Historicist: Opposing the Subway
In the late 1950s, several suburban municipalities tried to block construction of the Bloor-Danforth and University subway lines.
By
Jamie Bradburn
Cartoon, the
Telegram, August 21, 1958.
As
we’ve witnessed this week, city councillors have no qualms about promoting public transit schemes in their wards regardless of whatever makes sense across the entire city. Elected representatives from Etobicoke and Scarborough who back contentious new subway lines fit within a long tradition of suburban politicians thinking within their fiefdoms. Back in the 1950s, their predecessors in Metropolitan Toronto were among the loudest opponents of the construction of the Bloor-Danforth and University subway lines out of belief that their constituents would be slammed with tax bills for infrastructure they would never use.
While leaders in inner suburbs like East York, Leaside, and Swansea embraced a new east-west subway to relieve congestion, their western counterparts were less enthusiastic when the TTC posted signs in March 1957 promising a future line along Bloor Street. Objections were mainly financial, with fears that the costs associated with building a new transit line would force cuts to other public works projects. Some officials, like reeves H.O. Waffle of Etobicoke and Chris Tonks of York, felt Metro needed to finish ongoing infrastructure projects before proceeding with a subway. In the small lakeshore communities of Long Branch, Mimico, and New Toronto, officials resented the extra cash commuters paid to travel downtown thanks to the TTC’s
fare zone system. “I will never support a Bloor subway until the TTC institutes a single-fare system,” declared Mimico Mayor Gus Edwards. “The outer zones are paying double fares for the present [Yonge] subway and they never use it.”[...]