NOW Toronto: No more backtracking on LRT

[marmar]

No more backtracking on LRT
Metrolinx’a announcement Tuesday confirming council’s decision on LRT puts T.O. transit back on the rails – we hope.

By Enzo Di Matteo


Metrolinx has rendered its final decision on the subways-versus-LRT debate, and it’s light rail transit all the way on Sheppard and Finch and along Eglinton, just as council said it should be when it beat back Rob Ford’s Sheppard subway fantasy last month.

The mayor figures he’s still got time to kill this LRT business, since construction of the Sheppard East LRT isn’t slated to begin until 2014 and not until 2015 on Finch West.

Ford is already recruiting a slate to run in 2014 against councillors who defied his scheme to bury the Eglinton LRT east of Laird and extend the existing Sheppard subway from Don Mills to Scarborough Town Centre. Of course, we’ll be occupying a different political reality by then, one Ford is out of step with.

In the meantime, it’ll be a couple of years before the tunnel-boring machines now cutting under Eglinton get to Leaside, where the LRT is supposed to come above ground. We could conceivably have a whole new government in charge at Queen’s Park – and, seeing as the pendulum is swinging to the left, not necessarily the PCs Ford’s banking on. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=186390