It may be a new day for Toronto but it could be deja vu for York.
With the election of Rob Ford as mayor comes his campaign promise to eliminate the underground light rail trains (LRT) planned for Eglinton Avenue in favour of heavy rail subways in Scarborough. The mayor-elect said Tuesday he plans to ask the province to funnel the money it has set aside for the Finch, Sheppard and Eglinton LRTs into a Sheppard subway extension to Scarborough Town Centre. Residents want subways, not LRT, Ford has explained, adding he would run express buses along streets like Eglinton.
If approved by the province and its transit planning agency Metrolinx - no certainty - the shift in strategy would echo the decision made by former Premier Mike Harris in 1995 to shut down construction of the Eglinton West subway, including filling back in the tunnel that had already been dug for it west of Allen Road, and build only the Sheppard subway in North York.
"I think it would be devastating for everyone in the former city of York," said Ward 11 (York South-Weston) Councillor Frances Nunziata of Ford's proposal to remove the funding for rapid transit under Eglinton.
Nunziata, who was mayor of the city of York when Harris made his decision to "defer" the Eglinton subway, does not support the TTC's current approved plan for the Eglinton LRT, the first phase of which will open in 2020 from Kennedy Station to Jane Street, because its underground section only runs from Leaside to Black Creek Drive.
Her ward's residents want it to run underground all the way to Jane Street. They don't care about the technology (three-car LRT trains or six-car subway trains), said Nunziata, who supported Ford's mayoralty bid.
The TTC, this spring, rejected running the LRT underground the extra two kilometres west to Jane Street because it would add an extra $200-300 million to the project cost. Also, LRT trains will have to come out at ground level at Black Creek anyway because that's where the train carhouse is planned to be built, stated the agency.
Some of Nunziata's York colleagues also oppose Ford's plan to kill the Eglinton LRT.
"The plan for Eglinton calls for underground rapid transit with service that would be as fast as the Bloor-Danforth subway with similar station spacing," said Josh Colle, the rookie councillor-elect for ward 15 (Eglinton-Lawrence). "In fact, the tunnel is even larger and will accommodate for higher order rail when density permits. We lost rapid transit once on Eglinton in the 1990s and I will work with the incoming mayor and council to ensure that we do get it built this time around."
"(Subways) are two to three times the cost of light rail transit," noted Ward 21 (St. Paul's) Councillor Joe Mihevc in a website post Sunday. "It is imperative to note that the Eglinton LRT is a reality: it will be paid for by the province, extensive community consultation has happened, the engineering designs are being completed and the machines to bore the underground tunnels have been ordered and are being built. Tunnel boring will start in 2012.
"To stop the Eglinton LRT to attempt to create expensive and unfunded subways would waste five years of work and financial investment and set the city back a decade or two."