April 17 by The East York Mirror

EAST YORK MIRROR | Thursday, April 17, 2014 |

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opinion

Transit promises sweet, but prospects bleak In the politics of commuting in Toronto, there is nothing as heartbreaking as a transit plan near the eve of an election. The promise is as sweet as the prospects are bleak. But the stakes are high enough that you cannot look away. Rob Ford played with the hearts of Scarborough residents when he promised to stop the Sheppard LRT and turn it into a subway just a few years ago. And a few years prior to that, Ontario premier Bob Rae and his successor Mike Harris broke the hearts of city of York residents, when Rae funded and then Harris cancelled a subway along Eglinton Avenue. Construction was already underway by the time that happened, proving that even a sure thing can become dubious in the hands of shifting governments. Now Ontario’s Premier Kathleen Wynne has stepped up, making what sounds like a dubious promise from the get-go: $15 billion flowing to transit and transportation improvements in the Greater

david nickle the city Toronto Area (from $29 billion, province-wide), from... somewhere. Gas tax revenue will have something to do with it, as will a portion of the HST derived from fuel tax. And there will be added debt. Further details of how this money is to be raised will be revealed in the sure-to-bedefeated 2014 provincial budget in a few weeks. The money, if it ever comes, would sure be nice. More than nice, in fact: funding on that scale is essential, if Toronto and the region is to remain livable and economically viable. It might even be worth a bigger deficit to see it go ahead. There is a more immediate and less costly plan at work with the April 14 announcement: embarrassing the provincial Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats, as they get set

to presumably defeat the government and force a spring election. Wynne made that clear at the announcement, when she pointed out the plan will require allies – and if those allies aren’t in the Legislature, they could well be voters. If Wynne can successfully portray a vote against the government as a vote against transit funding, she’ll have a shot at the ear of every commuter struggling for breath and dignity on the YongeUniversity subway line. It won’t hurt her that the mayor’s race in Toronto is also shaping itself into a marathon meditation on public transit. Unfortunately for Wynne and for Toronto, the Ontario Liberals are entering this race with many other welldocumented disadvantages. If transit expansion is truly to be tied to a Liberal victory in 2014... well, that would be yet another heartbreak.

David Nickle is The Mirror’s city hall reporter. His column appears every Thursday.

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