Suddenly, it seems, everyone wants a subway. But nobody’s willing to pay for one.

Fereydoon Darvish is an exception. The president of Markham-based development company Liberty — think World on Yonge, Royal Garden Condos, Thornhill City Centre — insists the suburbs have waited long enough for decent transit.

We’ve heard that before, but Darvish goes a step further. He suggests that his industry and its customers should help pay for transit.

That might not sit well with his fellow builders, many of whom complain bitterly about how much it costs them to continue to make huge profits, but Darvish remains adamant.

“I’m the only developer who says, ‘Let’s put a $10,000 levy on new units,’” he declares, “a dedicated fee for transit levied on all new housing units that would average out to about $10,000 per unit. Dependency on the car has to be reduced drastically. The first thing we need is transit. Without transit, the city will not move any more.”

Specifically, Darvish wants the Yonge subway extended north from Finch Station to Richmond Hill, just above Highway 7.

So does Vaughan Councillor Alan Shefman. “Transit is the issue here,” he says. “It’s a street-level people’s issue.”

First elected in 2004, Shefman points out that “50,000 housing units have been approved but not completed between Finch and Major Mackenzie.”

As he also notes, at various times there have been plans to run the subway north. For various reasons, however, they have been dropped. And so Shefman finds himself assembling a task force that will “develop a funding model for this line.”

Its members will come from across the GTA. If they’re to have any chance of success, they will have to be unusually creative. One of the key points, both Shefman and Darvish argue, is that users should pay. That means residents as well as passengers, fees as well as fares; in other words, don’t look to the province, but to the GTA itself.

Indeed, experience shows that we’re more willing to shell out if our taxes go to a specific program rather than general revenues. That would open up all sorts of possibilities — parking levies, a regional gas tax and even TIFs — tax increment financing.

As Shefman explains it, a parking surcharge of $1 would raise between $1 billion and $2 billion annually. Then, of course, there are road tolls, congestion fees, vehicle registration taxes and the like.

The secret lies in GTA-wide acceptance, but don’t hold your breath for that. We talk about the need to act like a region, but still haven’t learned to think like one. So far, rising above the petty rivalries and traditional hostilities has been impossible. One municipality distrusts the other, this one is leery of that one, and everyone hates Toronto

“We need to raise the level of discussion,” says Shefman. “Our official plan is dramatically transit-oriented. There’s a hunger for transit in Vaughan.”

“Thirty per cent of the people who work at Markham Centre walk to work,” Darvish claims. “The public is ahead of the politicians.”

“I’d stop project-based planning,” Shefman adds. “We must build transit continually; otherwise we’re going to choke.”

The proposed line would have six stations and connect with a GO stop in Richmond Hill. As Shefman also notes, the environmental assessment for the route extension is complete.

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The task force will report in June, though getting a commitment — political and corporate — for these sorts of fundraising measures will be tough.

But as Shefman notes, “The GTA is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca