Letter - Cities Centre - University of Toronto

February 5, 2012 

Dear Toronto Councillors: 

Transit is the lifeblood of our city. After several false starts and radical shifts in direction that 

have disastrously impeded progress, recent events have put the ball squarely back in your court. 

This is a defining moment for our city and we urge you to consider the following in your 

deliberations. 

With up to 1.7 million riders per weekday the City could not function without an efficient, 

comprehensive transit system. Transit is as important to car users as it is to transit riders, since 

without transit our already congested road system would grind to a complete halt. Planning for 

desperately needed public transit expansion within the City of Toronto, however, is currently in a 

state of disarray and the Mayor’s current plans will not provide cost-effective solutions to the 

City’s pressing transportation needs. As transportation researchers, professionals and concerned 

citizens, the undersigned urge City Council to adopt the following three-point plan for restoring 

the City to a practical, effective strategy for building the transportation system that the City’s 

citizens need and deserve. The time is now for Council to take the lead in building tomorrow’s 

Toronto. The three steps that Council needs to take to restore transportation planning in this City 

to a sensible path are: 

1. Return the eastern section of the new Eglinton Avenue rapid transit line to an at-grade 

alignment. 

2. Restore other key transit projects to fast-tracked implementation. 

3. Reinvigorate long-range transit planning within the City. 

Attachment I to this letter describes this three-point plan in greater detail. Attachment II includes 

106 letter signatories in addition to those immediately below. 

Sincerely yours, 

Eric J. Miller, Ph.D. 

Professor, Department of Civil Engineering 

Director, Cities Centre 

University of Toronto 

George Baird 

Former Dean, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, 

Landscape & Design, University of Toronto 

Partner, Baird Sampson Neuert Architects 

Paul Bedford 

Hon. David Crombie 

Former Chief Planner, City of Toronto 

Former Mayor, City of Toronto, PC, OC, OOnt 

Adjunct Professor, Urban and Regional Planning President, David Crombie & Associates 

University of Toronto; Ryerson University …2

Ken Greenberg 

Principal, Greenberg Consultants Inc. 

Paul Hess, Ph.D. 

Associate Professor, Department of Geography 

Director, Graduate Program in Planning 


Ed Levy 

Former President and Chairman 

BA Consulting Group Ltd. 

Andy Manahan 

Executive Director 

Residential and Civil Construction 

Alliance of Ontario 

Amer Shalaby, Ph.D. 

Associate Professor, 

Department of Civil Engineering 

Chair, Urban Transportation Research & 

Advancement Centre, University of Toronto 

Richard M, Soberman, Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus & Former Chair 

Department of Civil Engineering 

Uiversity of Toronto 

Andre Sorensen, Ph.D. 

Associate Professor of Urban Geography 

University of Toronto, Scarborough 

2

ATTACHMENT I 

A THREE-POINT PLAN FOR IMPROVED TRANSIT IN THE 

CITY OF TORONTO 

1. Return the eastern section of the new Eglinton Avenue rapid transit line to an at-grade 

alignment. High quality rapid transit along Eglinton Avenue is absolutely essential to the 

development of an improved transit network within the City. This was recognized in the 

Metrolinx “Big Move” regional transportation plan through the designation of Eglinton as a 

priority corridor for immediate investment. The decision to bury the central section of this line, 

although costly, can be justified given the land use density and the relatively narrow roadway 

along this portion of the corridor. The current plan for the portion of the route east of Brentcliffe 

Road to also be buried underground, however, is not sensible for many reasons including: 

• The roadway rights-of-way along these suburban roadways are very generous and 

provide ample room for an at-grade alignment. Plenty of room remains to accommodate 

car and truck traffic. 

• A well-designed LRT line will carry many more people per hour than a lane of roadway. 

Furthermore, no road capacity need be sacrificed along these portions of the route: the 

generous road allowances can provide for both the existing number of lanes and the new 

LRT line. The objective of any transportation system is to move people, not vehicles. 

Building at-grade LRT lanes does not constitute a “war on cars”, rather it represents a 

way of maximizing mobility for trip-makers travelling in the corridor. 

• Forcing all higher-order transit underground as a matter of principle is a misguided 

policy. It ensures that most transit expansions become prohibitively expensive and 

cannot be justified on the basis of the number of people the system will carry. The result 

is that we end up building much less transit than we need because we spend our precious 

dollars on artificially expensive underground lines when much more cost-effective atgrade 

solutions exist. To say that we need to bury all higher-order transit lines because 

people “like” subways misstates the issue. What people want is reliable, frequent service 

that takes them where they need to go. People “like” subways because they generally 

provide such frequent, reliable service. They will also “like” other technologies that 

provide similar service levels, whether they are underground or not. Indeed, there is 

nothing fundamentally attractive about having to go underground in order to make a trip. 

