[URBAN NOTE] "Scarborough transit plan popular with residents, poll says"

[rfmcdonald]

Toronto Star transportation reporter Tess Kalinowski reports about the new emergent consensus on mass transit in Scarborough. I only hope this means something, finally, will get built.

More than half of Toronto residents support a new city hall Scarborough transit proposal for a single-station subway extension and a 17-stop LRT, according to a new Forum Research poll.

But in a list of four transit projects, the downtown relief line was seen as the city’s top transit priority with Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack plan to put commuters on the Stouffville and Kitchener GO tracks coming in last.

The poll showed that 58 per cent of respondents approved the Scarborough subway-LRT proposal that would extend the Bloor-Danforth line a single stop to the Scarborough Town Centre and build an LRT to the U of T Scarborough campus. Although the LRT has been referred to as the Malvern line and the poll question referred to the transit stopping at the Malvern Town Centre, in fact the city proposal would see it terminate on the campus which is south of the Malvern neighbourhood.

Less than a third, 27 per cent, disapproved of the Scarborough plan.

“It appears the very fact of a decision, any decision, on the much discussed Scarborough subway, has had the effect of creating consensus where none existed before. When we see Scarborough agreeing with the rest of the city on its transit needs, an important milestone has been achieved,” said Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff in a news release.