[URBAN NOTE] Cracks in the Ford administration?

[rfmcdonald]

A post in the toronto livejournal community pointed me towards the possibility that Mayor Rob Ford's alliances on city council might be cracking.

For more than two decades, Eglinton Avenue has suffered from ever-worsening traffic congestion while political bickering killed plan after plan to build better transit on the busy corridor.

The current plan, negotiated by Mayor Rob Ford’s administration to avoid running rapid transit in the middle of the road, would see a light rail line built in an 18-kilometre tunnel. Critics have objected that it lacks the advantages of a full subway, which can carry more people, while having the drawback of being far more expensive than a surface LRT.

Now, the woman Mr. Ford appointed to head the Toronto Transit Commission has added her voice to that growing chorus. Karen Stintz argues it makes more sense to put the LRT underground only along the most congested part of the route, in midtown, while building it on the surface in the spacious suburbs.

“If the decision is to go with an LRT, it should be at-grade,” she said. “If there’s a decision to put it underground, it should be a subway.”

A judgment that Ford's alliances are cracking is quite premature. As the sole commenter at the toronto post noted, Stintz could be as easily quietly steering Ford's transit policies along a line more quietly to his liking as publicly challenging him.

Other Ford supporters have come out against burying the full length of the Eglinton LRT, new environmental assessmnets have not been completed (started?) for the parts Ford wanted buried, there's no real schedule for the work yet, and, as far as I know, there's still no solution on how to bury it at the Don. So my guess is actually that she's the talking head signalling a shift in Ford's own policy -- he won't back down publicly, so she'll do it for him (note that she says the money remaining should go to Ford's Sheppard subway project).

It's either that, or she's motivated by her personal political ambitions beyond Ford's mayoralty.

Still. Edward Keenan, writing in eye weekly, has made the point that Ford's aggressive managerial style doesn't lend itself well to keeping strong political alliances with a city council that's generally pragmatic. Could this be--might this be, I hope--the beginning of something better? At least Toronto has a weak mayor.