Mayoral front-runner’s transit plans
Rahman Mohamed

After 20 candidates, including Karen Stintz withdraw, the battle for the Office for Toronto has dropped to only 65 candidates (seriously) with Doug Ford taking the torch from incumbent Rob Ford, withdrawing on September 12 before being diagnosed with cancer. But only 11 candidates have complete contact information – phone, email and website, including media-declared front-runners Olivia Chow and John Tory.  Doug Ford’s contact info isn’t listed on the City’s site.

So what do they say about the future of Toronto transit?

Oliva Chow’s Transit Plan: Yonge Subway Relief, above ground Sheppard East LRT, and Finch West LRT. On top of that her platform says she’ll “boost city-wide bus services right now” and calls for electrification of the GO line.

John Tory, The SmartTrack: “London-style surface rail subway that moves the most people in the shortest time. Across the entire city.”

• 53km of express surface rail subway in 7 years with 22 stations using LRTs, electrification of the GO line and subways
• Connect Northwest Etobicoke with Northeast Scarborough and Downtown
• Instead of raising property tax to pay for the city’s one-third share of the $8 billion cost using “Tax Increment Financing (TIF), dedicating a portion of increased tax revenue from the development … to fund construction … Tax Increment Financing has been successfully used in recent years on subway projects in New York and Chicago”

Courtesy of thestar.com Retrieved 1 November 2014

Doug Ford’s platform “The Toronto Subway Expansion Plan” simply states “Subways belong underground”