TORONTO

The TTC is on track to look at transforming the Scarborough RT into a park similar to New York City’s High Line park.

Many councillors at Friday’s budget committee meeting were surprised to hear TTC CEO Andy Byford say staff have been locked into looking at turning the transit line into a park once it is decommissioned.

“That remains on the TTC’s to-do list,” Byford said.

The TTC is pushing ahead with replacing the RT with the Scarborough subway extension — it is projected to be open by 2023.

Byford said the commission voted to approve looking at turning the SRT into a High Line-like park and Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker got council to vote to have staff look at the feasibility of the SRT being converted into a public park back in October 2013.

Byford said the TTC hasn’t started work or spent any money on the idea yet.

The transit boss wouldn’t comment on how he feels about the idea.

“We follow the direction given to us by our board,” Byford said. “At the end of the day it is all about affordability and whether that is best use of taxpayers’ dollars to build such a structure.

“Until and unless some direction, we will at some point turn our attention to it.”

Councillor Shelley Carroll argued the High Line makes sense in Manhattan but doesn’t make sense in Scarborough where the RT line goes through industrial areas the city wants to keep in operation.

TTC chair Josh Colle said “it is not the TTC’s job to build a park.

“I think the TTC often drifts out of our core mandate and that’s one of the things that is often where we stumble,” Colle said. “Building parks may be a city consideration down the road but it is certainly not TTC’s business.”