Is it possible for Ford to block the construction of the sheppard LRT? Subway is clearly superior for part of that distance.
From a legal standpoint the mayor has zero power over the transit file except as a member of city council. The mayor typically has huge political power which they can use to get city council to do what they want but Ford's hard-line tactics have stripped him of most of that too.
City Council has ultimate authority over the city (as granted by the province).
Councils main sticking point on this item is that it boiled down to LRT versus bus service. While subway may "clearly be superior", that isn't an option that was actually presented by the mayor or any other parties.
The Mayor's subway option was actually to continue with bus-service for an unknown number of years (minimum 5) and subway could be considered at some future date, maybe. He wasn't able to find funding to perform the engineering design for the subway option to determine how much it might cost to build; so it was almost certainly going to be 2020 before actual construction work started on the line and perhaps long after that.
Ultimately, City Council decided that LRT was going to be better than bus service in mixed traffic and Metrolinx is following that request.
Only the province has the legal ability to halt the project at this point. A snap election and Conservative majority could cause that. NDP is happy with LRT and Liberals just want to get something done at this point.
A Conservative win, to me, would guarantee the bus-option as it seems unlikely for Hudak to find the money to build Sheppard as a subway when he could instead drop HST by 1%.
