“It’s a necessary evil”: Scarborough commuters on the real cost of the subway extension

“It’s a necessary evil”: Scarborough commuters on the real cost of the subway extension

(Images: Giordano Ciampini)

With Rob Ford no longer mayor and the Gardiner debate temporarily settled, there’s now officially nothing in Toronto politics more divisive than the idea of extending the Bloor-Danforth subway through Scarborough Centre. Transit experts say building heavy rail in a lightly populated part of the city is wasteful; Scarborough residents counter that a subway is the only adequate compensation for decades spent riding buses and the increasingly rickety Scarborough RT. Here’s something we can all agree on, though: the subway extension is going to be really, really expensive. During June’s public consultations on the project, the city’s most optimistic cost estimate was $3.5 billion. We asked transit riders at Kennedy station whether they think the extension will be worth the cost.