A final decision about the future of Scarborough’s transit lies with the province, transportation and infrastructure minister Glen Murray says.

“The decision about Scarborough will not be made at City Hall; the decision about Scarborough will be made at Queen’s Park,” the Toronto-Centre MPP said on Thursday.

Toronto had signed a master agreement with provincial transportation agency Metrolinx that specifically approved funding to replace the existing Scarborough RT (SRT) with light rail transit (LRT), not subways.

Now, the city is considering extending the Bloor-Danforth subway line and trashing the LRT plan. Last week, Mayor Rob Ford once again reiterated his support for subways, saying a transit funding plan will be presented to councillors at their regular monthly meeting next Tuesday.

Construction on the LRT is well underway, Murray said, and he had strong words for councillors who want to change that decision.

“Over my dead body will people of Scarborough be left out of transit,” he said.

“If the city wants us to consider an alternative the onus is on the city to be very clear and to make the case for an alternative. And what we have said is that we want, from the city on July 16, their definitive position on this matter,” Murray said.

Murray said the city needs to start dealing with zoning issues, including preparing a zoning package that allows that area to be “up-zoned.” For example, he said, more office towers are necessary to support ridership on a subway line. As it stands, the area is not dense enough.

“We’ve worked on an LRT plan because we had an agreement with the city that the city council by majority vote voted for. We’re well underway,” he said.

And, he added, he’s sick of the back-and-forth from council, saying “some people still want to talk about transit until the cows come home. We’re actually building it.”

It’s not yet known how a subway extension would be funded or how much it would cost. Converting the SRT to an LRT was expected to cost $1.8 billion.

With files from Erica Gallipoli