In the wake of disappointment over the delays of some of the Transit City streetcar lines — Finch and Eglinton and one out to Malvern — proponents have been boosting the impact of the projects, sometimes with claims that are debatable.
Transit City is not a rapid transit plan. It’s an environmentally sensitive plan. There’s nothing rapid about St. Clair or Spadina. They are comfortable. They move on schedule. But they are not fast. And a streetcar line from Highway 27 to Yonge St. won’t be dashing along, either.
The first acknowledgement should be this: A streetcar network is second-best. It is being proposed because we don’t have the money to do better and our political leaders are not bold enough to tax us to generate the funds or innovative enough to seek other funding options with the private sector.
Many citizens are willing to settle for second-best because the ideal seems so impossibly difficult. But show citizens a subway building plan and the mayor can have $100 in annual licence renewal fees. There will be weeping and wailing, but the cause is just.
Yes, the plan should be accompanied by zoning changes that push intensification along the routes — carefully and sensitively, but pushed ahead, and above the howls of those who want to stand still and not accommodate a more densely populated city.
Yes, build it one station a year for 20 or 30 years.
Yes, finish the Sheppard Stub-way, east to the Scarborough Town Centre and west to the Downsview station to complete a loop with the Yonge-University and the Bloor-Danforth lines. That means we’d be able to travel around three-quarters of the city by subway, and jump off on extensions to the outer reaches.
There seems to be a desire for rapid transit along Eglinton, as well. So, go to it. And the so-called Downtown Relief line in the east-midtown may be a good idea as well.
But don’t tell us that residents in northwest Toronto are now taking three buses over two hours to get to work and hold up the proposed Finch streetcar line as a solution. Commuters may save a few minutes, but it won’t take them long to be dissatisfied with the small, incremental improvement.
Councillor Suzan Hall represents the Rexdale area and is a big supporter of Transit City. She insists on calling the Finch line an LRT, even as I insist on calling it a streetcar.
“Lower emissions and speed are the two biggest factors,†she said Monday. Ridership projections for the next 20 years along Finch will exceed bus capacity but fall well short of subways — hence LRT is ideal, she says.
Transit City proponents say subway aficionados are dreaming if they think Toronto can afford subways. On several of the proposed routes there is nowhere near the capacity needed to run a subway, they argue, and they are correct. For those routes, put in dedicated bus lanes and save the added costs of streetcars. Neither is ideal. But if you can’t get the full benefits, go the cost-effective route until you build the capacity. Going to streetcars does not improve your speed, costs more, is more disruptive, takes longer to construct and is not as flexible as dedicated bus lanes.
“If you want to get people out of their cars you have to give them more than a bus; they’ve had that experience,†Councillor Hall says. “In my conversation with people up my way, buses don’t add up.â€
That’s because they’ve been led to believe that they’re getting rapid transit. Imagine the disappointment should they find out otherwise.
This debate, of course, is almost moot now that the province has delayed the Finch line, along with Eglinton and the Malvern project.
If there is an upside to the decision — odious because it short-circuits a process that’s been approved and supported for years by the same provincial government — it gives us another chance to re-examine where our transit plans are headed.
