![]() ![]() The Scarborough subway extension is, as we all know, Rob Ford’s baby. It’s worth itemizing the provenance of the big projects on Tory’s $28 billion list. Tory has boldly committed himself to seeing through all the projects that Metrolinx is building, and is taking credit - in some cases with justification - for a grocery list of other moves, from the King Street pilot project to the Eglinton East dedicated bus lane. TRANSEE TORONTO MOVIEIn the silent movie that is masquerading as the 2022 election campaign, there’s been little said about transit. He earns $836,961 (not including benefits), making him Ontario’s sixth highest paid civil servant, and he is tasked with building all rapid transit in Toronto (and much of the GTA) for the foreseeable future. In his place is a tall guy named Phil Verster, who has headed Metrolinx since 2017 - a period that has seen the Eglinton Crosstown, that Wagnerian opera of a megaproject, delayed by two full years. The City’s most influential transit bureaucrat you’ve never heard of is no longer the TTC’s chief general manager, who (once upon a time) was a mandarin of substance and influence. The Ford government, with Mayor John Tory’s blessing, has hoovered up responsibility for all major capital projects and with it most of the necessary local debate about transit expansion. Those halcyon days, however, are long gone, as the current election campaign can attest. ![]() Plans were bruited, consultants were consulted, arms were twisted, and deals got done, or (often) not, as the case may be. The topic was debated, often intensively and at length. Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, Toronto’s local politicians had ambitions for local transit. ![]()
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