It’s begun in earnest — Mayor John Tory’s slow retreat from his controversial, multibillion-dollar SmartTrack transit proposal.

It’s always been a seductive project — 53 kilometres and 22 transit stations in “seven years, not 17,” operating mainly on existing rail lines and connecting Markham to the Pearson airport area, via downtown.

But, upon further review, an idea too simple and sunny to be true.

The latest word is, changes to Tory’s election-winning proposal might even make it smarter, faster, cheaper. Go figure. On top of its exaggerated conception, SmartTrack proponents now shamelessly try to sell us another deception.

Commuters don’t know whether to laugh or cry or slip into despair.

If the news didn’t come on the same day as a TTC report asking for an extra $400 million for the delayed Spadina subway extension, commuters might even have swallowed the pill.

As it stands, the pullback from the mayor’s unsupportable SmartTrack project grew more apparent by the day — even as Tory doubled down and tried to assure everyone that all was well.

Since his election a year ago, it has become obvious that the heavy rail line capable of running GO Transit vehicles cannot be built west of the Mount Dennis area as proposed without engineering feats approaching $5 billion. That’s three to four times what an LRT would cost.

On the opposite northeast segment up to Unionville, the new tracks would duplicate service on the nearby GO Stouffville line. Worse, the project seems to cannibalize riders from the proposed Scarborough subway, an extension of the Bloor-Danforth line north into the Scarborough Town Centre. To avoid the redundancy, Tory’s staffers have been pushing city staff to nudge the Scarborough subway route further east, even along leafy Bellamy Rd. for crying out loud — adding ridiculous costs and heaping scorn on that subway project, which is already a gross over-build.

The central piece of SmartTrack, wisely using existing GO lines, may have some resonance. But it is perceived to exist at the expense of the Downtown Relief Line (DRL), the transit planning project that, historically, all the experts have identified from the dawn of subways in Toronto.

This idea clearly needed a redux. So, expect the mayor to propose a phased approach, with the central piece going ahead with Metrolinx support and the questionable pieces dumped into the “future build” dustbin.

Up in the towers at City Hall and at Metrolinx headquarters, the bureaucrats have all lost their hair trying to devise ways to make the mayor’s plan stand up to scrutiny. Try as they may, it won’t pass rigorous examination, though there may be excellent parts of it.

It’s faster and cheaper and more practical to use existing GO rail lines, where possible, to increase transit service. It’s also instructive that a politician can marshal a lot of support in a short time for a public project if he or she is resolute and persistent. Tory got a promise of $2.6 billion from the federal government and similar amounts from the Liberals at Queen’s Park.

Rarely has a Toronto politician promoted a transit project with such glee, vigour and surety — minus even a modicum of evidence that the line is needed, will attract riders and fits with other planned projects.

In fact, it is scary how easy it was for Tory to gain provincial and federal support for a scheme that no one had studied and few were convinced would work as Tory has suggested.

City staff are working on a master transportation plan to guide decisions over the next 50 years. Within weeks, city councillors should get comprehensive studies and reports that are to provide guidance on where to build which transit projects — based on objective data and projections.

If Tory truly intends to do what’s right for commuters, he will follow where the evidence leads.

If he applies the same energy to the coming Feeling Congested recommended projects as he’s done to SmartTrack, it is possible that Toronto might get subways where needed, embrace LRTs in the right corridors, and busways where appropriate.

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For decades, Toronto’s political leaders have begged the provincial and federal governments to fund the city’s transit needs, citing economic and social benefits. Today, both governments are listening. Blow this propitious period by building transit that gets politicians elected but doesn’t move people, and our children will curse us into the next century.

As such, any pullback from the SmartTrack scheme is a good sign.

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca

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