its proponents claimed then that it would cost only $400 million more than the approved $1.4 billion LRT plan. We now know that the actual difference in price was not the 30 per cent they claimed, but
at least 130 per cent, as the subway plan now seems likely to cost more than $3 billion.
We also now know that whatever the cost, this item was brought before council improperly: as my colleague
Jennifer Pagliaro recently reported, the motion that allowed the new debate to happen was in violation of council’s procedural bylaw. The city clerk advised at the time that it was improper, but it was allowed by a subway-friendly council speaker who justified her decision working from notes provided to her by Rob Ford’s office.
We also know,
also thanks to Pagliaro, that the ridership numbers central to that debate were questionable: mysteriously, the planning department suddenly changed its ridership estimate from 9,500 riders at peak time in one direction to a range that conveniently topped out at 14,000, just near the edge of what would justify a subway. Chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat was privately questioning that number in the lead up to the debate, though both she and TTC CEO Andy Byford defended it publicly before city council. Now Keesmaat says that estimate was “problematic,” though no one is explaining who came up with it or what logic went into it.
So: the debate itself was improper, and the key numbers that formed the crux of the debate were questionable and now discarded and discredited.
This raises a lot of questions. Were the books cooked? And if so, by whom? Were the procedural rules intentionally sidelined?
And knowing all that we know now, what should we do about it?
“It’s done. Council accepted it, and that was that,” clerk Ulli Watkiss says about the procedural monkey business.
