Expert panel endorses LRT for Sheppard

As was widely expected, an expert panel is recommending the city move forward with light-rail transit (LRT) on Sheppard Avenue East, delivering another significant blow to Mayor Rob Ford who campaigned on a promise to expand subways.

Only one member of the panel — Ford’s subway point man Gordon Chong — didn’t agree with the findings. The decision comes ahead of a key council meeting on transit set for March 21.

“I’m not going to listen to a biased panel. That’s what it is,” Ford said Friday. “They were all LRT supporters even before they got on there.”

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Panel member Eric Miller, who is a professor and director of University of Toronto’s Cities Centre,  said, “it wasn’t just a question of funding and it wasn’t a question of choosing, for example, a second-best alternative because we can’t afford the first best. LRT comes out as the best alternative as well as the most cost effective one within the funding situation.”

“This is not a political report,” he said. “This is not aimed at satisfying the political arguments on either side.”

Miller said LRT provides better “bang for the buck.”

The panel recommends council build LRT on Sheppard from Don Mills to Morningside and confirm Sheppard East LRT as a “priority transit line within the Metrolinx ‘5 in 10’ plan (formerly known as Transit City).

If approved, the move would mean 25 stations on a 13-kilometre stretch between Don Mills and Morningside at a cost of $1 billion.

The other two options on the table were: building the subway out to Scarborough City Centre , which would cost up to $3.7 billion, and a hybrid plan with a subway to Victoria Park and an LRT to Morningside, which would cost up to $1.8 billion.

On Friday, Chong said he didn’t like the fact there was no economist on the panel. He said the group was forced to accept facts from the TTC “at face value” that he claims are “very conservative and risk averse.”

“Why would we not go down the path of looking at using private-sector funding by the P3 [public-private partnership] model?” Chong said. “[We could] once and for all find out whether the private sector is blowing smoke when they say they want to come to the table.”

The panel noted Ford’s subway option could increase the city’s debt load, which in turn, could have a negative effect on the city’s credit rating. It said the subway option doesn’t have sufficient funding considering private financing options and government money.

“If Council adopts the Panel’s recommendation to implement the LRT-only option for Sheppard East, there will not be any impact on the City’s capital budget as the capital cost of the project will be funded by Metrolinx and the Federal government,” the panel concluded.

The group was asked to advise council on the “most effective means of delivering rapid transit to the greatest number of riders” with the $8.4 billion the province has promised the city for new transit projects. The federal government has also promised to kick in $333 million.

Councillors have been debating whether that cash should be used for surface LRT or Ford’s underground option.

The panel was also asked to “report on other funding sources for expanded transit on Sheppard Avenue East.”

Former Toronto mayor David Crombie, Chong and representatives from the TTC, the provincial transit agency Metrolinx, the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance and the Sheppard East Village Business Improvement Association, among others were on the expert panel.

The panel came to its decision using nine criteria with economic development, timeframe, environmental sustainability and community impact among them.

Last month, council endorsed a plan championed by TTC chair Karen Stintz that calls for surface LRT on Eglinton between Laird Drive and Kennedy station, and on Finch Avenue West. That plan also called for the expert panel to study the feasibility of Ford’s plan to extend the Sheppard subway.

Ford still wants the entire Eglinton line to run underground. He also wants to start building out the Sheppard subway incrementally, starting with stops out to Victoria Park and eventually out to the Scarborough Town Centre.

Ford insists he wouldn’t raise taxes to build a subway extension. He says he has $1 billion in funding and could put a shovel in the ground today to build two or three stations.

“We can afford it,” Ford said Friday. “Let’s do it.”