Councillor John Parker, who serves as Deputy Speaker and is pretty firmly aligned with Ford and Council’s conservative wing, wrote a column this week for My Town Crier, appearing in the Leaside-Rosedale print edition, where he expressed some doubt about the mayor’s recently unveiled transit plan:
There will be at least one provincial election and possibly one municipal election before we can expect construction work to begin on the projects not already designed and approved.
My prediction: Finch West will soon get improved bus service. Eglinton will get its underground crosstown line to Brentcliffe. The TTC will eventually adopt the Presto fare system and the SRT will eventually be replaced by an LRT.
But stay tuned for further debate concerning plans for Sheppard and the form of LRT service on Eglinton east of Leaside.
Beyond the Mayor, his brother, and a few of their closest allies, I’ve yet to hear anyone express the opinion that a privately-funded Sheppard subway line is possible or desirable.
Related: At Council next week, Janet Davis will attempt to ask a series of questions regarding the new transit plan and Toronto Transit Infrastructure Limited, the agency revived to work on securing private funding. Her questions, which could simply be referred and not answered, include everything from an inquiry about how much TTIL CEO Gordon Chong is getting paid to the million dollar query: will council ever get to vote on this damn thing?
Tags: gordon chong, janet davis, sheppard subway, transit, ttil