in the Scarborough LRT (we will).<\/p>\n<p>None of this matters.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>More importantly, though, I would argue, this deal permanently alters several key elements of Toronto\u2019s so-called transit debate.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2014 cost, efficacy, and planning considerations be damned.<\/p>\n<p>Second, I predict yesterday\u2019s deal won\u2019t 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\u2019s going to be a subway stop up there, folks, why not connect to a subway? It wouldn\u2019t surprise me a bit if a Sheppard subway became the transit centerpiece of his 2014 platform.<\/p>\n<p>Third, Ford has successfully forced everyone \u2014 left, right and centre \u2014 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\u2019s contribution is \u201ca step in the right direction.\u201d So she\u2019s onside (sports metaphor taken advisedly), to the extent that she\u2019s even in this discussion (which she\u2019s not). The provincial Liberals have played their hand. And we know where Tim Hudak stands.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Fourth, it\u2019s 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\u2019s advocacy on this front. But Ford will never take up the DRL cause because (i) he doesn\u2019t get the purpose of said extension; and (ii) because the project doesn\u2019t butter his bread, electorally speaking. I\u2019m guessing it will be years before someone with the mayor\u2019s block-headed tenacity emerges to champion a line with a politically inconvenient name and an eye-bulging price tag.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the sheer heft of the relief line will allow marginally useful yet politically supported subway projects \u2014 extensions in the west end to Sherway Gardens or up Yonge to Richmond Hill \u2013 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.<\/p>\n<p>With yesterday\u2019s development, in fact, I\u2019d say I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n<p>But look on the bright side: at least we\u2019ll be able to get to Scarborough Town cCentre without having to switch trains. Thank Ford for small mercies.<\/p>\n<p><em>photo by Sam Javanrouh<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2019s $660 million contribution to the Scarborough subway. There\u2019s little doubt that this long-awaited federal contribution marks a check mate move for Mayor Rob Ford. Barring a criminal charge<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2013\/09\/24\/lorinc-subway-nation-rises\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;LORINC: Subway Nation rises again&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":45714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transit"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>LORINC: Subway Nation rises again - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2013\/09\/24\/lorinc-subway-nation-rises\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: Subway Nation rises again - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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\u2019s $660 million contribution to the Scarborough subway. 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