Sick of Transit Inglorious Bumbling

If someone had said to me back in October 2013 after our city council had just narrowly voted to scuttle the planned Scarborough LRT extension of the Bloor-Danforth line in favour a subway that we’d be back debating it in early 2015 even with a new administration in place, my response probably would have been, Fer sure, dude. Not just because Toronto has a history of protracted, feisty, divisive transit debates. But because this Scarborough subway decision was idiotic, politically cynical, and hostage to the loudest, most ill-informed voice in the room.

So yeah. Let’s keep rehashing this fucker. Keep banging the pans until maybe we get this right. Maybe get it right.

I want the subway defenders up on their feet again, massaging ridership numbers. I want to hear their outraged indignation at the price tag of the sunk costs for cancelling the LRT, numbers we all knew going in. I want city staff to tally up those numbers, line by agonisingly detailed line, publicly, so we can all hear what we’re paying for not to have.

I want to hear again how world class cities make monumentally bone-headed infrastructure decisions purely to placate a handful of self-interested politicians who are willing to sacrifice the good of the wider city for nothing more than parochial pandering. Worse yet, misguided pandering it would seem.

And let’s hear from our new mayor who, during last year’s campaign, blithely shrugged off Scarborough subway-vrs-LRT questions with an unconcerned We’ll Not Reopen That Debate Again. Uh huh. That debate, she be reopened again, Mr. Mayor.

Since it is, what will the mayor say when it’s pointed out (and it will be pointed out) that his own signature transit plan, SmartTrack, puts further stress on the already dubious viability of a Scarborough subway extension, the southeastern section of it possibly eating into ridership?

Or maybe he’ll address the lost money in sunk costs, some $75-85 million, coming out of this year’s budget, roughly the same amount he needs to balance that budget. That really worth not reopening this debate, I wonder? Just going along to get along is what passes for fiscal prudence these days, I guess.

It’s never too late to rewrite a mistake, especially this early in the process. As far as I know, the signed Master Agreement between the city and Metrolinx remains in place. We already know what’s going to happen if it gets opened up. Subways for everybody! This madness could be stopped.

Do I expect it too?

Not really. There’s too much vested interest in place, beyond just at City Hall to see at least the subway extension happen. It’s hard to imagine a mass Paul on the road to Damascus moment with this.

Still, stranger things have happened on the floor of council when things heat up. The October 2013 vote was a close one, some of the prime subway supporters have moved on or seen their status diminished. There may be a big enough opening on hand for one or two of the fence-sitters to change their minds without losing face. Maybe a few of the council newcomers might want to make their mark by not joining in on the stupidity, not falling into line and shouldering the burden of cleaning up the mess they weren’t responsible for creating.

It may be the height of insanity to demand another transit do-over with the expectation of a different outcome. Magical subway thinking has taken a strong hold on common sense in this debate. But given the costs at stake in pursuing this ridiculous blunder, it’s worth a try.

— smooth sailingly submitted by Cityslikr