Well Scarborough, which is like nowhere for Torontonians:
There isn’t a value-for-money case for the Scarborough subway extension. Yet Mayor John Tory and Premier Kathleen Wynne support this expensive “vanity” subway. At the same time they keep telling us their rapid transit investments are based on careful cost-benefit analysis.
Tory ducks the Scarborough subway controversy by saying the decision has been taken by council. And he doesn’t want to put “a stick in the eye” of the Liberal government.
This is political pandering to Scarborough voters and the Wynne Liberals. Tory has neglected to make the case for a three-stop subway link that will cost $3.56 billon — $1.6 billion more than a modern seven-stop light-rail transit line.
This has an expensive yet familiar ring to it. Residents of the Imperial Capital are well aware of the monumentally useless Sheppard Line, a Mel Lastman vanity project that was too short to be of any real use. Four stations in the middle of nowhere in a city where the downtown congestion keeps getting worse. This is what happens when politicians plan. Their concern is with maximizing votes, minimizing opposition and improving chances of re-election. This isn't how infrastructure should be planned.
Twenty years ago I couldn't even spell Bessarion. Now I've just never been there.
Posted by: Jim Whyte | Wednesday, January 07, 2015 at 06:42 AM