The price of subways vs LRT's is being discussed everywhere. Including on this blog. Obviously, subways are more expensive than LRT's which is largely the reason that cities are choosing LRT's over subways everywhere. The price difference is seemingly insurmountable. But, this post is not about price.
Why would a candidate who campaigned citing Toronto's spending problem propose to cancel a plan that has already been costed and approved in favour of a plan that will not only provide much less bang for our buck, but, also incur at least $200 million of waste by the act of scrapping it alone?
There have been a few theories presented for why Rob Ford would want to do this. Enzo di Matteo, in Now Magazine presents one theory; that Rob Ford is forcing the issue in order to be able to eventually blame Millerites when cost overruns inevitably begin to come in for Transit city. He then would be able to point to this as further reason to cut council in half. This seems quite conspiratorial, as di Matteo himself admits.
My view on the whole thing is that Rob Ford's base seems to be, by and large, people who do not take transit and that is who he is and who he can relate to. I can almost guarantee that Rob Ford has never taken public transit in his entire life aside from possibly some self-serving publicity spots or "fact-finding missions." What he understands about public transit is that when streetcar doors open, he has to stop his car and when they close he can shoot in front of them unless his way is blocked by some biker "swimming with the sharks." I can understand this way of thinking, because it's how I feel sometimes too. Streetcars can be a pain in the ass to be stuck behind. They make my commute take a few minutes longer. However, when I stop thinking about myself in the car, I think about how many people are on that streetcar in front of me and that makes me think "Holy crap! what if all those people were in cars in front of me?" I don't think Rob Ford has ever moved on from how the streetcar is immediately effecting him and this is why he champions subways.
Anyone who thinks he is in favour of subways because they are more comfortable or faster than streetcars needs to look harder at what he has said. Start with the "war on the car" being over because he "cancelled" Transit City. So, in his view increasing the amount of public transit options is part of the war on the car. Because, he sees public transit as impeding his drive Ford wants to move everything underground and out of the way of his car regardless of the price difference ($30-$50 million/KM for LRT at grade vs $130-$160 million/KM for underground LRT not to mention $200-$250 million/KM for Subways.) For a politician who campaigned against the gravy train, once again this makes little sense. The most telling thing I see in his tough talk on transit has been "If we can't get federal or provincial money to pay for it like I said, then it won't get built"
Rob Ford hates being blocked by streetcars on his drive into the city so much that he would rather the city not improve its public transit system at all, so he proposes a subway system which will take much much longer to build and probably would never be built at all. We all knew he campaigned against gravy trains, it wasn't so clear that he was against any form of mass transit.
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