Article
Subway dream still alive in Scarborough
MIKE ADLER
03/08/07 18:40:00
A big subway extension - and the money to build it - is going somewhere else.
But Scarborough councillors still cling to a dream of a Scarborough subway they acknowledge has little chance of coming true until the Spadina line extension announced Monday is finished around 2015.
Meanwhile, they may have to warm up to a lower-cost alternative, a city-wide network of light-rail or separated bus lines that could be started during the next decade.
Ward 40 Councillor Norm Kelly (Scarborough-Agincourt), however, said he continues to prefer a subway extension over what he calls "the streetcar plan", the Toronto Transit Commission's proposed light-rail network known as Transit City.
"My heart is with the Sheppard subway line," said the chair of Scarborough Community Council, who argued light-rail "can't move as many or do it as quickly," as a subway can.
And Kelly said he believes Monday's federal-provincial announcement of funds for a subway to York University and the City of Vaughan does bring Scarborough a step closer to a subway of its own.
It's reasonable to expect a refurbished Scarborough Rapid-Transit (SRT) line as well as the start of a Sheppard line extension within the next decade, since Toronto now combines its transit-funding requests with those from other cities and "the weight of all will be impossible to resist," Kelly said.
Ward 42 Councillor Raymond Cho (Scarborough-Rouge River), who this year was the sole Scarborough councillor continuing to push for replacement of the aging SRT with a subway extension, said that dream "appears to be on hold; for how long, I don't know."
Although he doesn't want people to give up on a future subway, Cho said the light-rail lines are what Scarborough politicians should ask governments for now.
"We need flexibility and we need to be realistic," said Cho, though he added the light-rail system proposed to Markham Road should come at least as far east as Malvern Town Centre, which is located on Neilson Road north of Sheppard Avenue.
Ward 37 Councillor Michael Thompson (Scarborough Centre), a TTC commissioner, said he's looking into that and other transit possibilities.
Though this week's announcement contained no money for revamping the SRT, Thompson said he was to meet a federal minister yesterday about fast-tracking that project.
And later this month, the TTC will give Scarborough councillors a transit strategy for Scarborough, a first-ever "shopping list" for the area, he said.
As part of Transit City, a study for a faster transit route along Kingston Road is underway and possible light-rail lines will be studied for Lawrence and Eglinton avenues in Scarborough.
Eventually, a Sheppard subway extension to Scarborough Town Centre will help traffic flow and encourage development, Thompson said.
Low opinions of light-rail reflect a lack of experience with such systems, argued Beth Jones, transit campaigner at Toronto Environmental Alliance, a group promoting light-rail plan as faster and more economical than subways.
But the TTC and the city must agree on a comprehensive plan for building the Transit City network and promote light rail as being "not just a streetcar," she said.
Monday's announcement shows a failure to live up to the city's more realistic vision for transit, Jones said.
"Money is going towards areas where lobbyists and loud voices are crowding out the real needs."
!? We did manage to keep "If any new Expansion..." going for 22 pages of riveting, thought-provoking...hehe, who am I kidding but at least it was entertaining.