ABOVE: City councillors debate Scarborough subway line that proponents thought was a done deal. Peter Kim reports.
UPDATE: Council has voted in favour of extending the Bloor-Danforth line into Scarborough.
TORONTO – Subway or light rail? City council will choose once again Tuesday what type of transit to build in Scarborough.
Tuesday’s debate over the two transit options is council’s third since May. Then, council voted to discard the LRT in favour of the subway and in July confirmed that decision conditional on some demands, including $1.8 billion from the province and funding from the federal government.
While the federal government has pledged $660 million, the province has only committed $1.4 billion. So the city needs to vote again on whether it wants to move forward with this plan.
And at least one councillor is unsure council will support subways for a third time.
“The conditions we set in July have not been met, either provincially or federally,” Councillor Shelley Carroll said to reporters at city hall. “So I ask myself, I made a commitment in July that all these things had to fall into place and they haven’t – none of them have.”
Carroll was among 28 councillors who voted for the subway in July.
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But Scarborough councillor Glenn De Bearemaeker made the argument Tuesday that it’s “fair” for Torontonians to pay more for a subway in Scarborough because residents of Scarborough helped fund the subway lines in Toronto.
And deputy mayor Norm Kelly said Torontonians can afford it.
“I’d say 90 cents a week for the average family. I would say that’s affordable,” he said. “I will do everything I can to make sure it’s a subway.”
Ford was not available for questions Tuesday morning but did indicate his support for council’s July decision by shouting “Subways, subways, subways” when asked about an alleged police investigation into his associates.
If council votes to build extend the Bloor-Danforth line into Scarborough, the city will be left with a much larger bill than planned.
According to the city manager’s report presented to council Tuesday, the city would have to commit approximately $910 million to fund the subway, compared to at least $550 million estimated in a city report in July. That $910 million would include $165 million raised through increased development charges and $745 million through annual increases to property taxes – 0.5 per cent in each of 2014 and 2015, 0.6 per cent in 2016.
The Ontario government and Metrolinx are also exploring different ways to pay for the regional transit plan, The Big Move. One of those “revenue tools” could be a regional transit tax. Carroll said she doesn’t want to inflict further tax increases on her constituents.
“That means that my taxpayers are going to be burdened with a more regional financial solution and very soon and so I don’t want to burden them today with a property tax increase that will make them less able to afford that,” she said.
– With files from Jackson Proskow and Peter Kim
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