[URBAN NOTE] "We all love subways, but Ford never shifted from heart to brain"

[rfmcdonald]

Toronto Star Rosie DiManno's column--thanks for linking, jsburbidge!--expresses the pro-subway view honestly.

Yes, I do agree with DiManno that subways are cool. Yes, if the money was available, or could plausibly be made available, building subways would be a defensible investment in the long term.

The problem, of course, is that the money is not and was never available. Opting for subway construction that the city of Toronto couldn't afford in place of surface light rail that Toronto can afford wouldn't guarantee the construction of subways. Rather, the non-expansion of the transit network beyond the single actually planned subway route north into Vaughan region and some more buses would be guaranteed.

The pure should never be made into the enemy of the good.

Listen, light rail could work, fitfully, for Toronto. It just won’t work optimally. Not world-class but half-assed, a reach that doesn’t exceed anybody’s grasp. You can certainly do more with less money. Inevitably, though, you get what you pay for — a system that doesn’t fare well and won’t wear well and rises only to the level of minimal satisfaction for its patrons. Even at that, it’s no sure thing the LRT cost estimates will withstand the challenge of construction. One has only to look at the exorbitant cost over-runs and community misery exacted by the St. Clair dedicated streetcar line disaster.

There was more creepiness than poignancy to the photos posted of Ford’s midnight ramble on the Scarborough RT some five hours after the 25-18 vote that slapped him down — sock to the jaw, more like — at council. Many will take smug pleasure at Ford’s hubris, regardless of their views on public transit. For a political veteran, he left his flank badly exposed and was ridiculously outmanoeuvred. Someone with better consensus-building skills should have been able to avert the showdown, preemptively eliminate or placate the threat that Stintz posed — even under the haste with which this crisis developed — or solidified his support before the vote by trading off favours. Ford’s opponents on council are hardly without their own niche interests that might have been exploited.

But Ford is adamantly not conciliatory, not collaboratively tactful and apparently delusional to boot if he thinks council’s will can be ignored, or that he’s got a circumventing ally in the premier. Dalton McGuinty may hold the purse-strings but he’s not going to get bloodied in a battle that rightfully belongs on another level of government’s turf.

In this battle, Ford has nothing left in the arsenal. Dogmatic about not charging a new subway to the taxpayer — a disingenuous position because the money always comes out of our pockets, no matter which government pays the freight — he unilaterally refused to consider surtaxes or tolls to fund his beloved Sheppard subway. Colleague Royson James eloquently charted the interlocking calamities of that position in his column Thursday: Queen’s Park endorsed Ford’s scheme, diverting funds earmarked for Finch and other lines to the Sheppard subway; he agreed to put the Eglinton line underground while somehow finding $4 billion in private sector funding, through public-private partnerships, development fees and other sources for Sheppard. As if. So, no Sheppard subway in the offing and no financial plan beyond Gordon Chong’s recently released mish-mash to make it a reality even if what was undone could be un-undone.

All the negatives rendered Stintz’s deke irresistible to both Ford’s enemies on council and his fairer-weather friends. Subways are what we all want in our hearts but Ford never shunted his vision from heart to brain. His projection, expounded in campaign rhetoric, never left the station. And the lugs on council opted for the quantifiable pedestrian over the ambitious.