We know that the One-Stop’s trains will run mostly empty along a stretch longer than the entire Sheppard Subway. Even at the busiest part of the day the trains will be 80% empty for the first 6km. These high costs for so few riders are coming at the same time that all 1.7 million daily TTC riders are looking at service cuts or fare hikes in 2017.
This summer, we learned that building the subway will mean that either businesses or residents will be expropriated, or a popular woodlot will be bulldozed. Fortunately, a group of residents from the eastern part of Toronto stood in opposition to the problems of the One-Stop Extension. They successfully lobbied to save Frank Faubert Woodlot. With east Toronto resident Gary Comeau at their centre, the members of the Glen Andrews Community Association (GACA) are thinking of the future. Their advocacy is an important twist in the timeless Greek proverb, “Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” Instead of just planting trees, these gentlemen are doing their part to save them.
As Mr. Comeau and the members of the GACA know, once you squander a “unique and important ecological resource,” you never get it back. This same rationale applies to squandering $3.16 billion to build one subway stop. This is also the same rationale that applies to squandering farmland and woodlots to the sprawling teeth of automobile-centric suburbanization because we have insufficient transit and a lack of walkable communities for families.
Given all of these points, it makes sense that Mr. Comeau and the GACA would stand up for society by standing up for greenery. It makes sense that they would stand up to see transit funds invested wisely. Younger generations can access 25x more rapid transit stations through east Toronto and no longer be reliant on greenery-killing fossil fuels.
It also makes sense to lobby for more urban green space and better transit. Younger generations will no longer see the need to pave over nature with six-lane arterial roads because they will be able to walk to greenery, or at least arrive there by transit.
The One-Stop Extension happened because of some misconceptions and some other miscalculations. We recognize that a lot of people used to believe those things, and we even were willing to accept them in order to just see something built in the area formerly known as Scarborough. But with a woodlot of evidence behind us, we had no choice but to change that position.
Without sustainable revenue, the cost is so high that it wastes money needed for other things in the city.
The projected ridership is too low, while transit riders continue to crowd onto buses in east Toronto.
The One-Stop Extension was justified on the basis that it serves Scarborough Centre, but it doesn't even do that well. In fact, many people think that it takes the wrong path to the the wrong place.
And all this was before we learned that if built, the $3.16 billion One-Stop would destroy either homes, businesses, or a woodlot.
Instead of focusing on all of the potential problems for a subway stop that is a decade away, we can return to the far better plan of a LRT that was almost ready for construction, and would serve many more people.
Besides being forward thinking, the activism of the GACA is also important today. As Mr. Comeau has said, in reference to the area that would be served by the LRT, “because of the aging population…people can’t drive.”
Some out-of-touch observers seemed to believe that it was only people from other parts of Toronto who had identified the flaws of the One-Stop Extension. We always knew that that was not true. Now, increasing numbers of people who have lived in Scarborough since it was officially called Scarborough are making themselves heard in the media. Finally, residents are starting the see both the forest and the woodlot trees.
But will this vision translate into good decisions? It had better, and had better happen soon – or else Toronto will dump $3.16 billion into a tunnel with one stop.