A preliminary draft of the Metrolinx transit plan for the Greater Toronto area was released yesterday. The Toronto Star reports that Metrolinx and the City of Toronto/Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) have two very different visions.
Fundamental to the differences is that Metrolinx recognises the need for a regional transit plan; the TTC doesn't see beyond the current city boundaries or tinkering with capacity on its existing routes. The TTC plan serves city interests only while Metrolinx, as an agency of the provincial government, has a broader mandate and responsibility.
Given the TTC’s abject failure to manage and operate a modern transit system which could lure drivers out of cars and its colossal lock of foresight in building its existing subway system, rational thought favours the Metrolinx plan. The TTC says there is no need for a subway on Eglinton for 30 years. Metrolinx says new infrastructure must be planned considering growth. Toronto likes to boast about how the planners, in the 1920s, for the Bloor St bridge over the Don Valley made provision for a subway that wasn’t built until the 1960s. Unfortunately, when the TTC planned the Yonge St and Bloor/Danforth subways, they made no provision for increasing the capacity of the lines. Due to what can only be described as design errors, it is impossible to introduce express trains or for trains to pass another disable train. Any mechanical problem results in the shutdown of the line delaying passengers and discouraging public transit use. Compare the Toronto design with New York City’s, which was built much earlier and is a network of double tracking with express trains on long routes and many opportunities to pass slower or disabled trains. The odds that the TTC will get it right are not strong.
In essence, the TTC plan is to build street car lines along its busiest bus routes with little or no consideration for emerging travel patterns. The TTC gives little or no consideration to infra-regional travel even though there are almost as many Toronto residents commuting to jobs in Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan as there are York Region residents commuting to the city core. Metrolinx, on the other hand, plans for a massive expansion of the commuter rail system, GO Transit, to handle this commute. Metrolinx is a system for the future rather than the past.
Most of the cost of building new transit infrastructure will be borne by the provincial and federal governments under cost-sharing agreements with Toronto and the Regions of York, Peel, Durham and Halton. It is only right that the preferred plan be one that meets those broader needs. It’s time for Toronto councillors and Mayor Miller to shed their narrow 20th century perspective.
