TTC chair Karen Stintz has backed away from the troublesome property tax proposal for the time being in a bid to persuade city councillors to approve a study of her OneCity transit plan.

Instead of tying the sweeping transit vision to a dedicated tax, Stintz will ask council to designate two priority transit projects at its Wednesday meeting: the extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway to replace the Scarborough RT and, a new waterfront east LRT.

The financial aspect of the OneCity plan can wait without endangering any of the 21 projects among the 170 kilometres of new transit OneCity proposes, she said on Monday.

“Really what we were trying to do is bring the transit plan and the funding together and we’re able to do that,” she said.

If council approves the study of OneCity, it could be added to the Toronto Official Plan mapping the city’s transit future.

City staff is already preparing a report in October on financial tools that could be dedicated to transit expansion. It is expected to include a look at the current value assessment (CVA) uplift-based tax Stintz favours.

It would capture 40 per cent of the higher property values in the next assessment, applying a 2 per cent property tax increase averaging $180 per household. The funds would be reserved exclusively for transit, never to be applied to other city expenses such as recreation, daycare and TTC operating subsidies.

“(The CVA-based tax) is going to come back in October anyway. People thought it was redundant,” said Stintz, who announced OneCity with TTC vice-chair Glenn De Baeremaeker, on June 26.

Some left-wing councillors, who were initially supportive, backed away from OneCity’s tax implications after a few days. Shelley Carroll, Gord Perks and Adam Vaughan, councillors who are typically pro-transit, said it would be prudent to wait and see how other regional municipalities and the province want to pay for transit — a regional sales tax, for example.

Vaughan also suggested his downtown constituents would be disproportionately burdened by the property value-based tax Stintz was proposing.

Mayor Rob Ford reiterated his displeasure with the transit tax on Monday. But Stintz said it he could still support a subway expansion in Scarborough.

The SRT already attracts more riders than were projected for the Sheppard East subway extension Ford failed to sell to council earlier this year.

The province, however, has already said it won’t reconsider council’s agreed-upon plan to convert the SRT to an LRT. That project will require a four-year shutdown of the SRT, putting tens of thousands of riders a day on buses.

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