🔭 PLATFORM VIEW: Mitzie Hunter’s transit plan

🔗 LINK:

🔧 DOABLE? Yes.

💰 COSTED? Yes.

✨ OVERALL: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½ (3.5 out of five)

Mitzie Hunter has consistently offered some of the most thoughtful and detailed policy proposals during this campaign.

Her transit plan is no exception. There’s a lot to chew on here.

On the operating side, Hunter promises free TTC fares for seniors, to reverse this year’s fare hike, to restore service chopped in the recent cuts, and to make various safety improvements.

She says this will cost about $144 million a year after a phased-in implementation that’ll happen through 2025.

That’s almost certainly an underestimate, given recent accounting of what it’ll cost to restore TTC service. Steve Munro recently estimated that cost at $141 million alone. But regardless of the cost, boosting service would seem necessary to avoid a “transit death spiral” scenario, and I’m glad many candidates have acknowledged this.

There’s also a question of whether reversing the ten-cent fare increase or offering free fares for seniors — some of whom are quite wealthy — is preferable to simply using that money to add even more service.

I don’t think there’s an objectively correct answer to that question, but any fare-related policy must first be considered through that lens, especially given the existence of the Fair Pass program that already provides low-income people with reduced fares. Hunter has not made a thorough-enough case for these fare proposals.

On the capital side, Hunter pledges support for four projects: the Eglinton East LRT, the Waterfront East LRT, the Sheppard West subway extension, and Cummer station on the Yonge line extension.

I especially appreciate the support for the Waterfront East LRT. It’s a critical project for the waterfront and the general foot-dragging has both increased the cost and complexity. Get it done.

The Eglinton East LRT is similarly justified, though I’d be interested in hearing ways to make it faster. The Business Case report on the project published last year showed the LRT providing slower travel times compared to buses in dedicated lanes, which is both bizarre and unacceptable, and points to a continued obsession by some involved in transit planning to leverage higher-order transit projects to reduce operational costs (by running bigger vehicles less frequently) instead of to provide significantly better service.

But I digress! Hunter also promises to “champion and advance the planning for the North York Scarborough Subway extension along Sheppard” — language that acknowledges this is a project that will live or die based on the whim of the provincial government, and the City will not have a huge role.

I’ve been skeptical of this project in the past, especially as some seemed to suggest it should receive equal or higher priority than the Downtown Relief Line. I’m still not convinced it’s a good use of multiple billions of dollars when you compare the ROI of the line to the ROI of, like, buying a bunch of buses and addressing SOGR needs, but I’m open to reading the Business Case.

Cummer Station is both a funny name and something the province has been pretty adamant about not funding. The latest City estimates peg the cost of between $445 million to $545 million — money City Hall definitely does not have for a subway station that the Business Case estimated would deliver about 700 new daily transit riders. The City has expressed some concerns with the analysis behind those numbers, so maybe it’d be more of a revenue driver, but this still feels like a tough track to follow for any mayor.

PLATFORM VIEW is a daily(ish) feature by City Hall Watcher on Substack Notes. Got a request for a candidate policy proposal I should review? Let me know.