Updated July 18, 2013 at 1:10 pm:

Ontario Minister of Transportation Glen Murray announced that Queen’s Park would fund 2/3 of the Scarborough Subway, an amount of $1.4-billion (2010$).  This was described a cabinet decision taken in light of Toronto Council’s request for a subway to replace the Scarborough RT.

Murray put the political ball firmly back with Mayor Rob Ford and called on him to fight together with Queen’s Park so that Toronto could get the remaining 1/3 share of funding from Ottawa in line with federal contributions to projects in other cities.

With the press conference still in progress, TTC Chair Karen Stintz was demanding that the province pay $1.8-billion even though the lower amount has clearly been settled on by the government and isn’t likely to change.  Yesterday, Rob Ford was widely quoted that if the full funding demanded by Toronto was not forthcoming, then the subway deal is dead.

We will see just how dead the subway is, whether Ottawa can be brought to the table with bags of cash, and just how serious Toronto Council was that their subway approval was “contingent” on better funding than they will receive from Ontario.  This will all be back for debate, without question, at the October 8 Council meeting.

The original July 17 article follows the break. Continue reading →