A majority of councillors have signed up to kill Rob Ford’s transit plans.
On Monday morning rogue TTC chair Karen Stintz submitted a petition signed by herself and 23 other councillors calling for a special session of council. The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday morning and is expected to result in a vote reaffirming the council’s commitment to building the light rail network outlined in the Transit City plan.
Speaking to reporters Monday, Stintz said the unprecedented special session was necessary to respond to a letter last week from the agency in charge of delivering the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line. In it, Metrolinx chair J. Robert S. Prichard asked council to decide once and for all whether the line should be built completely underground as Ford wants, or be run on the surface east of the Don Valley as originally planned in the Transit City design. Stintz wants to use the money saved by daylighting the Crosstown in the suburbs to build two other light rail lines.
“I think it’s incumbent upon council to make a decision as early as we can,” Stintz said.
“We have $8.4 billion from the province. They’ve been very committed to making sure that money is invested in transit in the city. The question for council on Wednesday will be how do we best spend that money.”
Barring a change of heart from a handful of councillors, Ford appears certain to lose the vote on surface transit, opposition to which was one of the key elements of his election platform. The numbers are against him: at least one councillor not on the petition-erstwhile Ford ally John Parker-is backing Stintz’s plan. That takes the total number of her supporters to at least 25, a comfortable margin on the 45-member council.
At the weekly weigh-in for his diet challenge Monday morning, Ford wasn’t taking questions about Stintz’s gambit. But some of his allies are hoping to respond by cleaning house at the TTC and installing officials more aligned with Ford’s agenda.
First to go should be TTC general manager Gary Webster, says Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, a close ally of the mayor’s.
“The heads should roll, primarily at the top of the TTC and anybody that’s been an obstacle,” he said, specifically referring to Webster.
Mammoliti accused Stintz of orchestrating a “coup” and, while he stopped short of calling for her removal as TTC chair, he said she’s lost confidence of the TTC board, which is packed with Ford appointees.
Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, a TTC commissioner, also didn’t outright call for Stintz to be turfed but suggested that she’s become an obstacle to transit planning, saying “We need to create more stability and more certainty in terms of the direction the city and the commission are moving.”
Stintz herself isn’t optimistic that she’ll stay on as chair.
“Certainly I would expect that the board would convene and make some decisions,” she told media when asked if her days in the position are numbered.
If Ford’s allies on the board do vote to remove Stintz, her logical successor would be TTC vice-chair Councillor Peter Milczyn, who agrees with Ford on most transit issues, including the mayor’s campaign promise to bury the Eglinton Crosstown and build a subway on Sheppard Ave.
But at the moment Milcyzn isn’t among those calling for Stintz to be shuffled out.
“Karen is a friend and I’ve supported her as chair of the TTC since the start of this term of council,” said Milczyn. “I’m not pushing to get her job.”
To call the special meeting, Stintz invoked a rarely-used Toronto bylaw that says a council session can be convened if a majority of councillors submit a petition to the city clerk.
The plan Stintz will submit to a vote is a November 2009 memorandum of understanding between Metrolinx, the city, and the TTC that calls for light rail lines on Sheppard, Eglinton, Finch West, and the current path of the Scarborough RT. While those lines were the core of the Transit City network, Stintz and others have dropped that politically loaded name because its connection to the Miller administration.
The plan is different than a compromise design Stintz advocated only two weeks ago, which would have seen a short subway extension on Sheppard instead of an LRT.
While some have raised concerns about going forward with a light rail plan the mayor adamantly opposes, Stintz is confident Metrolinx will proceed with whichever plan council approves.
The petition presented to the city clerk this morning.
