The latest in a long line of shining Toronto transit plans — this time dangled before frazzled commuters by TTC chair Karen Stintz — has been buried by city council.

“Transit went off the rails with the mayor for a while but I can assure everyone in Toronto the mayor is back in charge of transit and we’re going to move forward,” his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, told reporters.

The mayor did not speak to transit at council Wednesday.

Even those who sided with Stintz earlier this year in opposing Ford’s unfunded Sheppard subway plan, blocked her and TTC vice-chair Glenn De Baeremaeker’s attempt to reopen the future of the Scarborough RT.

They want it converted to a subway rather than the agreed-upon LRT. The province has already said it won’t reconsider that agreement.

It would cost about $500 million more to build a subway, but the ridership warrants that kind of train and the Scarborough RT would be able to continue running during construction, Stintz said.

It will be closed for three to four years while the LRT is built, consigning 40,000 daily riders to buses running in traffic.

The time to have looked at a subway in Scarborough was in the winter, before council approved the plan to build the LRT, many councilors said.

But hindsight is golden, said Paula Fletcher, who was behind the OneCity plan.

“In February and March, council was seized with looking at Sheppard as an LRT or a subway. . . . After all those decisions were made, people started turning their mind to what’s really going to happen on the LRT, that it will be closed for four years. The subway actually would allow it to continue to run,” Fletcher said.

“The penny dropped for me today, when I heard 160 buses an hour to replace the SRT.”

Even before Wednesday’s council meeting, Stintz had abandoned the key plank in OneCity, a scheme to tie transit funding to a property tax increase, which 80 per cent of respondents to a Star poll said they could support.

The city was already working on a study of potential transit funding tools including the property tax plan Stintz favoured.

Some councillors believe the funding issue needs to be led by Metrolinx, which is supposed to deliver a transit investment plan by next June, and include other regional municipalities.

Admitting she was disappointed, Stintz nevertheless insisted the nearly unanimous approval of Milczyn’s motion, which confirmed a review of the Official Plan that council had already ordered, was a step forward for Toronto transit.

“This will actually prioritize lines, link them to the Official Plan, bring together a funding strategy and we’ve identified our first priority project,” she said.

It’s a way for transit plans to survive elections when new politicians inevitably want to put their stamp on the map, said Stintz and her OneCity colleagues, including councillors Josh Colle and Joe Mihevc.

“I am disappointed,” she told council, “that we missed an opportunity to build a subway extension through Kennedy to Sheppard but the will of council is supreme and the will of council has been made and we will move forward.”

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Council voted 38-6 to designate an LRT running along the East Bayfront from Union Station to Parliament St. as a priority. Waterfront Toronto has committed $90 million but the project still needs about $200 million more.

Milczyn, chair of the planning and growth committee, said transit plans must come from planners, not councillors.

“We have to let the professionals lead it, do it in an orderly way and tie it all together with the funding, with the right groups,” he said.

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