Toronto’s decades-long fixation on subways has left it “stuck in its tracks” compared to cities that are more open to other rapid transit options. Canada’s largest city spends far more per kilometre on new rapid transit and gets a lot less for its money.
That depressing verdict comes in
a new report comparing transit across Canada by the highly regarded Pembina Institute. Toronto’s mayoral candidates, and voters, would do well to pay close attention to these findings. Obsessing on subways carries high costs.
Researchers
examined commuter systems in five cities: Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa. They found the two oldest centres, Toronto and Montreal, lag far behind in launching new rapid transit lines.
The comparison is striking. In the last 20 years Toronto managed to open just 18 kilometres of rapid transit, less than one kilometre a year. In contrast, over the same period, Vancouver opened 44 kilometres, more than twice as much. Calgary opened 29 and even Ottawa delivered 23.
That’s a shamefully poor showing for a city like Toronto which aspires to be a leader in public transit. It’s small consolation that Montreal did even worse, opening just 5 kilometres of line in the past two decades. For the purposes of the study, “rapid transit” was defined as subways, light-rail lines, Vancouver’s SkyTrain, right-of-way streetcars travelling in their own separated lane, and right-of-way bus routes.
Toronto and Montreal lag because, unlike other cities, they’ve been slow to invest in “quick-to-deploy rapid transit technologies.” Instead, Toronto has focused on slow-to-deliver subways that come at a heavy cost. That’s why it’s stuck paying an average of $236 million per kilometre for new rapid transit — more than any other city in the study.
By failing to deliver effective, low-cost alternatives such as light rail and bus rapid transit Toronto has, for years, shortchanged its riders.[...]
