Toronto Council, after over a day and a half’s debate, has approved the construction of a Sheppard East LRT from Don Mills to Morningside by a vote of 24-19. This completes the rout of Mayor Ford’s subway plan and returns transit plans more or less to their position when he was elected. The Mayor vows to fight on, but now sees this as a future campaign issue.
Today’s debate was, for the most part, more civil and organized than what we heard yesterday, except for an outburst from the Mayor and a speech showing his passionate hatred for streetcars.
Now the ball is in Metrolinx’ court to come up with a construction staging plan allowing for the year-plus delay. During the debate, some members of the pro-subway faction claimed that, according to private conversations with Metrolinx, work would not start on the Sheppard LRT until 2016. My own sources tell me that this is not true, but we must await a definitive word from the Provincial agency.
The Sheppard LRT decision also ensures that the Scarborough RT extension will be part of the plan with the new LRT line running, initially, to Sheppard Avenue and using Conlins Road carhouse as a base. A motion by Councillor Cho, which passed as part of the package, seeks funding for extending the SRT/LRT northeast to Malvern Centre and the Sheppard LRT south via Morningside to UTSC campus. “Streetcars” might reach Malvern only five decades or so after the TTC’s original proposal.
A number of additional motions related to long range planning and funding of transit expansion. These were referred to the City Manager for future reports. Strangely absent in the discussion was any mention of the role Metrolinx and its “Big Move 2.0″ might take in these discussions.
The details of the decision are available online.
This is an important day for Toronto. We are on track for an LRT-based plan and for a more detailed evaluation of our transit future than we have seen for decades. Talking about one line at once, about fundraising for one project at once, is no longer an accepted way of building the city. Leaving the debate to a secretive Provincial agency is no longer acceptable, and the City is clearly setting out on its own review. Co-operation is essential given the funding arrangements, but Queen’s Park must stop hiding from the transit planning and financing files.
Finally, a personal note. Throughout this debate, I have been gratified by the broad understanding of transit issues displayed by many Councillors, advocates and media. This blog and my own advocacy have helped, but there is the compound effect of so many people working with an informed sense of the topic. Congratulations to everyone who had a hand in this victory.
And Michael, as I’ve said before (as well as many others), if you have to wait for a bus that comes at best every 15 minutes, there is no time advantage with subway over LRT.
Also, as a response to Robert Wightman, Michael will point out that the distance from Leslie to Don Mills is 1.25 km. Of course, that still leaves a coverage gap of 250 metres on Sheppard itself, nevermind the gap further off of Sheppard.
Jacob Louy says:
March 27, 2012 at 11:08 pm
Mea Culpa as Spiro T Agnew said. I forgot that Don Mill is not the next concession road but I believe that it would be Woodbine which is buried under the 404 I think. Anyway when you add the distance that Leslie Station is from Leslie the spacing is probably 1.4 to 1.5 km.
@Robert and Jacob:
It’s around 1.7km between the two subway stations. As Robert correctly pointed out, Leslie station is a notable distance west of the street proper. Although not nearly as big a factor, Don Mills station is mostly on the east side of Don Mills Rd. The distance from street centre to street centre seems to be about 1.45km (according to Bing, Google, and Toronto Maps).
About politics in general:
I’m often surprised by the numerous counter-intuitive and unexpected actions by some politicians, and I do have to wonder if what they do and say in public is an accurate reflection on their true intentions.
Take Mammoliti. Supposedly very open about his opposition to the Finch LRT, even going as far as to hint that he’d “break the law” in order to stop the LRT (in an interview with Andrew Krystal of CityTV). I’ve watched the interview, and all I got from Mammoliti was that Metrolinx/TTC had better not build anything without consulting with the community and BIA’s, or else, face the consequences of community fighting and backlash. Minus the Mammoliti-image factor, his plea for consultation is a perfectly reasonable one that any councillor should demand. I would even agree that any project that’s rammed down the throat of the community is not favourable, even if it’s an LRT project.
It’s also interesting to note that the only clue of Mammoliti’s supposed opposition to the LRT on his official website is a primitive-looking biased pamphlet for an info session with the Emery Village BIA. In fact, it’s telling that Mammoliti’s office couldn’t find a more recent article with his thoughts on LRT than a newspaper article dating back to January 25th, before Ford came out swinging against any compromise. This was probably a time when more suburban Councillors, including Mammoliti, felt it was safe to break with Ford and support surface LRT.
So in conclusion, I do have to wonder if Councillors like Mammoliti really are against the LRT.