You could say he’s been too cute — promising Yonge Street subway congestion relief for months without actually saying “downtown relief line;” and now proposing rapid relief along the same corridor, bypassing the LRT vs subway debate.

When he said since February that the Yonge St. relief line was his top priority and construction would start immediately, we thought he meant the DRL, the darling line of the transit cognoscenti.

Turns out mayoral candidate John Tory doesn’t spell relief, DRL or LRT or subway. Leave it to Tory to further complicate a confusing issue in need of clarity.

But months from now, the transit proposal Tory unveiled Tuesday should resonate as one of the most important of our time. It changes our fixation on underground heavy-duty trains.

It’s the way to go. Smart. Practical. Doable. Maybe, even affordable and possible in our lifetime.

Why it’s taken decades to surface is the subject of doctoral theses. Finally, someone has brought serious attention to one of our most underused transportation assets — seven rail lines in and out of Toronto, most of the tracks idle much of the day.

No need to build traditional subways when you can put heavy trains on those very tracks, some transit advocates have said for years. Someone may be listening, finally.

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The provincial Liberals are touting regional rail service, all-day frequent service along all GO routes that is possible if the lines are electrified. A Kathleen Wynne victory assures this as our future. Tim Hudak, inexplicably, won’t support electrification.

The people of Scarborough and Markham are not wedded to “subway,” as in underground trains. If they were, they’d hop off the Yonge line at Davisville or the University line at Eglinton.

They say “subway” because it is perceived as fast and dependable, separated from regular traffic, upscale, and a viable means of rapid transportation. They chafe at the idea of an LRT from Sheppard and McCowan because they dread the 70-minute trip downtown on a good day. Local and useful it is. Regional or rapid it is not.

But give them what Tory is proposing and they’ll board the trains in droves.

Tory promises, as mayor, to push SmartTrack — a London-style surface train system, running through for 53 kilometres past 22 stations.

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West to east, from the airport corridor in Etobicoke, it travels on a new segment along Eglinton Ave. to connect to the existing Kitchener GO line at Mt. Dennis, where the Eglinton Crosstown LRT terminates in the west. The line links at St. Clair West, the Dundas West station, Liberty Village, Spadina and into Union Station.

Then it goes east using the Stouffville line, making four stops to Main Station along the Bloor-Danforth line; then pushes north out to Unionville, making eight more stops.

What’s there not to like about this?

It takes riders off the Danforth line, the Yonge line, the Bloor line. It would be the quickest way from the region’s northeast and northwest into downtown. It goes from the edge of Mississauga to the heart of Markham. It can be built most quickly. It’s cheaper than the alternatives. It doesn’t cause massive traffic snarls during construction.

At $8 billion, it’s a bargain — compared with the $3.4 billion for the three subway stops from Finch into York Region; or the subway extension from Kennedy to Sheppard and McCowan.

It’s that cheap and doable because it uses existing GO Transit tracks for 90 per cent of the route. GO is to electrify its rail system over the next decade, extending all-day frequent service on some routes.

With electrification, Metrolinx could run a new type of train called EMUs. They accelerate and decelerate much faster, cutting travel time by 30 per cent. Thus, one might get from Unionville to Union Station in less than 40 minutes.

What can derail this plan?

A provincial election that brings Hudak to power. A change of heart from the provincial Liberals, who seem committed to GO electrification. Tory’s failure to convince the feds and province to pay two-thirds of the cost. Tory’s failure to convince Queen’s Park to approve the borrowing plan to pay for the city’s one-third share.

In other words, the same kind of obstacles facing any mayor who wants to fix our transit woes.

The most iffy part of the proposal is the viability of the tax increment financing plan being proposed. Queen’s Park introduced the legislation in 2006, but it hasn’t been used.

In essence, municipalities borrow against the anticipated increased tax revenues that the new project will generate. The anticipated revenues secure the loan over 30 years.

Tory says his plan makes too much sense for the province and feds to reject it. Optimistic guy, he is.

It does leave several questions, though. Why do we still need the subway into the Scarborough Town Centre if this is going in? Does this mean the DRL as we’ve talked about isn’t needed? And are the Finch and Sheppard LRTs as dormant as they’ve appeared for the past two years?

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

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