Toronto mayoral candidate Olivia Chow picked a winner with voters when she pledged to boost bus service 10 per cent, says a new Forum Research poll.

And candidate John Tory pleased voters by promising more tree planting while Karen Stintz turned off voters by advocating selling off half of city-owned Toronto Hydro to raise funds for transit.

Two-thirds of those polled like Chow’s March announcement that she would spend $15 million for better service on busy routes like 32 Eglinton West, 35 Jane, 36 Finch W, 29 Dufferin and 25 Don Mills, Forum found.

In rolling out the pledge, Chow raised the image of working moms standing in the cold while packed buses go by without stopping. She said her plan would help reduce overcrowding.

“It will mean that people will ride the bus with dignity, with comfort and more frequent, so that they can get to work on time and get home on time, so that they can spend some extra time with their children,” Chow said.

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Tory’s pledge to increase the tree planting budget was supported by 51 per cent of respondents overall. However, only a third of North York and Scarborough residents liked the idea.

There was no split in people’s views on the Stintz proposal to sell a stake in Toronto Hydro — nobody seems to like it. Only one in five (20 per cent) support the idea. Young voters are most supportive but only 26 per cent of them were in favour.

Voters don’t seem to know what to make of candidate David Soknacki’s opinion that it makes financial and operational sense to scrap the Scarborough subway.

Soknacki, a Scarborough native and former city councillor, would go back to building a new light rail line to replace the aging Scarbrough Rapid Transit line which runs from Kennedy station to Scarborough Town Centre.

However, voters aren’t so sure. Forum Research found that 42 per cent would cancel the subway while 40 per cent would build the subway. And 18 per cent said they didn’t know.

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Residents of Scarborough and North York, however, indicated they like the subway plan. Only 32 per cent of Scarborough voters and 33 per cent of North Yorkers would scrap the subway.

Forum’s interactive voice response telephone survey of 888 randomly selected adult residents was conducted Thursday. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.