Construction.
Construction on the Scarborough-Eglinton Crosstown LRT around Black Creek Drive. A majority of council wants to debate a plan to resurrect portions of former mayor David Miller’s Transit City light rail plan, which would include putting the Eglinton line above-ground east of Laird Drive in East York. The line is currently slated to be underground from Black Creek Drive to Kennedy station in Scarborough.
Staff file photo/NICK PERRY
"The chair generally represents the opinion of the mayor on the commission. (If I were mayor) I'd certainly be annoyed and I'd certainly talk to her - I'd ask that this be adjudicated on the committee where it was born and that's the commission. This should not be in front of city council."Scarborough-Agincourt Councillor Norm Kelly
A majority of council wants to debate a plan to resurrect portions of former mayor David Miller's Transit City light rail plan - and on Wednesday morning, they'll get the chance.
Toronto Transit Commission Chair Karen Stintz delivered a peition of 24 councillors asking for the special meeting to City Clerk Uli Watkiss just prior to the beginning of February meeting of council on Monday, Feb. 6, morning.
Under council rules, a simple majority of councillors - 23 - can at any time ask for a special meeting to discuss any matter of business they choose.
The special meeting will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 8 - a day after council finishes the February meeting - and will have but one agenda item: the approval by council of an above-ground Scarborough-Eglinton Crosstown line in Scarborough along with light rail lines on Sheppard and Finch Avenues.
Those lines comprise the portion of Miller's Transit City that were funded under the province's Let's Move transit plan. And they replace the deal that Mayor Rob Ford inked with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty - a memorandum of understanding - that would see the province put $8.4 billion in transit funding on Eglinton and leave the city to find a way to build a subway along Sheppard Avenue through Scarborough.
"Wednesday I will be putting forward a motion that confirms the light rail lines that have been approved, where we have funding in place," Stintz told reporters after handing in the petition for the special meeting.
"I'll ask my colleagues to confirm the light rail projects that are on the books."
In light of a growing schism on the issue, the provincial transit planning agency Metrolinx has written to Stintz asking for clarity on the question of how they are to proceed on the Eglinton line.
Stintz said the meeting is intended to provide that clarity.
She made the announcement in the company of left-leaning councillors Maria Augimeri and Glenn De Baeremaeker, and centrist councillor Josh Matlow.
De Baeremaeker said it is necessary to free up cash from the Eglinton project for others - notably, the Scarborough and Finch LRTs.
"Transit City was a very large proposal that was a 30 or 40 year time horizon," said De Baeremaeker.
"Councillor Stintz's motion is specifically, what do we do with eight billion dollars and I think for folks from the suburbs like Councillor Augimeri and myself, we're looking how do we provide the greatest level of service for the greatest number of people. You look at Scarborough, the consequence of undergrounding the LRT in Eglinton - is $2 billion and that denies transit to tens of thousands of people in Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke."
The move puts Stintz and her 23 colleagues sharply at odds with Mayor Ford, who has been adamant that the light rail line on Eglinton must be underground from one end to the other. Ford went on the road - literally - in Scarborough last week to hammer that point home, appearing with several Scarborough councillors at Eglinton and Victoria Park avenues during afternoon rush hour to underline how important he believes it to be that all rapid transit be underground.
However, he was silent on the topic Monday morning during his weekly weigh-in as part of his weight loss campaign. Once he had stepped on the scale - he was four pounds down - he left without taking questions.
Others on his team had more to say.
Former city councillor Gordon Chong, who authored a report suggesting how the city could actually build the $3.7 billion Sheppard subway using a large measure of private sector investment, said council should wait to debate the matter until his report is before them.
"As far as I'm concerned it's in the political arena and they're going to have to hammer it out - but at the end of the day let's hope that saner heads prevail and let it go forward for a couple of months," he said.
Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday said he thought 48 hours was too short notice to discuss a matter of such far-reaching consequences.
"We have to get all the details but I don't know that in 48 hours we're going to get all the information," he said. "I think Rob did have a plan to bring something to council - but in another month or so."
Stintz' move does raise questions about her future on the Toronto Transit Commission as its chair.
TTC member and Scarborough councillor Norm Kelly said that she had made a major breach of protocol in attempting to thwart the mayor's mandate.
"Could you have imagined (former TTC Chair Adam) Giambrone giving the finger to (former mayor David) Miller?" Kelly said. "The chair generally represents the opinion of the mayor on the commission. (If I were mayor) I'd certainly be annoyed and I'd certainly talk to her - I'd ask that this be adjudicated on the committee where it was born and that's the commission. This should not be in front of city council."
Last week, the Toronto Transit Commission delivered Stintz a rebuke when it voted to prevent the TTC staff from releasing a report detailing their professional misgivings with the plan to bury Eglinton.