Transit lines should be buried only when necessary – i.e., when economically and 

operationally justified – not as a matter of abstract principle. 

• Eglinton Avenue is a prime example of the wastefulness of this policy. Quite literally 

billions of dollars are going to be needlessly spent burying the suburban portions of this 

line, with very limited benefit to a limited number of trip-makers. As noted by John 

Lorinc in a recent Spacing article, the current plan to bury all of Eglinton has not been 

subjected to any form of cost-benefit analysis. 1 If such an analysis was undertaken it 

would surely demonstrate the clear inefficiency of the plan. No private-sector firm would 

be so wasteful in its use of company resources. These billions can and should instead be 

spent building other much-needed transit lines in other corridors within the City. Tens of 

1 

http://spacingtoronto.ca/2012/01/30/lorinc-whos-going-to-be-the-grown-up-on-the-eglinton-crosstown/. 

3

thousands of people are going to be denied improved transit services if this decision is 

not reversed. 

• We firmly believe that no knowledgeable transportation professional would support such 

an inefficient and unnecessary proposal for a transit line. To our knowledge no such 

professional endorsement of this plan exists. It is the obligation of Council to ensure that 

such momentous decisions are properly considered and properly supported by sound 

professional analysis and advice before billions of taxpayers’ dollars are needlessly spent. 

2. Restore key transit projects to fast-tracked implementation. The saving of billions of 

dollars through restoring the suburban portions of the Eglinton LRT line to a surface alignment 

makes possible the fast-tracking of several other desperately needed transit capital projects 

within the City. These savings must not be taken back by the Province for allocation to other 

purposes (debt reduction, etc.). This money was and is committed to transit improvements 

within the City and this commitment must be maintained. What we are arguing for in this letter 

is a far more effective employment of these precious committed dollars to maximize their impact 

on improving transit within the City (which, again, is of regional as well as local importance 

given Toronto’s central place within the GTHA). Previously planned, approved and prioritized 

projects which should be reinstated for implementation are: 

• Construction of higher-order transit on Finch Avenue West. In 2011 Finch West carried 

38,100 riders per day 2 (comparable to ridership levels on the Carlton and Dundas 

streetcar lines and only about 10,000 fewer riders per day than the Sheppard Subway) and 

urgently needs upgrading to a higher-order transit service. 

• Higher-order transit extension of Sheppard East. Connection of Victoria Park (and its 

north-south transit lines), the Consumers Road employment district and central 

Scarborough to the existing Sheppard subway line is an important component of building 

an improved transit network in Scarborough. 

• Conversion of the Scarborough Rapid Transit (SRT) line to LRT. SRT vehicles are 

reaching the end of their service lives, the line is approaching capacity, and an upgrade of 

the line to LRT is another critical component in improving the Scarborough network. 

3. Reinvigorate long-range transit planning within the City. Looking beyond the very 

pressing need to make wise decisions immediately concerning the three key east-west corridors 

Eglinton, Sheppard and Finch, in the medium term a comprehensive plan for the Toronto transit 

network is desperately needed. Ad hoc, one off decisions are no way to build a cost-effective, 

attractive transit network. Network connectivity and coverage are critical to providing transit 

services that are maximally useful, as is the thoughtful matching of the supply of services to 

meet the spatial patterns of current and future travel demand. A systematic review and analysis 

of past, current and new plans and ideas is urgently required so that we have a thoughtful, 

defensible, cost-effective plan for moving forward in the longer term and so that we never again 

fall into the chaos in which we currently find ourselves. This will involve making decisions 

about other important corridors within the City, notably a downtown relief line, north-south 

lines, the Waterfront LRT line, and others. But these decisions need to be made within a 

comprehensive planning process, not as a series of independent, ad hoc decisions. 

2 

http://www3.ttc.ca/PDF/Transit_Planning/Ridership_and_cost_statistics_for_bus_and_streetca_routes_20.pdf 

4

Planning is a continuous process, not a one-shot deal. The problem is not that we have done too 

many planning studies, it's that very little has been implemented from most of these studies and 

at the same time we have lost sight of the big picture. We need to restore a commitment to longrange 

network planning (prioritization of funding, integrating land use and transit investment) or 

we will just continue to muddle through project-by-project, horse-trading our way from one 

crisis to the next, missing opportunities and wasting time and precious resources. 

