Preville on Politics

Transit City Revisited

Posted on June 26, 2007 by Philip Preville

Back when Toronto’s Transit City proposal for a new network of light-rail transit lines was first announced, I and many others had a bit of a laugh over the fact that it was a plan without money. So here’s a belated update: just before I went away on vacation last week, the McGuinty government announced its transit vision for southern Ontario, which includes a promise to fund two-thirds of the cost of Transit City. So now we know why the city rushed Transit City into being—it wasn’t for the federal or provincial budgets, but because the provincial Liberals wanted a plan they could fund come election time.

There’s a lively and active discussion about the Liberals’ plan all over the Web. Steve Munro, who knows far more about this issue that most, puts the plan under the microscope. And James Bow mused aloud on the electioneering aspects of the announcement, only to get roughed up by this guy. Campaign’s heating up.

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Mark Dowling June 27, 2007 at 2:16 p.m.

Philip

Actually Steve says in the comments to the post you link to that according to his sources the Transit City plan was produced on spec rather than with foreknowledge of McGuinty's plan.


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Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


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