Earlier today, the Toronto city council voted 28-16 in favour of backing the Scarborough subway plan. The subway is already being touted as yet another exciting way for you to never go to Scarborough.
Now, a proper mode of transportation from the downtown core to Scarborough makes sense. Well, funny story here, but the Sheppard light rail transit system would have actually been more efficient and funded by the province, and we jut 86’ed it to make way for the subway. Oopsy-doops!
For starters, according to this image from Teresa Kalinowski, the proposed subway line has eight stops running through mostly low-population employment lands, while the LRT would only have three stops and run through the more heavily populated areas of Scarborough. According to The Star, only 24,000 people live in walking distance while 47,000 people live in walking distance of the LRT. So basically: twice the commuters, less than half the stops.
As for funding, the subway plan doesn’t yet have a for-sure method of funding yet. Turns out, the province had promised to fund the Sheppard LRT, while as of yet they haven’t guaranteed any funding for the subway. To make matters worse, Desmond Cole posted to Twitter that the cost of cancelling the Sheppard LRT would be about $35 Million.
The worst part of all of this? It turns out, Rob Ford doesn’t really seem to understand certain parts of the subway plan.
Seriously, are we sure Ford isn’t secretly Jerry from Parks and Recreation?
At this point, the entire subway/LRT debate has become kinda confusing, but the general gist of it is that the LRT was pretty much a sure deal and ran on a more efficient track. But nope! We’re getting a subway, because Ford doesn’t understand what an LRT is.
Why you can trust Xtra
