Tess Kalinowski Transportation Reporter
Mayor Rob Ford?s victory in avoiding a strike by city outside workers could be short-lived as a group of 24 city councillors moves to effectively bury the mayor?s vision of underground transit.
If they are successful, Toronto would return to a 2009 light rail transit plan, and it will be clear that Ford?s unwillingness to compromise is seriously hampering his ability to move his agenda forward.
TTC chair Karen Stintz plans to present a petition to the city clerk on Monday morning asking for a special council meeting on Wednesday. The petition is signed by 24 councillors, which constitutes a majority which in turn requires the clerk to schedule a meeting. Under city bylaws that meeting must be held within 48 hours.
Councillors at the special meeting will be asked to confirm a 2009 memorandum of agreement (MOA) for a light rail plan forged during former mayor David Miller?s administration. It is signed by the city, TTC and Metrolinx and runs out March 31.
That agreement calls for LRTs on Eglinton, Sheppard East and Finch West, and effectively scuttles Ford?s vision of tunneling the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT east of Laird Dr. to Kennedy station.
Ford wasn?t planning to bring his transit plan before council until April.
If the old light rail plan is confirmed by council, it appears to close the door to an earlier compromise Stintz tried to broker ? one that would have allowed the mayor to save face by extending the Sheppard subway east at least one stop.
?Absent a compromise, I think council needs to consider what is the best way to spend the resources we have to benefit the most people,? said Stintz on Sunday.
?The purpose of the meeting is not to debate the (2009) MOA. The purpose of the meeting is to respond to (Metrolinx chair Rob) Prichard?s letter,? she said.
Last week Prichard sent Ford and Stintz a letter asking the city to affirm its preferred transit plans for the $8.4 billion the province has committed to Toronto. The letter came the same day Ford allies on the TTC board voted against allowing the TTC to release a report later this month outlining the pros and cons of burying the Eglinton LRT east of Laird to Kennedy ? the very plan that Ford insisted go forward even though it would cost about $2 billion more than the plan outlined in the MOA.
A report from Ford?s point man on the Sheppard subway, leaked to the media last week, proves the mayor doesn?t have a plan, she said.
?We have now the benefit of Gordon Chong?s report that still doesn?t talk about how a subway will be financed. Councillors have more information now to make a decision,? said Stintz.
If council decides to return to the plan outlined in the MOA, it will no longer be called Transit City, a title that has come to be linked with Miller?s administration.
?Finally we can say the emperor has no clothes. His tenancy in the mayor?s chair was a paper tiger,? said TTC commissioner and York Centre Councillor Maria Augimeri, the only non-Ford ally on the transit board.
Councillor Josh Matlow (St. Paul?s) said the mayor is a victim of his own unwillingness to compromise.
?The mayor would be more successful getting his vision through council if he started by working with council in the first place and provided a vision that was fiscally responsible and made sense. We genuinely wanted to work with the mayor to arrive at a compromise he could get behind and he decided not to do that,? said Matlow.
?Even his hand-picked transit advisor, Mr. Chong, concluded that there are ideas to be considered for a potential plan sometime in the future but realistically, we?ve got to work within the funds we have and get going now,? he said.
Plans for a special meeting have been brewing for at least a week. Last Monday, Councillor Joe Mihevc (St. Paul?s) released a legal opinion suggesting that the city was still bound to the 2009 MOA.
Even if confirms its support of the 2009 light rail plan, Stintz?s position on the TTC is uncertain. The board is comprised of Ford loyalists who could move to unseat her by April. If she goes, TTC chief general manager Gary Webster, who has been targeted by Ford and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, would almost certainly be ousted.
About 120 prominent academics, transportation planners and civic leaders sent a letter to city councillors Sunday pleading with them to overturn the mayor?s transportation plans or risk crippling the city?s transit planning for the next century.
Among those calling for an end to what they say is a ?war on common sense,? are U of T Cities Centre Director Eric Miller; planning consultant and author Ken Greenberg; former Toronto chief planner Paul Bedford and former mayor David Crombie.
Many of the players are the same city leaders who rallied last year against the Ford waterfront plan.
This time, the group is urging Torontonians and councillors not to underestimate the power and effectiveness of surface light rail.
?You?re making a 100-year choice. Focus on value for money and extending transit to more people,? said Bedford.
?No private sector firm would be so wasteful in its use of company resources,? says the group?s letter
?Clearly we?re deeply concerned,? Greenberg told reporters Sunday.
?Subways are not trophies but a tool to be used very judiciously,? warned Greenberg, who urged Torontonians to consider that leading cities around the world are building LRTs and bus rapid transit.
?There?s no war on cars. What we are seeing is a war on common sense,? he said, citing a move by the mayor?s allies on the TTC board last week preventing the release of a report looking at the pros and cons of the mayor?s Eglinton plan.
What people want is good transit, with the reliability and frequencies of subways, said Miller. LRT can provide that on a separate right-of-way where it doesn?t compete with the traffic that hinders the downtown streetcars.
?Burying the eastern portion of Eglinton is simply a waste of money,? he said.
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