"I would encourage council and the mayor's office, leave your politics at the door, come into the room and understand that the people of this city want results - shovels in the ground. It should be the transit rider first. Further prolonged debate borders on being irresponsible."Minister of Transportation Bob Chiarelli
The province and Metrolinx won't proceed with any changes to the $8.4 billion transit expansion plan in Toronto until council has weighed in on the recommendations from an expert panel on the Sheppard corridor, Ontario Transportation Minister Robert Chiarelli said Thursday.
"The plan endorsed by Toronto Council (Wednesday) is very much a work in progress," said Chiarelli at a Feb. 9 Queen's Park news conference.
"While council has prioritized three LRT lines they have also deferred judgement on the Sheppard corridor. Until the expert advisory panel reports back and is either adopted or rejected, we will not have a complete plan."
On Wednesday, Toronto Council voted to overturn a plan Mayor Rob Ford had unilaterally enacted after being elected mayor in 2010. Ford demanded the Transit City light rail plan currently underway be scrapped, and the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT be built entirely underground.
The new plan enacted by council would see the Eglinton line brought to the surface in Scarborough, saving about $2 billion. That money would go to building a light rail line along Finch Avenue West and also replacing the Scarborough RT line between Kennedy Station and Scarborough Town Centre with an LRT line.
But council also voted to create an expert panel that would assess Ford's plans to build a subway - at a cost of about $3.7 billion - east along Sheppard Avenue from Don Mills Road to McCowan Road.
Chiarelli and Bruce McCuaig, president of the provincial transit planning body Metrolinx, said while the province respects the will of council as supreme, the alternative plan isn't complete until council also weighs in on the Sheppard corridor.
Chiarelli, former mayor of Ottawa and a regional chair himself, also offered some observations on the schism at Toronto City Council that had Mayor Ford and a majority of councillors dug in on opposite sides of the issue. After the vote, Ford told reporters he thought the meeting was "irrelevant."
"As a former mayor and regional chair for 12 years, having dealt with a significant light rail deal that was signed, sealed and then cancelled by council, I do know that it takes negotiations, facilitations and sometimes putting water in your wine," he said.
"Municipal councils are an in-your-face government. It's very dynamic and it's very exciting but it's like making sausages. I would encourage council and the mayor's office, leave your politics at the door, come into the room and understand that the people of this city want results - shovels in the ground. It should be the transit rider first. Further prolonged debate borders on being irresponsible."
Chiarelli underlined the province remains committed to spending the $8.4 billion it allocated to public transit in Toronto. And he said the province is not going to go ahead with subways - as Mayor Ford suggested after the vote last night - if council asks it not to.
"It's not a decision for the mayor - it's the decision of council," Chiarelli said. "We have no choice but to abide by the decision of council. We cannot take over transit systems."