Provincial government considers transit plans

The more things change, the more they stay the same, or so they say.

Prior to the holiday season the provincial government was, and more than likely still will be when legislature gets rolling again, public transit. More importantly, they are looking at 106 proposals under their Golden Horseshoe Transit Investment Partnerships initiative — an integral part of the province’s 10-year, $9 billion transit investment plan designed for inter-regional transit infrastructure.

Of the plans, two stand out. One, a $1 billion bus rapid transit plan (bus-only highways) backed by GO Transit, the TTC and York, Durham and Peel region transit authorities, that has merited serious consideration. The other, a light rail transit plan, has not been met with the same warm and fuzzy reception, but in the end, may prove to be the better of the two.

"We, quite frankly, aren’t trying to be into a fight with bus rapid transit versus light rail. Both technologies are appropriate in the right places, but if we head down the wrong way and spend all of our money in the wrong direction then that won’t provide the best solution for our transit problems," said Bill Pearson, executive vice-president of Aecon Group Inc. "The biggest problem we face is getting people out of their cars.

"One thing about it we live in a dynamic growing area. That’s one positive thing about living in the Toronto area; the negative of course is trying to get around this place," added the self-professed car commuter.

The $2.5 billion plan, dubbed SmartRide, is the work of a multi-faceted consortium that includes Aecon (a construction company), ALSTOM (which builds trains) and Borealis (a financial group that funds infrastructure improvements). What they’ve proposed is a 106-kilometre, state-of-the-art light rail transit network that would serve Toronto and York and Peel regions, and could be easily expanded to include Durham and Halton regions. Such a plan, once agreed upon, could be implemented wholly in eight to 10 years.

"Light rail transit, or LRT, is a transit solution that can deliver major region-building benefits, given its proven effectiveness in attracting investment and creating the kind of higher density development that was identified in the 1992 GTA vision," stated David Crombie, president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute, in support of light rail as a concept plan.

The consortium came together two years ago with an eye to creating a strategy that would mostly operate privately. Initially, Pearson explained, the government would need to get involved to help get the plan off the ground, but ideally the network would then become self-sustainable.

"We were looking for an economic and as competitive solution as possible that the farebox would make a fair contribution toward the cost of it," he said. "In other words you can’t expect that the government’s going to pay everything, but we would be willing and to somehow work this out in that the private sector would contribute to part of it and then the government would contribute in part.

"So we’re looking to minimize as much as possible government involvement in terms of funding."

The network would see light rail transit lines built in existing hydro and rail corridors throughout much of the GTA. The idea is to not only combat gridlock on roads and highways, but also to improve the connections between key centres in the region, including downtown Toronto and the waterfront, Pearson Airport, Mississauga City Centre, York University, the Vaughan Corporate Centre, North York City Centre, Markham Town Centre and the Hwy. 404/Steeles Ave. employment area.

"If light rail is going to work and it has worked like that elsewhere in the world where they have put light rail in existing rail and power line corridors — I mean we didn’t invent this — let’s find the corridors, let’s put this in the corridors," said Pearson, adding that the plan has been modelled taking into account projected traffic patterns up to 2025.

"We also said it’s got to have connectivity and inter-operability. In other words it must connect in loops so that we can route trains around loops, not linear trans. We designed this thing to be inter-operable like that so that we can route the trains around in different ways. And we wanted to make sure that we could connect effectively to major employment areas or living centres — like York University. We looked at where were the big centres of where people were moving everyday."

Public transportation has also been identified as a key priority for the provincial Liberals, who have pledged to invest a portion of the gas tax into developing a comprehensive region-wide network. While the Liberals are aware of the many plans in existence, the one thing that has to be developed is a co-ordinated strategy, before you can make any headway.

"I don’t think you can just look at one-off suggestions and say yeah or nay," said the party’s municipal affairs critic Don Valley East MPP David Caplan. "You have to look at it in a holistic and integrated way and that’s the problem right now, there is no co-ordinated planning that is going on for transit and so until you set that up where you’re developing a patchwork of programs — capital and operating — is definitely not the way to go."

The provincial Tories, who earlier this year unveiled a comprehensive plan looking at smart growth in the GTA, also identified a co-ordinated operating body. For those, like Pearson, who are behind the transit plans that are now before the government there is also belief that there has to be a seamless public transit network that is operated jointly by all of the various transit authorities either operating independently under one umbrella, or as an amalgamated Greater Toronto body.

Until that happens, any meaningful transit improvements will be delayed.

"There’s no more room to keep building roads, you have to have something else because eventually you just can’t do it," said Pearson. "We build roads, we like building roads, our firm likes building roads we do a lot of roadwork, but we know it can’t be, you can’t keep building 407s, there’s no place."