Spending $5 billion bringing the subway to York Region may not be the best use of our transit money, according to critics who have had a chance to sit back and assess last year’s announcements of subway extensions on the Yonge and Spadina lines. They may have a point.
Subway expansions tend to be political decisions as much as transit decisions in this province, history would tell us.
Unfortunately, these two subway lines may not necessarily solve our transit woes, even if they may get the attention of York Region voters who would like to think Toronto is not getting all the transit cash and big, sexy transit projects can happen here, too.
As the critics point out, there is not as much population or business density on the two lines as one might think.
That would have to be built in afterward over the decades that followed and that can be a painful period of waiting.
The Sheppard subway line in North York, completed five years ago at a cost of $1 billion (well over the initial estimate, which may happen here, too), has since been proposed for mothballing by frustrated TTC officials, because the line doesn’t have the ridership to support it.
If the goal today is to improve transit across York Region, light rail and continued bus upgrades may be the better way.
Could the same thing happen in York Region?
Again, the line was a political decision — running through an area rich with potential votes for the government of the day — when many said any subway expansion should have been to the south.
If the goal today is to improve transit across York Region, light rail and continued bus upgrades may be the better way.
Light rail, either through a new service or better GO train service, could certainly bring rapid transit to more people at less cost.
The subway will mostly benefit those living near it, at a very steep price for the rest of us.
The subway will mostly benefit those living near it, at a very steep price for the rest of us.
Critics also suggest there is no real transit plan.
“Everybody is coming out of the woodwork with projects and they’re throwing money at these projects,” said former TTC general manager David Gunn, who has served as head of transit in New York City and Washington, D.C., and was president of Amtrak until 2005.
“If you ask what is the overall goal of these projects, it’s hard to get any kind of coherent strategy.”
One solution is to give more power to Metrolinx, formerly the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority, to create a regional vision for transit and make decisions that are best for York Region residents — even if they are not big and splashy and politically popular, like billion-dollar subway expansions.