The cost of putting the brakes on Transit City

The Globe and Mail:

Mayor Rob Ford, his new TTC chair, transit staff and the province are all quick to assure Torontonians they’ll get their promised transit network. However, it’s not clear what form that will take – even transit staff and TTC chair Karen Stintz refuse to guess whether the revamp they’ve been tasked with bringing to the commission next month will cost more, push back timelines or mean the same amount of transit as promised. (Ms. Stintz did suggest, however, that they might look to the private sector to help cover the cost of subways, which cost three times as much per kilometre as at-grade light-rail transit.)

And that uncertainty is what’s worrying residents, businesses and investors after the city spent years planning its growth around a transit backbone whose execution is now in doubt. By putting the brakes, even rhetorically, on Transit City, the city is throwing into confusion its own plans for densification, investment and development. What can be built, where and how high is contingent on zoning that’s based in large part on planned transit lines and the number of people they’re expected to carry from one place to another every hour.

“The uncertainty does put the city at risk," Mr. Diamond said. “And what we can’t go through is four years where there’s no improvements to the city’s infrastructure in terms of transportation.

“That would be a disaster."

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