One model for such a study is the Metropolitan Toronto Transportation Plan Review (MTTPR) 

which was undertaken in the mid-1970s. At the time Metro Toronto’s transportation plans were 

in a somewhat similar confused state due to the cancellation of expressway plans for the city and 

the failure of a transit scheme proposed by the provincial government to provide a feasible 

alternative to the cancelled expressways. Planners from Metro, the TTC, the Ontario Ministry of 

Transportation and Communications, academia and the private sector all worked together to 

develop a new comprehensive plan for Metro Toronto. A similar team, consisting of staff from 

the City, TTC, Metrolinx, academia, and other experts, provided with a clear mandate from 

Council, could provide to Council the independent, professional, comprehensive plan for its 

approval that is needed to move beyond the personal preference approach, overly politicized 

environment in which we currently find ourselves and to provide a sound framework for moving 

the City’s transportation agenda forward over the longer term. 

Concluding Remarks 

The current emphasis on investing all transit capital funds to unnecessarily bury all of the 

Eglinton LRT line and pushing ahead with an unjustified Sheppard subway line to the exclusion 

of a more balanced, cost-effective transit plan that would benefit vastly greater numbers of 

Torontonians is unsupportable. It will inflict punitive social costs on large numbers of our 

citizens who will receive no relief from unacceptably poor transit service and unremitting 

congestion on our roadways. 

The current policy is radically out of sync with best practice in cities around the world 

(Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Munich, Berlin, Stockholm, 

Madrid, London – the list goes on and on) which are: (a) succeeding in shifting modal shares in 

favour of transit (and non-motorized modes as well) while not disadvantaging drivers (i.e., they 

are making things better for all trip-makers), and (b) using a range of appropriate technologies to 

do this, matching technology to need, rather than insisting on a “one-size fits all” approach, 

regardless of facts, needs or costs. In particular, LRT and BRT technologies are being used 

world-wide to cost-effectively provide transit services that are competitive to the automobile, 

with these services being matched to land use densities, travel demand patterns and network 

configurations as required. If Toronto is to compete successfully with these world cities, then it 

must aggressively pursue a rational, best-practice, well-designed transit policy. 

At the moment, our transit policy falls far short of these needs. We can still reverse this 

unfortunate situation, but we must act now before billions are wasted, opportunities are lost and a 

congestion-induced irreversible downward slide in our productivity, growth and quality of life 

occurs. Toronto’s success as a global city is not foreordained. We need to work on it day-byday, 

in every decision we make. Let’s make the best ones possible with respect to our transit 

system! 

