Councillors send premier 'save our subways' letter.
Etobicoke-York Community Council has written a letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty asking the province to save subways in Toronto.
Staff file photo/DAN PEARCE
"Save Our Subways" eight west-Toronto councillors pleaded Tuesday in a letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty in a seeming dramatic end run to last week's city council vote that favoured an above-ground LRT plan over the mayor's pro-subway transit plan.
Councillors also requested McGuinty reconsider Toronto's transit plan with an open vote in the Legislature.
York West Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti set the stage for the letter at Tuesday's Etobicoke York Community Council meeting when he said he wanted to move a motion to recommend to council that they get back on track with Mayor Rob Ford's original transit plan.
Mammoliti wanted to see $2 billion of Metrolinx funding re-directed from building light rail transit (LRT) on Finch Avenue West to bury the section of the Scarborough Eglinton-Crosstown as it had been originally designated under Ford's plan.
City legal counsel argued Mammoliti's suggested motion was not appropriate. Councillors were discussing the Weston 2021 Revitalization Strategy at the time.
Soon after, Davenport Councillor Cesar Palacio presented the McGuinty letter and said "local BIAs and thousands of residents" do not support council's decision last week to kill Ford's subway plans.
The letter to McGuinty reads, in part: "The recent decision by Council to move ahead with above-ground light rail transit initiatives poses a number of concerns. In particular, the now obvious rapid transit deficit that will exist in Scarborough and plans for a Finch West LRT. Each of these public transit directions will have a significant impact for Etobicoke residents, particularly their access to rapid transit."
Councillors wrote politicians, residents and commuters in Toronto "are asking what can be done to save Toronto's subways.
"In response, councillors from all areas of the city have indicated that we must 'Save Our Subways' (SOS)."
Eight members of Etobicoke York Community Council signed the letter to McGuinty "to affirm our support for the underground public transit in the City of Toronto."
Last week, council approved a plan that calls for returning to the light-rail proposal approved by the city, the TTC and the province in 2009 under former mayor David Miller. It includes light-rail transit on Finch Avenue West and on Eglinton Avenue east of Laird Drive. Eglinton would run underground from about Black Creek Drive to Laird.
Mayor Ford dismissed the 25-18 council vote as "technically irrelevant" and said the Eglinton line is a provincial project following the full-day special council meeting last week to declare Toronto's preference for spending $8.4 billion in provincial transit funding.
A decision on whether a subway or LRT will be built on Sheppard Avenue East was referred to an expert panel to report back by March 31.
Mammoliti requested councillors' support and argued a community council position to the premier would ring louder than his voice alone.
"If a recommendation comes from this body (community council), it holds a lot more weight than just one councillor," Mammoliti said.
York South-Weston Councillor Frances Nunziata agreed. Last week's vote for the LRT will result in expropriation of homes and businesses in her ward, she warned.
"Unfortunately, some of us who live in the suburbs do not have transit or the Bloor subway line. We are stranded in our communities," Nunziata said. "When councillors voted not to bury the LRT at Eglinton and Weston Road, they voted to expropriate businesses and homes in my ward. We want the LRT underground."
Nunziata said a similar motion she and Mammoliti tried to put forward at council last week was deemed "redundant."
"(York West Councillor Anthony) Peruzza asked for a report on the Finch subway. So it's still alive," Mammoliti told Nunziata.
Only Etobicoke-Lakeshore Councillor Peter Milczyn and Parkdale-High Park Councillor Sarah Doucette did not sign the letter. Etobicoke Centre Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby was absent.
"I'm not against the letter. I am not signing a letter that arrived on my desk just today. I'm not signing it until I know what's going on," Milczyn told councillors.
- With files from David Nickle