[URBAN NOTE] "I’m a Scarborough Resident and I Don’t Want a Subway"

[rfmcdonald]

Torontoist features an article by guest contributor Vincent Puhakka, member of Scarborough Transit Action, writing against an increasingly uneconomic proposal for a Scarborough subway extension.

From the very beginning of Rob Ford’s single minded “subways, subways, subways” obsession (to call it a campaign would lend too much legitimacy to the position), the needs of Scarborough transit riders have been secondary to political games and misinformation about which transit modes work best to serve different trips and areas of our city.

As long term residents of Scarborough and avid TTC patrons, I have always been mystified as to why these self-styled, fiscally responsible leaders would rather spend billions of dollars on a subway that will serve a tiny portion of the transit trips taken east of Victoria Park.

Tory, De Baeremaeker, and Duguid should know better. After all, the three claim to be transit supporters. They also have access to all of the information the rest of us do about the merits of a full LRT network. They know that a majority of transit riders in Scarborough are not heading downtown, making the small Bloor-Danforth Line extension to Scarborough Town Centre of little use to our area of the city.

These are facts that have been made public for years and are backed by our organization, Scarborough Transit Action. They’re also supported by the City’s chief planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, and a majority of citizens throughout Toronto, including in Scarborough. With this debate polarizing the city, I was cautiously pleased when subway supporters, backed by the mayor, seemed willing to compromise on their stance by agreeing to eliminate most stops on their pet project in order to fund the Scarborough-Malvern LRT, serving Eglinton East, Kingston Road, and the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus—all major transit destinations and corridors ignored by the subway plan.

The announcement last week that costs for a one-stop “express” subway have ballooned by almost $1 billion, putting the compromise LRT at risk, was not enough to halt De Baeremaeker, Duguid, and Tory from clinging to their dreams of underground trains at the expense of all else. At this point, it’s becoming clear that these men do not care about reasonable transit planning. They definitely don’t care about Scarborough, no matter how loudly they claim otherwise. If they did, they would stop resorting to tired accusations of downtown elitists depriving hard-working Scarborough of its rightful subway. This is insulting to the intelligence of all Torontonians, and shows the low-level divisive politics being used to save a bloated project.