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ATTACHMENT II 

ADDITIONAL SIGNATORIES 

Ron Buliung 

Associate Professor 

Cities Centre, Univ. Toronto 

David A. Wolfe 

Professor, Political Science 


Zack Taylor 

Doctoral Candidate and Consulting 

Researcher 


Susannah Bunce 

Assistant Professor 

University of Toronto Scarborough 

Elizabeth S. Cohen 

Professor 

York University 

Nabil Malik 

President 

Federation of Urban Studies Students, York University 

J. David Hulchanski Marvin Macaraig 

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Geography and 

Associate Director for Research 

Program in Planning, University of Toronto 

2010 City Councillor Candidate, Ward 36, Scarborough 

Cities Centre, University of Toronto 

Southwest 

Shauna Brail 

Senior Lecturer 

University of Toronto, Urban Studies Program 

Cynthia Wilkey 

Chair 

West Don Lands Committee 

Brian Iler 

Chair 

CommunityAIR 

Morgan Skowronski 

MScPlanning 


David Buchbinder 

CEO/Artistic Director 

Diasporic Genius 

Ruddick Susan 


Department of Geography and Program in 

Planning 

Rana Masoudi 

Masters Student 


Jacob Etches 

PhD 

Resident 

Matthew Roorda 


Civil Engineering, University of Toronto 

Sharon McElroy 

EPRA 

Faye Mishna 

Dean & Professor 

Factor-inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of 

Toronto 

Kathryn Grond 

Urban Infrastructure Research Coordinator 


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Ken MacDonald 


Dept.of Geography and Program in Planning, 


Adrian Lightstone 

Economist 

Private Sector 

Tenley Conway 


University of Toronto, Mississauga 

Danyluk Martin 

Ph.D. student 

Department of Geography, University of 


Carol Moukheiber 

Director, Master of Urban Design 

DFALD, University of Toronto 

Seasons Mark 


School of Planning, University of Waterloo 

Larry S. Bourne 

Professor emeritus, Geography and Planning, 

Senior Advisor, Cities Centre 


Sheila Neysmith 

Associate Dean Research FIFSW, RBC Chair 

in Applied Social Work Research 


Guinevere Ngau 

Transportation Engineer 

HDR Corporation 

Roger Keil 

Director and Professor 

The City Institute at York University 

Kim Solga 


Western University 

Lake Sagaris 

active citizen, PhD candidate, Urban planning, 


Brigitte Shim 


John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, 

and Design, University of Toronto 

Ilan Kapoor 


Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 


Aron Shlonsky 


Univeristy of Toronto 

Izumi Sakamoto 



Alan Walks 



Alex Speigel 

President 

ONE Development / ideas Development 

Tong Lam 

Associate Professor of History 


Richard Harris 


McMaster University 

Brent Berry 

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology 


Matthew Farish 


Department of Geography, University of Toronto 

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Clement Kent 

Postdoctoral Fellow 


McClelland Michael 

Principal 

ERA Architects 

Donald Jackson 

Professor and Interim Director 

Centre for Environment, UofT 

Graeme Stewart 

Associate 

ERA Architects Inc., Centre for Urban Growth 

and Renewal 

Thomas Cohen 

Chair 

Eglinton Park Res. Assoc. 

Jody Berland 


Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, York 

University 

John Campey 

Executive Director 

Social Planning Toronto 

Karen Mundy 



Douglas Duckworth 

MScPl 2012 Candidate 


Scott Sams 

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political 

Science & Graduate Associate, Cities Centre 


Robert Warren 

Director 

Eglinton Park Residents' Association 

BETH SAVAN 

University of Toronto Cities Centre 

Dylan Reid 

Research affiliate 


Matthew Blackett 

Publisher 

Spacing 

Peter Broadley 

Citizen 

Frances Frisken 

Professor Emerita 


Bryan Dale 

Graduate Student 


Charles Hostovsky, PhD, MCIP 

Consultant 

Self-Employed 

Mark Langridge 

Architect 


Andrew Sancton 

Professor of Political Science 

University of Western Ontario 

Beth Moore Milroy 

PhD, Professor Emerita 

School of Urban & Regional Planning, Ryerson 


Adrian Blackwell 


Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and 

Design 

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Nancy Warren 

Toronto Taxpayer 

Gerda Wekerle 

Professor, Coordinator of Planning Programs 

Faculty of Environmental Studies, York 


Jack Quarter 


Social Economy Centre, OISE 

Barry Wellman, FRSC 

S.D. Clark Professor 

Department of Sociology, University of 


Joseph Clement 

Art Director 

Directors Guild of Canada 

Carol Annett 

CEO 

VHA Home HealthCare 

Richard DiFrancesco 


Dept. Of Geography and Program in Planning 

Gene Desfor 

Professor Emeritus 


Mettke Christian 

Dipl. Geograph 

Darmstadt University of Technology 

Janine Marchessault 



Robert Murdie 



John Gladki 

Principal Planner 

Gladki Planning Associates 

Mohammad Qadeer 


Queen's University 

Tracey Winton 


University of Waterloo 

Diego Almaraz 

Student Planner 

Region of Waterloo 

Geoff Bagga 

Student 

Laura Taylor 



John Danahy 


Centre for Landscape Research, John H Daniels 

Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, UofT 

Louna (Luna) Khirfan 


The University of Waterloo, School of Planning 

Newsha Ghaeli 

Architect 

worked with faculty at UofT 

Mahboubi Mateen 

Transportation Analyst 

IBI Group 

Marianne Touchie 

Ph.D. Candidate 


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Mark Winfield 


Faculty of Environmental Studies, York 


Warren Crichlow 



Philip Webb 

Research Associate 

Cities Centre, U Toronto 

Ute Lehrer 



Meric Gertler 

Professor of Geography and Planning 


Martin Horak 

Associate Professor, Department of Political 

Science 

University of Western Ontario 

Cristina Amon 

Dean, Applied Science & Engineering 


Douglas Young 



Katharine Rankin 


University of Toronto Geography 

Melissa Yu 

Project Manager 

Evergreen 

Benji Wong 

student 

Brian Turner 

Director, Clinical Informatics 

Mount Sinai Hospital 

Mariana Valverde 



Adam Scott 

Roxana Ng 



Sonya Jensen 

Project Manager 

Lundholm Associates Architects 

Nancy Smith Lea 

Director 

Toronto Centre for Active Transportation 

Ekaterina Tzekova 

Ph.D. Candidate 

Department of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto 

Anna Cote 

MES Planning Candidate, 


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Letter - Cities Centre - University of Toronto

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