Miller continues campaign to save Transit City

At an editorial board meeting at the offices of Toronto Community News on Monday, April 26, Miller spoke out against the province's decision to chop $4 billion of the $9 billion earmarked for the transit plan.

It was another step in the mayor's ongoing campaign, for which he and some of the city's councillors have canvassed at subway stations across Toronto, to drum up public support for the plan and mobilize Torontonians into calling or emailing Premier Dalton McGuinty and their local MPPs to re-implement the funds.

A recording of the mayor has been played throughout the subway system to get riders involved and a website (www.savetransitcity.ca) has also been designed to get Torontonians to join the fight.

Miller's last election campaign focused on the importance of improving and expanding Toronto's light rail system, a promise that would require provincial funding to become a reality.

The mayor noted that McGuinty had announced the Transit City funding on several occasions in the past. He said the withdrawal of a large chunk of that funding would hinder the city environmentally, economically and in terms of quality of life.

"Generally the philosophy of my (election) platform was that Toronto's a city that's very well-served by transit if it was still a city of a million or a million and a half people; it's a city that's now the heart of an urban region of nearly six million," he said. "The rapid transit network has not nearly kept up with the growth of the city. In fact, we're probably 30 years behind."

Miller noted the transit system must make stronger inroads into communities where residents rely more heavily on the TTC but where the existing transit system is often the least effective as a mode of transportation.

For many in the city's inner suburbs, bus delays coupled with the frustration of having to take two or three buses to reach their destination makes the transit system far less than ideal.

"The areas that (are) poorly served by transit in particular are northeast Scarborough and northwest Etobicoke," Miller said. "Light rail transit running in some right-of-way can meet the demands that are there far better than a bus network can because they run on time."

Miller pointed out he had stood by McGuinty's side when the premier pledged the funding over 50 years on June 15, 2007 and again on April 1, 2009 when the premier announced the funding for Transit City's first four lines - rapid transit lines along Sheppard Avenue East and Finch Avenue west, a city-spanning line across Eglinton Avenue and the renewal of the Scarborough RT.

He said pulling funding in March's provincial budget was unexpected in part because the funding was not made as an election promise but as an official announcement.

"Announcements, you're supposed to be able to take to the bank," he said.

The city and TTC had been working together along with the provincially created Metrolinx to come up with a plan for Transit City since April 2009.

While work on the Sheppard line began last year, the mayor noted work on Finch and Eglinton would have been under construction this year had Metrolinx been able to move forward faster.

Miller shrugged off the province's claims that funding was deferred and not cut altogether from the Transit City plan. Having fought transit battles before as an elected official, he said history shows that once money is taken off the table, it is rarely put back.

He pointed to the aborted Eglinton subway plan, for which funding was pulled under the former premier Mike Harris government as one recent example.

"They always say it's a deferral and a delay and all of a sudden it's another generation gone by and we haven't met the transit needs of the past generation, let alone the future generation," he said. "If you ask the provincial government, they cannot tell you when the money they cut out is coming back in."

Should the lines not be built, money will have to be spent regardless so the TTC could replenish its aging fleet of buses.

Miller said the Save Transit City campaign aims to inform Torontonians about what they stand to lose if the funding is not restored and encourage residents to express their displeasure with the funding cut to McGuinty and their local provincial representatives.

"The first objective is to make sure people understand that there's a significant issue here and what they think is going to happen, which is having rapid transit built fairly quickly to meet their needs is at risk of not happening," he said. "The second thing is we hope the province will find a way to advance the lines now."

He added he feels the province could be swayed to restore the funding should enough residents speak up and let it be known that the loss of the transit plan could prove disastrous for the Liberals' political future.

"The provincial Conservatives elected people here for a long time and amalgamation cost them dearly," he said. "There will be a political cost to (the Liberals) if these don't go ahead."

Miller vowed the city will go ahead as much as possible with the plan, continuing with engineering and planning work while lobbying to get the funding restored and work on the much-needed transit lines started.

"I think this too important for the economy of Toronto, the environment of Toronto and the people of Toronto to let that possibility happen," he said.