Yesterday Premier McGunity and Mayor Ford announced the successor to Mayor Miller’s Transit City plan.

The $8.15 billion in funding provided by the province for Transit City was slated to provide 52km of light rail, operating primary in the median of Finch Ave W, Sheppard Ave E, and Eglinton Ave. The plan also would have included converting the existing Scarborough Rapid Transit to LRT and extending it to Sheppard Ave, as well as a 10km underground segment along the central section of Eglinton Ave.

The new plan will build a single, 25km long LRT line along Eglinton Ave line between Black Creek and Kennedy, then along the current SRT alignment. The Eglinton segment will be almost completely underground, only popping up to cross the Don and Black Creek valleys. The price for the revised plan is pegged at $8.4 billion.

Metrolinx is to take all responsibility for building the line, signalling a departure from the previous plan where the TTC was undertaking the design and managing the construction.

The addition of a second cross-town rapid transit line will undoubtedly be a useful addition the TTC network. The new nearly fully underground design will ensure that the trip is faster than the previous plan. However, do these benefits outweigh the loss of LRT plans on Finch West, the outer end of Sheppard East, and to Centennial College’s Progress Campus?

Only Finch West has been provided with an alternative: the plan promises an undefined "enhanced bus service" along Finch Avenue West, replacing the Transit City LRT Line with... we know not what exactly.

These are the Bombardier-built LRT units which were purchased for the various Transit City lines, and which will likely be plying the Eglinton-Scarborough route.

The other major part of yesterday’s announcement is that the City will be going it alone to extend the Sheppard subway East from Don Mills to Scarborough City Centre and west from Sheppard-Yonge to Downsview Station. With an estimated cost of $4.15 billion, Mayor Ford has stated that he plans to raise the funds through the private sector. It is unclear where this much funding would come from, but the mayor ensures us that he will find a way to make it happen, despite his oft repeated assertion that Toronto is broke. Could development charges really ring up the necessary billions? We know its April 1 but why do we feel this is a rather big joke?

With this announcement the fundamental debate continues regarding which is a better strategy; fewer kilometres of “higher order” subway, or more kilometres of “lower order” LRT? At least we know that much needed transit expansion is finally coming to Eglinton.

What is your take on the new plan? Leave a comment below, or join the discussion in UrbanToronto's thread on this topic by clicking on the link below.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Toronto's and Province's New 12.4B Eglinton/SRT/Sheppard Plan