As a report leaked Thursday suggesting Mayor Rob Ford’s pledge to build a Sheppard subway extension is “feasible,” opponents to his transit plan were crafting a “realistic” alternative headed to council soon.The looming transit showdown is a massive test for Ford that, after his recent failure to convince council to back his 2012 budget, could see the once-mighty mayor rendered a virtual lame duck just over a year into his four-year mandate.
Ford was expected to release the 188-page “Toronto Transit: Back on Track,” report by former councillor Gordon Chong early next week. However, media outlets, including the Star, obtained copies.
Chong makes an unabashedly political argument for the superiority of subways over surface light rail transit and suggests a number of “revenue tools” to raise billions of dollars over 50 years to get the Sheppard line built.
The tools, suggested by management consultant KPMG, include tax increment financing, new charges on property developments and the sale of city-owned land and “air rights” above it.
But the tax-averse, car-friendly Ford would also have to embrace a combination of “road pricing” (zone-based tolls, expressway tolls, and vehicle-kilometre-travelled fees); parking pricing (parking sales tax; parking space levy); a special regional sales tax; a special gas tax; a passenger vehicle charge and an employee/payroll tax.
“KPMG concluded that funding and financing for the Sheppard subway extension is feasible,” states the report, which argues the 11-station line from Downsview to Scarborough Town Centre would cost $3.7 billion or less, not the TTC’s $4.7 billion estimate.
Ryerson University transit planning expert Jim Mars was skeptical of Chong’s lowball number. “Transit is practically the worst for cost estimates and this isn’t even a real engineer’s estimate,” he said.
The idea of a public-private partnership doesn’t offer taxpayers much reassurance, he said. It’s almost impossible to make the penalties high enough to protect for budget and deadline overruns.
“In the end a company will go bankrupt” if the penalties are too steep, he said. “So it’s going to cost you another $500 million (if they) run into some weird rocks,” said Mars, who believes Sheppard will never have the ridership to justify the massive expensive of putting it underground.
Chong’s report lands in the middle of a furious battle over Toronto’s transit future. On one side are Ford and his allies, who want to spend $8.2 billion in provincial funding on a completely buried Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown line, with up to $650 million in potential surplus funds going to Sheppard.
On the other is a group led by the centrist councillors who orchestrated Ford’s budget defeat. They want to bring the Eglinton LRT above-ground east of Laird Ave. and use the resulting savings on other lines, including a possible busway on Finch Ave.
Councillor Josh Matlow predicted Thursday “the Chong report will not be a significant factor in the next steps in Toronto’s transit planning.” Road tolls are worth examining, but Chong’s report as a whole is unrealistic and hinged on “maybe-possiblies,” he said.
“The majority of councillors recognize the mayor does not have a realistic or fiscally responsible plan. We’re going to be moving on a very clear, unambiguous plan” using the provincial funds, he said. “The mayor had a chance to drive the train, through compromise, but it’s passing him by.”
The group pushing the alternative plan, tentatively dubbed “The Big Move,” also includes Ford’s hand-picked TTC chair, Karen Stintz, and fellow commissioner Maria Augimeri. They are expected to soon trigger a special council meeting by submitting a request from a majority of councillors.
Stintz dismissed Chong’s report as “not a plan for a Sheppard subway. It’s a discussion paper on how transit should be funded across the region,” because the revenue tools would be used across the GTA.
Stintz also pointed out the report assumes there will be $650 million in provincial funding available despite Ford’s letter to the provincial Metrolinx agency Wednesday acknowledging the money isn’t available in the short term.
“Do you have it or do you not have it?” asked Stintz.
Augimeri dismissed the report as “a whole lot of wishful thinking and not a business case.”
“The Fords believe in subways because they don’t want to see (the trains),” said Ryerson’s Mars. “They are drivers, they believe in cars. They just want to get the damned things out of sight,” he said. But he added, “I think the public agrees with them.”
The same thing, he said holds true on the eastern portion of the Eglinton LRT. “Eglinton is a suburban arterial with a wide right of way. There’s no reason that can’t accommodate LRT because we’re not the richest city in the world,” he said.
While acknowledging that construction of the St. Clair streetcar right-of-way was mismanaged, Mars said it bears no resemblance to Eglinton Ave. E.
Councillor Paul Ainslie, who represents Ward 43, Scarborough East, said he hopes that Ford’s vision of a buried Eglinton line and privately funded Sheppard line survives.
“I hope we don’t have a special (council) meeting,” he said. “I think it’s within the mayor’s mandate — he ran on a subway in Scarborough, and so did I.”
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: David Rider
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