At Spacing, John Lorinc decides to be admittedly contrarian and argue the upside of the Ford team’s scheme to privately finance a Sheppard subway extension:
On the other hand, if the city can concoct a model that relies on a witch’s brew of subways, private capital and urban-minded up-zoning to goose densities in a carbon-addled suburban landscape, the reward may be worth the risk.
via LORINC: Subways in the suburbs, a contrarian view « Spacing Toronto.
There’s not too much to disagree with here in spirit — density’s good, transit is good, more urban spaces in the suburbs is good –, but he glosses over the fact that this new plan takes away from the Sheppard East LRT, which would have been open in just three years. The Transit City plan wasn’t development agnostic, either — it called for medium density, mixed used development along all LRT routes, something arguably more conducive to building a great city than clusters of towers bunched around subway stations.
Tags: sheppard subway, transit, transit city