Has it been
just a year since Mel Lastman was mayor of Canada’s largest city? On
the first anniversary of his taking office, David Miller can look
back at a transformation in the way people look at Toronto City
Hall. In a recent interview with Metro, the mayor said one of
biggest changes in year one has been the city’s “ground-breaking”
new relationship with the provincial and federal governments.
Using transit
as an example, he says that the new TTC funding announced earlier
this year showed that three-way cooperation between the three levels
had finally arrived. However, he adds that it will take time to
reverse over a century of attitudes at Queen’s Park and Ottawa that
Toronto is an “afterthought.” Miller also states that the only way
will be able to be able to build new transit lines is with further
massive investment from the senior governments.
After a year,
he feels transportation is still a high priority for him. What does
he claim as accomplishments so far? Thanks in part to provincial
funding for the TTC’s day-to-day operations, he points to the fact
that a fare hike was averted this year. However, he says that
because the province has “withdrawn” that particular subsidy, there
is financial pressure on the city to hike TTC prices in 2005.
Nonetheless, Miller is happy that the transit commission, on which
he sits, will widen the range of fare options for riders. Next year,
the TTC will at last sell a regular weekly pass, and the day pass
will be changed to allow families to use it on Saturday instead of
just Sunday.
Also ahead is a
major new change in the way transit riders pay fares, and Toronto
has recently agreed to go along with it. The provincial government
is keen to implement a unified automated fare collection system,
sometimes called “smart card” technology, on transit systems across
Ontario. Miller admits it will cost the TTC around $95 million to
install. “We’ve agreed to it. It’s a priority for the province -- it
wasn’t for us, but we’re prepared to accept their priority because
we’re a partner of theirs. But (the new system) is going to take
several years to come through.”
Another
important first year achievement, according to the mayor, is the
approval of new streetcar-only lanes on St. Clair Ave. “If that had
failed, we would have been unable to find an economical way to
provide rapid transit to people. I’d love to be building subways,
but they’re expensive. To build a subway the distance of the St.
Clair right-of-way, I think would have cost about 6 billion dollars.
This is costing 60 million.”
Miller foresees
bus and light rail lines across the city as “the way of the future.”
He says, “If Toronto is going to succeed, we have to have the kind
of pubic transit infrastructure that a European city has. They’re
light years ahead of us. We can’t get there overnight, but we have
to take steps.” To do that, the mayor says the TTC has been directed
to look at the next phase of transit-only lanes. These would follow
projects that are already envisioned, such as along St. Clair and
the city’s waterfront, as well as bus lanes to York University and
northern Yonge Street.
Does that mean
Toronto will not see new underground rail service? If there is
funding, he says that the next place to extend the TTC heavy rail
network is the Spadina and Sheppard lines. “The way to build
subways, and keep it affordable, is to always be building a little
bit.”
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