Ford makes it clear he wants Scarborough rapid transit underground.
Mayor Rob Ford speaks at a press conference at the corner of Eglinton Avenue and Victoria Park Avenue Wednesday after reaffirming his commitment to underground rapid transit in Scarborough. He was joined by Scarborough councillors Norm Kelly, Michelle Berardinetti, Gary Crawford and Mike Del Grande.
Staff photo/NICK PERRY
As rush-hour traffic crawled along Eglinton Avenue, Rob Ford and four Scarborough councillors stood to denounce the idea of running the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT on the surface.
"Look behind me. You cannot move. Just imagine putting a street car in the middle of all that traffic," Toronto's mayor said Wednesday as reporters faced north at Victoria Park Avenue, standing on a triangular island of land that has no name.
"Only subways are rapid," Ford said, and running a light-rail line on Eglinton's surface in Scarborough - as TTC chairperson Karen Stintz suggested in order to save up to $2 billion for other projects - "is not the answer, it is wrong."
Ford acknowledged the issue of whether the Crosstown LRT - currently pegged at $8.2 billion - should come out of the ground from the Don Valley to Kennedy Station will likely come to Toronto Council for a vote in April.
But he arrived for the press conference having gotten seven of the 10 Scarborough councillors to sign a letter supporting his position.
Scarborough-Agincourt's Norm Kelly was the most vocal.
"Wake up Toronto! Scarborough's sick and tired of being ignored," he said. "We've just begun to fight."
Gary Crawford, representing Southwest Scarborough, said an undergrond line means new opportunities. Underground transit hubs inspire innovative development, he said. "That's exactly what Scarborough needs and deserves."
Gesturing at the district called the Golden Mile - bordering on her ward, once home to factories and now dominated by car dealers and superstores, Scarborough Southwest's Michelle Berardinetti said applications for mixed-use buildings and highrises will change what people see today.
"It will look like Yonge and Eglinton," she said.
Stintz has said she wanted to revert to the original above-ground plan for the Crosstown as a "compromise" because money saved could be put towards the Sheppard subway extension Ford wants to build to Scarborough Town Centre.
Kelly, a member of the transit commission, said Stintz never approached it with her idea, which some other councillors embraced. "I think she's afraid of being novel in her approach," he said, suggesting some colleagues were interested in spending savings on a shelved transit project on Finch Avenue West. "This is surplus money that Karen is dangling in front of the North York councillors."
Scarborough Centre's Michael Thompson, whose ward also borders Eglinton was last week willing to consider the idea, and said he "wasn't entirely married to" either option for the Crosstown. He has heard since, he said, the savings weren't all going to be spent in Scarborough.
Thompson, who was on the commission when it approved the original Transit City plan, said most constituents he's spoken to in his ward about the issue - around six or seven out of 10 - support running the line underground.
The Scarborough councillors who did not sign the letter this week were Glenn De Baeremaeker, Chin Lee and Raymond Cho.
Ron Moeser, who did sign, said earlier this week he still needed to see details of what an above-ground route would do to Eglinton. "To me the devil is in the details here," he said.
Moeser added he'd only be interested in seeing the tunnelling money for Eglinton in Scarborough re-allocated if it was used for the Sheppard East LRT line from Don Mill Station east to Meadowvale Road, which Ford cancelled. If the Sheppard LRT can't be revived, he'd favour keeping Eglinton in a tunnel. "If they're going to take the money and put it to Finch, no thanks."
On Thursday, Cho said council should make the final decision on whether the Crosstown stays underground in Scarborough. He too said he would use money from Crosstown to resurrect the cancelled Sheppard LRT.
By spending the total sum on Eglinton, Ford isn't seeing the broader picture, Cho said, charging the mayor is like a man starving his children to buy an expensive suit.
Kelly and other councillors supporting the mayor called on Scarborough MPPs to express their views, and this week some did, mostly to say the city should quickly make its mind up.
"It's time in my view for council to park the politics" and concentrate on building the project, said Scarborough Centre MPP Brad Duguid said Tuesday. "This project has been talked to death."
Duguid, the province's economic development minister, also said local MPPs support the current plan, which has the line underground. "We believe it'll be extensively used," he said.
Asked how the province, which accepted putting the route underground after Ford became mayor, would receive a council vote that changes the project again, he said he wouldn't speculate "on something that hasn't happened and may never happen."
Scarborough-Rouge River MPP Bas Balkissoon, who like Duguid is a former City of Scarborough councillor, said he never supported an above-ground LRT.
"To me, it's just a glorified above-ground streetcar," he said.
"Without the subway, an LRT will not bring you economic growth," said Balkissoon, adding most people "won't get out of their car for an above-ground system."