The future may be murky at Queen’s Park and city hall these days. But for the first time in more than two years, the path to Toronto’s transit expansion is clear.

Officials from Metrolinx, the TTC and the city gathered Wednesday to ink a long-awaited master agreement to build four new Toronto LRTs with $8.4 billion in provincial funding.

“We have been able to cement a clear path forward based on sound transit planning principles,” Ontario Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Bob Chiarelli said at Metrolinx’s downtown office on Wednesday.

“Our signatures bring to an end nearly four years of debate and delay and signal to Toronto commuters that we are finally getting on with the task they have long demanded, the expansion of Toronto’s rapid transit map,” he said.

The LRT master agreement is actually one of two documents signed by the TTC and Metrolinx on Wednesday.

A second agreement commits the TTC to implementing the Presto fare card, an electronic payment system that will ultimately eliminate tokens and tickets from Toronto’s transit system.

Calling it a “seminal moment” for the TTC, CEO Andy Byford said the adaption of Presto is an important step in the “top-to-bottom modernization” of the transit system.

“I can’t wait to implement Presto. I was down at Union Station this morning. I was watching streams of customers come in from Union Station using the existing Metrolinx Presto card. If it’s anything like we saw in London (with the introduction of the Oyster card), this will transform the experience of customers using our system,” he said.

The LRT agreement spells out the provincial ownership of the four new transit lines that will be operated by the TTC. It also outlines how the inevitable conflicts and construction issues will be solved, and the approval process for changes to the scope of the projects, which must be endorsed by the environment minister.

Three of the new lines — Eglinton, Finch West and the Scarborough RT — are slated for completion by 2020. Sheppard East is expected now to take until 2021.

The new LRTs will be a unifying force, said TTC chair Karen Stintz in a clear nod to the urban-suburban divide on city council

“Being able to bring higher order transit into the suburbs will really start to create a united city and to bring transit to those areas that need it the most and will benefit the most and will spur economic development in a way that right now those areas can’t even begin to appreciate,” she said.

The master agreement is more binding, says Metrolinx CEO Bruce McCuaig, than the memorandum of understanding forged by former mayor David Miller’s administration and the province. That MOU was unilaterally rejected by Ford, only to be revived by a majority of city council.

“Now that we have a master agreement signed it gives us much more certainty that we have defined agreements,” he said. “And it becomes that much more difficult for governments at any level … to change.”

“It is a true contract,” he said. “We are going much further down the path in terms of making contract commitments, in terms of taking delivery of material and products and services.”

But McCuaig admits there are no absolute guarantees.

“In the kind of system that we live here in Canada, we elect governments to make choices, and governments always retain the choice to go in a different direction,” McCuaig said.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

He also admitted that completing the master agreement, a priority when he took the top job at Metrolinx in July 2010, has taken longer than he expected.

The lines, he said, will be transformational.

“The Eglinton service is going to save some of our riders up to 20 minutes per direction. Forty minutes a day, if you’re one of those people who are on that system, is pretty major.”

Read more about: