Raise the Hammer

On the city side, things are completely chaotic as councillors continue to paint themselves as a political body that can’t be trusted to stick with a decision. In the past, I’ve greatly admired TTC chair Karen Stintz for her principled commitment to promoting realistic strategies for building transit, but on this issue she’s merely playing to all her critics who have deemed her a flip-flopper. After finally convincing a huge majority of city councillors to sign an agreement with Metrolinx and the provincial government to build light rail last fall, she’s now openly advocating for parts of that agreement to be torn up.

After next week, council will have sent the message that every other transit line they previously approved can also be reconsidered. Which is good news for the mayor, who still wants to trash most existing light rail plans in favour of a single unfunded subway project on Sheppard.

Queen’s Park doesn’t look much better. The right move on their part would have been to dismiss any changes to signed and sealed transit plans — and instead focus on getting things built. But the Liberal government can scarcely hide that their record on delivering transit is actually pretty lousy. They’ve talked a good game, sure, but in the years since their big, flashy funding commitment, they’ve become masters of breaking promises and delaying outcomes. They’re always too willing to indulge the finicky desires of city politicians — and, each time they do, their spending commitments get conveniently pushed back a few years.

On top of that, the province has never allowed Metrolinx to fully achieve its mandate. When the GTA transit agency was created, the idea was to create a body that could build transit in an environment a few steps removed from the whims of politicians and the instability of election cycles. But politics continues to dominate transit policy, with the looming Scarborough byelection apparently influencing attitudes and Ontario Transportation Minister Glen Murray seeming at times quite content to embrace sudden changes to established plans.

http://metronews.ca/voices/ford-for-toronto/736096/good-transit-planning-gives-way-to-pandering-politics-in-scarborough-subway-debate/