Tell your Councillor to support Transit City

Email your Councillor and ask them to support Transit City now.

Work is under way to bring light rail transit to the neighbourhoods across the City that surround Sheppard Ave, Eglinton Ave, and Finch Ave, but Mayor Ford has ordered the TTC to stop this work.

This work is funded entirely by the Province of Ontario with some Federal Government support. This money is committed and is being spent to expand transit where our city needs it most.

This Metrolinx/Transit City plan finally provides desperately needed transit into Toronto’s suburbs which include several priority neighbourhoods. It will remove millions of cars from our crowded streets, help to stop traffic congestion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful pollutants.

We know that:

The Toronto Board of Trade has shown vehicle congestion in the GTA costs the Canadian economy $5 billion annually .
The Toronto Environmental Alliance, in its report Clearing the Air on the TTC, demonstrates that Transit City offers a greater emissions reductions per dollar spent than subways.
The Toronto Star points out it is too late to switch tracks on transit expansion in Toronto. Close to $130 million has been spent on Transit City including environmental assessments, planning, and design work. Contracts worth more than $1 billion have been signed including the purchasing of vehicles and tunnel boring machines.
The Sheppard East light rail extension would travel 12 km, with 26 stops between Don Mills Station and Morniningside Ave., an extension of the Sheppard subway would cost nearly 4 times as much as light rail, travel only 8 km, and end at the Scarborough City Centre, serving far fewer people.

Stopping Light Rail Transit expansion will:

Doom Torontonians to overcrowded, slow bus service and will only add to some of the world’s worst commuter gridlock.
Mean more deaths due to smog as Torontonians will continue to use polluting cars without new Light Rail Transit
Harm Toronto’s economy by eliminating thousands of promised Transit City jobs

This isn’t a debate about technology- light rail vs. subway- it is a debate about transit expansion now and expansion which is appropriate for the size and scale of these neighbourhoods today and into the future. If Mayor Ford gets his way we won’t see new transit in Toronto for at least 10 years.

For all of these reasons we strongly urge you to support Transit City and click here to email your Councillor now.

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