The focus of this week’s council meeting was only on the surface a debate about Scarborough transit. Headlines will address the formal motion that got passed, that the city will require provincial and federal funding for a subway extension in Scarborough, immediately halting the LRT construction that’s currently, right now, taking place. Stories will no doubt compare and contrast the subway and LRT plans. I’ll do it a bit too, but this is only secondary. The main thing is that this was never purely a contest of differing ideas of the city’s best transit options, just election posturing. In other words, to the great detriment of public transit, politicians engaged in politics. First I’ll describe why I’m sure this was a political and not a transit-minded decision, then how politics didn’t just simply take place, but trampled a decidedly better transit solution.
Elections aren’t about doing what’s right, but about what’s being perceived as right by the most voters. Theoretically, if during an election a politician has before him two buttons, one marked “correct/unpopular policy” and the other marked “popular/horrible,” selecting the latter is automatic. Monthly lunar cycles make tides change, werewolves howl, and people generally act crazy. Political cycles every four years cause formerly indifferent and parsimonious levels of higher government to suddenly care about what matters most to… crucial voters. Mayor Ford’s mantra has always been “subways, subways, subways,” so nobody can accuse him of inconsistency (he has been consistently obtuse). But why does he suddenly have an attentive audience in the provincial government?
Edward Keenan noted that Metrolinx, the provincial body in charge of public transit, asked for city council’s consensus regarding the Scarborough subway extension on August 2, literally the day after the provincial August 1 by-election. No shame. This past Monday, Glen Murray, the Provincial Transportation Minister, met with Ford and told reporters repeatedly that the Liberals are funding transit expansion, and that “over my dead body will Scarborough be left out.” Does their sudden munificence and interest in Scarborough transportation have to do with the hotly contested Scarborough riding? Are they not happy to win over the mayor who had loudly and absurdly criticized Wynne’s Liberals for nixing the downtown casino and, even more absurdly, for getting him fired from coaching high school football?
I’m careful to use it because the phrase “gas plant” has become a loaded term, but for some reason I doubt the provincial Liberals are above swooping in to change local plans for their political gain. Off camera, one prominent city hall correspondent who I won’t name called Monday’s Murray/Ford meeting not a story but just “a fuckin’ headline… all politics, the best planning doesn’t matter.” Today in council, Doug Ford spoke calmly and with poise, thanking the provincial government and various councillors for their collaboration. Suddenly transit wasn’t a left or right issue. He maintained a sense of composure and equanimity throughout his five minute speech. He didn’t even explode on anybody once. Doug was not himself. He who had so recently taken to the airwaves to fulminate against Stintz and the nefarious Liberals makes nice this quickly? With elections facing the Liberals and the Fords, they are performing a simultaneous reach around on each other. The result is a transit disaster. In nature, vultures are merciful, descending from the sky to eat you only after you’re dead. In politics, they swoop down and kill very living transit plans.
This is as depressing as it is unsurprising. But many citizens would happily accept self-interested politicians if it leads to subways. And yes, of course, a politician should pursue political self-interest when it coincides with the most prudent take on reality, but this is decidedly not the case here.
Christopher Hitchens believed an argument couldn’t really be won unless it beat an opposing point made at its most forceful strength. But those favouring the subway extension refused to address the LRT proponent’s best arguments. Councillor Vaughan pulled up a map of Scarborough’s poorer regions currently underserved by transit; the subway extension bypasses these areas altogether, whereas the LRT hits them. From an economic perspective, the subway line runs along a residential area that can’t support the kind of development that makes subways sustainable. Without destinations opening up along a subway line, ridership is a fraction of what it could be. The LRT line runs along mixed-use buildings, and rapid transit will spur even more development. Anyone actually concerned about the folks in Scarborough, presumably their councillors, should explain why these points are misguided or explain why the subway’s benefits outweigh these concerns. But to ignore them is madness. Or, worse, and what I think it really is, it’s deliberately choosing the wrong but popular fit before an election.
The City Manager and the Chief City Planner are two people who can’t run for election. Their entire job is to study these issues. These are the two people councillors usually consult when they want to know something. They’re addressed with respect by all councillors, and not just because their position precludes them from being adversaries, but because they are clearly the most informed people in city hall. They don’t have constituents to win over with simple clichés, so there’s no reason for them to voice anything but their real opinion. They both favour LRTs in Scarborough. Their opinion means more to me than what Ford alleges Scarborough residents told him over Ford Fest hot dogs. I’m not knocking Scarborough residents, but I distrust the mayor’s intent and his basic ability to outline to constituents the differences between LRTs and subways after he displayed startling ignorance about LRTs in this hard-to-watch/hard-to-look-away encounter with Councillor Matlow.
And council’s split had an unpredictable fault line. Some conservative-minded councillors worry that the subway will cost an extra billion or more, and though Mayor Ford made a point of saying the funding from other LRT lines aren’t in jeopardy (this after saying yesterday that Sheppard LRT money can be redirected for Scarborough’s subway), provincial and federal governments aren’t as loyal after elections. It’s before elections when they make promises. And we’re not even getting promises, just suggestions! Council approved a major project and is left speculating on how to fund it.
Don’t worry, it gets worse. The province was on the hook for the upkeep of the LRT, estimated to be about $25-million annually, but if the subway is implemented the city pays for its ongoing maintenance and repairs. A property tax increase, or something else, will need to fund the subway, whereas the LRT was covered. The LRT had seven stations to the subway’s three. It served more Scarborough taxpayers spread over a more logical route, and it was already begun, $85-million spent already.
If this isn’t election posturing then it’s sheer tragedy. People who don’t constantly read in-depth about transit but have strong opinions (the bulk of citizens, our mayor) get curiously offended hearing professional transit experts know what transit work’s best for them. If it conflicts with their initial preference, they take it as a slight to their manhood (women can succumb to this to, of course, but it’s a machismo kind of thing). This reaction enables the current farce; the attempt to clarify what an LRT is fails before it begins because “subway” to them isn’t just a form of transportation to be fairly compared to another, but a brand with winning cache and prestige. This prejudice must be dropped before any real examination begins. They’re both fast trains on dedicated tracks (subways are faster). The LRT is underground and above ground too. Notice nobody calls the Yonge or Bloor subway an LRT when it runs outside. People await the Davisville subway in winter outside. Who cares? Trains are frequent so the wait is doable. Of course this is anything but an exhaustive comparison, which is beyond the scope of this piece, just I think comparisons should be done fairly, and should in fact be done. Simplistic councillors couldn’t get away with this crap if LRTs weren’t so brutally misunderstood.
If I’ve missed something major from the subway side of things, please comment. (I know the LRT inconveniently requires switching trains to get onto the subway network, but this isn’t much different than transferring lines at St. George. The city measures travel times from the departure station to the end station, so it accounts for this wait in their metric, anyway. I mean something major.) But if anyone engages in this argument without doing some homework, countering all this evidence with only the simple rejoinder “Subways, Subways, Subways,” it’ll take all my restraint to keep from pushing them in front of one.
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Jeff Halperin is a Toronto-based writer. You can follow him on Twitter @JDhalperin.
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