The results of the provincial election have encouraged progressives still holding out hope for the resurrection of Transit City.
Councillor Adam Vaughan is among the devotees waiting for the transit plan’s second coming, and lately he’s seeing good omens. One of them is that the mayor’s replacement for Transit City has stalled, for the time being at least. The province agreed to fund part of it (the underground LRT along Eglinton), but so far Ford has been unable to secure enough private funds for an extension of the Sheppard Avenue subway.
Another encouraging sign for Vaughan is the results of last week’s provincial election, which saw the pro-Transit City NDP gain more power in a minority government, and confirmed that “Ford Nation” no longer has the ear of the province. The political playing field is looking rather different than when Dalton McGuinty acquiesced to a newly-elected and still popular Ford on Transit City.
“You’ve got a group of councillors who support Transit City, and you’ve got a significant group of provincial legislators from the GTA who want light rapid transit,” says Vaughan. “Meanwhile you’ve got a mayor who’s still dreaming in Technicolor when it comes to Sheppard avenue. The mayor’s just one voice in a sea of people with a lot more power than him.”
On the transit file, Ford is looking increasingly desperate. The morning after the provincial election, the first thing he did was venture out of his cocoon of protective right-wing media for an interview on the liberal CBC in which he publicly aired his demand for more provincial funding for Toronto transit.
A spokesperson for transportation minister Kathleen Wynne says the province has no plans to give the city more transit money at this time, but if that changes, NDP transit critic Cheri DiNovo says any provincial funding should come with strings attached.
“If the province is going to be paying huge amounts for more transit, the province should have a say in what it’s used for,” DiNovo says. “And Transit City is the best way of spending it. I’m sure Ford would rather see something built than nothing built. If we’re paying the piper we get to call the tune.”
Ford’s allies at city hall see it differently. As far as TTC chair Karen Stintz is concerned, Transit City, which would have seen a network of light rail branching out across the city, is as dead as ever. The very question of revisiting it exasperates her. “It’s not on the table,” she says. “I don’t even know how to answer the question.”
Councillor John Parker, who sits on the TTC board but is on record voicing reservations about Ford’s subway plans, doesn’t think the provincial election changed anything.
“The proposal that’s currently being pursued is one that the mayor worked out with the premier and the minister of transportation,” Parker said. “I don’t notice changes in any of those offices after the provincial election. So I would expect that the current plan is what those three kingpins are committed to and want to pursue.”
Parker admits that if the province forks over more transit money, Queen’s Park would have leverage to alter current plans, but he doesn’t think it’s likely the Liberal minority would make significant changes.
“If you go to somebody else and ask them for money, it would be reasonable for them to tie conditions to it,” he said. “But those strings already seem to have been identified. They resulted in the announcement that the mayor’s office and Queen’s Park made jointly this year,” which committed funding for burying the Eglinton crosstown, and scuttled Transit City.
There remains one development that could alter the political equation. When Ford decided to cancel Transit City, he made Toronto liable for the costs associated with work already underway.
That bill from the province is expected to be upwards of $49 million, but mercifully for Ford, who is in the middle of a crusade to stop waste at city hall, it has yet to arrive. Once it does, Transit City may start looking a lot more attractive, says Vaughan.
“There is no $49-million bill to repay if Transit City gets back on track,” he said. “For a city and a province looking to save money, the easiest way to save money is to stop canceling things and to start building things.”
A spokesperson for Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, refused to confirm if the entire $49 million would be wiped out if Transit City were rebooted. He also declined to say when Ford can expect the bill.
