[URBAN NOTE] "Which transit projects should be built first?": John Lorinc on Toronto transit plans

[rfmcdonald]

Spacing Toronto's John Lorinc writes about the need for Toronto to actually start building things, moving beyond plans.

If you’re ever in the market for a choice example of bureaucratic obfuscation, look no further than the following section in the slightly amended version of city council’s newly unified transit vision, which was approved last week, and will be returning to the executive committee in June in a somewhat more detailed guise.

Appropriate sequencing of the range of projects will be the subject of further analysis. The resulting outputs will need to be further consulted upon with the TTC, Metrolinx and the public. This includes determining where there is alignment between the City’s priorities and Metrolinx’s regional planning and prioritization [italics added by Lorinc].

Three passively constructed, cryptic sentences which, when read together, point ever so delicately towards the gaping chasm that lies between all the beautiful maps and an action plan that actually begins to deliver a more coherent vision of rapid transit in Toronto.

Most observers believe the looming psycho-political hump has to do with financing and revenue tools. Indeed, there’s no doubt in my mind that the near unanimity we saw in council last week will erode noticeably when the members get down to the hot potato work of figuring out how to pay for all these projects.

But the element in all this visioning that is consistently AWOL — or at least is kept hidden from public scrutiny in a basement vault marked “radioactive” — is any frank discussion of prioritization.

The map comes with many new lines, and about ten of them, City staff readily concede, are more important than the others. The City and/or Metrolinx can’t build all of them at the same time, nor, indeed, should they. Some are critically important, in terms of the health and viability of the network, while there are others that, if built first, could serve to exacerbate the crowding pressures we all know exist.