Toronto’s decades-long fixation on subways has left it “stuck in its tracks” compared to cities that are more open to other rapid transit options. Canada’s largest city spends far more per kilometre on new rapid transit and gets a lot less for its money.

That depressing verdict comes in a new report comparing transit across Canada by the highly regarded Pembina Institute. Toronto’s mayoral candidates, and voters, would do well to pay close attention to these findings. Obsessing on subways carries high costs.

Researchers examined commuter systems in five cities: Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa. They found the two oldest centres, Toronto and Montreal, lag far behind in launching new rapid transit lines.

The comparison is striking. In the last 20 years Toronto managed to open just 18 kilometres of rapid transit, less than one kilometre a year. In contrast, over the same period, Vancouver opened 44 kilometres, more than twice as much. Calgary opened 29 and even Ottawa delivered 23.

That’s a shamefully poor showing for a city like Toronto which aspires to be a leader in public transit. It’s small consolation that Montreal did even worse, opening just 5 kilometres of line in the past two decades. For the purposes of the study, “rapid transit” was defined as subways, light-rail lines, Vancouver’s SkyTrain, right-of-way streetcars travelling in their own separated lane, and right-of-way bus routes.

Toronto and Montreal lag because, unlike other cities, they’ve been slow to invest in “quick-to-deploy rapid transit technologies.” Instead, Toronto has focused on slow-to-deliver subways that come at a heavy cost. That’s why it’s stuck paying an average of $236 million per kilometre for new rapid transit — more than any other city in the study.

By failing to deliver effective, low-cost alternatives such as light rail and bus rapid transit Toronto has, for years, shortchanged its riders.

There have been attempts to do better. Authors of the study note that a 120-kilometre network of Transit City light-rail lines was proposed in 2007. But only one line, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, is currently under construction and a lot of that involves expensive tunnelling.

In a ruinous flip-flop, underlining this city’s infatuation with subways, city council killed a seven-stop Scarborough light-rail route and replaced it with a three-stop underground line. In doing so, it delayed construction for years and raised the cost of this route to $468 million per kilometre, up from $194 million for the original LRT.

“Toronto is stuck in its tracks,” warned Cherise Burda, Pembina’s Ontario director. “It’s busy debating transit technology. The other cities debate transit technology, but it doesn’t stop them from actually building.”

Furthermore, when they do invest, it isn’t in expensive subways but in light rail and other rapid transit options. As a result, “they’ve been able to build more transit, more quickly,” Burda said.

All this is utterly lost on incumbent Rob Ford, running to return as mayor. His dismal transit plan, released this past week, calls for putting even more subways in areas where other rapid transit would make more sense. “You bore, bore, bore until the cows come home,” is his succinct agenda.

The other main candidates are at least open to alternatives. John Tory’s SmartTrack plan calls for running more commuter trains on existing surface tracks. And both Olivia Chow and David Soknacki would kill the ill-judged Scarborough subway extension and return to the original light-rail plan.

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This makes eminent sense. Overinvesting in subways, to the detriment of all else, is not the better way.

This is one of a series of editorials examining issues in Toronto’s mayoral election.

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