Queen’s Park has thrown cold water on TTC chair Karen Stintz’s OneCity transit plan, saying it won’t discuss converting the Scarborough Rapid Transit line to a subway or re-imagining the provincially owned air-rail train shuttle into public transit.

“There is a strong consensus across the entire Greater Toronto Area that too much time has been wasted. We need shovels in the ground now,” said Ontario Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli.

“The province has been patient. What we need now is action and implementation,” he told reporters at Queen’s Park Friday.

The remarks came with the announcement that the Liberal cabinet has approved the construction of four light rail lines that were endorsed by city council after a heated LRT-versus-subway debate in the spring.

While he praised the leadership of Stintz and TTC vice-chair Glenn De Baeremaeker in broaching the topic of a property tax to pay for the city’s $10 billion share of the 30-year, $30 billion plan, Chiarelli said he can’t wait for another council debate.

“This is not acceptable. It will only result in protracted debate and more delays. We cannot allow this conversation to deter us from the immediate public transit implementation needs,” he said.

“We have a project approved and funded and we’re already working on it,” said Chiarelli.

He also rejected the idea of a regulatory change to assessment laws that would allow the city to capture increased property tax values. The city already has the power to raise property and other taxes, said Chiarelli.

The province says it has already spent $40 million of the estimated $1.8 million cost of the SRT.

The biggest change to that $8.4 billion LRT plan, however, is a one-year delay in the opening of the Sheppard East LRT to 2021, probably the most hotly contested of the four provincially funded projects.

That decision is based on an overheated construction market during the period leading up to the PanAm Games in 2015 and the condensed timelines on the four transit projects, as well as hospital and other construction in the region, said Chiarelli, who was flanked by Metrolinx chair Robert Prichard and CEO Bruce McCuaig.

Mayor Rob Ford waged a war at council, insisting that nothing short of a subway would do on that route. He was, however, out-voted in favour of the less expensive light rail, which councilors agreed left more money to spread transit further in the city.

Chiarelli’s remarks suggested that the province would have appreciated more advance warning before Stintz and De Baeremaeker released their OneCity plan on Wednesday.

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Although he said Stintz had discussed the SRT conversion in some preliminary discussions, “We’re in good company with the mayor in learning about it,” he said of the substance of the plan, considered among the boldest to emerge in the city in years.

It includes 21 lines, including six subway and heavy rail expansions.

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