Timeline: A history of Transit City

March 2007
The TTC approves the Transit City Light Rail Transit Plan.

November 2007
The Commission approved proceeding with four priority projects: Eglinton Crosstown LRT, Finch West LRT, the Sheppard East LRT and the Scarborough RT.

Spring 2009
The Province of Ontario announces $8.15-Billion in funding for the four Transit City Priority Projects.

July 2009
Metrolinx, Ontario’s regional transit-planning agency, takes control of the Transit City light rail expansion.
Robert Prichard, CEO of Metrolinx, says the new Transit City light rail lines along Eglinton, Finch and Sheppard Avenues will look like other TTC services to riders, but Metrolinx will own them and other Transit City lines.

December 2009
Ground is broken on the Sheppard Avenue LRT.

April 23, 2010
Mayor David Miller and City Councillor Karen Stintz spend almost an hour by the main turnstiles at Eglinton Station, handing out brochures for a “Save Transit City” campaign that the Mayor is fiercely pushing.

Seven months later, new mayor Rob Ford will recommend Stintz as his new TTC chair and she concedes that things have changed.
“The Metrolinx plan will be revisited and I will continue to support the Metrolinx plan as it gets revised provided it meets the objectives of the administration,” she said.

April 28, 2010
Mayoral candidate Rob Ford says he would scrap the Transit City light rail plan in the absence of full funding from the province, and try to build subways instead.
Ford has always been against streetcars, and said a vote for him would be a vote against expanding that mode of transit.
He released his full transportation platform in a video on Youtube on September 9.

May 5, 2010
Metrolinx tells City Council about a revised plan for Transit City’s four approved light rail lines. The new plan would see lines cut by a total of 22.5 kilometres and 24 fewer stations than the original Transit City plan. In addition, the completion of the Scarborough RT, Eglinton Crosstown and Finch lines have been delayed by an average of about five years, and the plan calls for the scrapping of a light-rail link to Pearson International Airport.

June 14, 2010
Metrolinx signs a purchase agreement with Bombardier for 182 Transit City light rail vehicles, valued at $770 million. It includes an option for 118 additional vehicles to a maximum of 300 LRVs in total. These vehicles will serve the four Transit City priority projects: Sheppard East LRT, Eglinton Crosstown LRT, Finch West LRT and the Scarborough RT replacement/extension.

November 19, 2010
A little more than three weeks after the election, the National Post reports that Metrolinx officials met with members of Rob Ford’s transition team. Metrolinx sought the Ford team’s blessing for the light-rail plan, but got nowhere.
“There was no sense of backing off,” said a source. “They are pretty keen on a subway.”

December 1, 2010
Rob Ford meets at City Hall with TTC General Manager Gary Webster, to tell the head of the commission to stop building the Transit City light-rail network.
“I wanted to make quite clear that he understood that Transit City is over, the war on the car is over and all new subway expansion is going underground, and that’s pretty well it,” Mr. Ford told reporters. “I just told him that everything moving forward is underground and he accepted that, and I look forward to working with him.”
Currently, Transit City employs 150 people, divided between consultants and TTC staff. The TTC has already spent $137-million in provincial money on the project.

March, 2011
The city signs a memorandum of understanding with the province ensuring $8.4 billion in provincial funding for a Light-Rail Transit (LRT) line from Black Creek Station to Kennedy rd.

January 30, 2012
City councillor Joe Mihevc releases a legal opinion stating that Mayor Ford did not have the legal authority to unilaterally cancel Transit City. The legal opinion also calls into question Ford’s decision to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the province.

February 06, 2012
TTC Chair Karen Stintz distributes a petition calling on city council to bring forward a motion to decide on Transit City. According to Stintz, Transit City is still being built despite Mayor Ford’s alleged cancelling of the plan.

February 08, 2012

City Councillors met for an emergency session of council on Wednesday, February 08, to debate on the future of Transit City. A debate that is being chracterized as a fight between Mayor Rob Ford’s vision of transit in Toronto – focusing mainly on subways – and TTC Chair Karen Stintz’s vision of transit – a comprehensive plan that utilizes LRT’s as well as Subways.

July 11, 2012

OneCity, a $30-billion, multi-decade transit plan for Toronto that planned for LRT and subways across the city, fell flat at city council. Introduced by current TTC Chair Karen Stintz, the plan met strong opposition from Mayor Rob Ford and his allies as they pledged to not support the plan suggesting it would raise taxes on Torontonians.