Mayor John Tory, a planning expert and two of Ontario’s main provincial parties agree a light-rail line must be built to service Toronto’s east downtown waterfront and soon-to-boom Port Lands.

Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives are alone in not offering a firm funding pledge for the long-awaited line along Queens Quay and down Cherry St., although Ford assured reporters Thursday that if he is elected premier “transit will get built down there.”

That’s not good enough, says Paul Bedford, Toronto’s former chief planner and chair of the Waterfront Toronto Design Review Panel.

“Without that LRT serving the waterfront, the (east) waterfront (development) will not happen,” he said in an interview. “How critical is it to the future of the waterfront? It is absolutely essential, fundamental, mandatory” and should be a priority just behind the downtown relief subway line.

The East Bayfront LRT is part of a larger, $2-billion plan to build a light rail network across Toronto's waterfront. Council has repeatedly endorsed the plan without, so far, earmarking specific dollars or a funding source.

The once-industrial waterfront zone is set to boom with condos, offices, parks and mixed-use development as all three levels of government spend huge sums to remediate and flood-proof the 800-acre Port Lands. Sidewalk Labs, working with Waterfront Toronto on a proposal for a high-tech test neighbourhood, has called the LRT plan “critical to the future and the success of Quayside.”

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West waterfront development without accompanying transit has left thousands of commuters struggling every day to get to work.

Bedford noted he waited more than a half-hour for a TTC bus on Queens Quay and had to fight for space with George Brown College students. Light rail is the only solution for a corridor set to get too busy for bus capacity and unsuitable, for density and lake-proximity reasons, for a subway.

“If you don’t like LRTs call it light rail or a subway in its own right-of-way,” Bedford said. “Just fund it and build it.”

In March the Liberal provincial government and the federal governments together pledged almost $9 billion for Toronto transit projects including the LRT.

Ottawa said it would cover up to 40 per cent of project costs and Kathleen Wynne’s government pledged up to 33 per cent. If Wynne, running third in opinion polls, is re-elected June 7 the Liberal government will “fund the provincial share of all of Toronto’s priority transit projects,” campaign spokesman Drew Davidson said in an email.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath “is committed to building the Waterfront LRT in Toronto,” campaign spokesperson Rebecca Elming said in an email. “While the final funding structure is still being determined by all levels of government, we are committed to seeing this project become a reality as quickly as possible.”

The PC campaign which has vowed to spend $5 billion on new GTA transit, including the proposed downtown relief subway line and a three-stop Scarborough subway extension, would not say directly if it would help build the rail line that not listed among the PC’s priority projects.

“Torontonians are fed up with being stuck in traffic for hours, or being crammed like sardines into sweaty overcrowded subways, buses, and streetcars,” campaign spokesperson Melissa Lantsman said in an email. “Our message to anyone frustrated by Toronto's transit crisis is that change is coming and help is on the way.”

Asked at an event near Sarnia if he would commit to fund the line, Ford said: “Sure, I look forward to working with Mayor John Tory on his transit plan.

“I spent my whole political career on transit, making sure that we build rapid transit. We are going to build transit not only for the people down there — and I've consulted with the mayor on this — we support making sure we get people from point A to point B in a rapid fashion.”

Ford added that the relief line is his top Toronto transit priority and stressed that Scarborough has transit needs “that have been ignored ... we are going to continue building the subway out there.”

When he was a city councillor serving alongside his then-mayor brother Rob Ford, Doug Ford disparaged streetcars and surface light rail as inferior to more expensive subways. However, as PC leader Ford seems to have softened that position, backing a controversial Hamilton LRT plan.

Asked about the waterfront LRT in a TVO transportation debate Rod Phillips, the PC candidate for Ajax, said: “Waterfront is not one of the priorities we’ve articulated,” but suggested Toronto could find funding with money saved from uploaded subway operations.

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Asked this week about the need for the line, Mayor John Tory, who is seeking re-election in the Oct. 22 civic vote, called it a “hugely important project.”

“I'm determined to see it proceed ahead and if there are any party leaders or parties or governments that need to be persuaded of the merits of the waterfront transit, it is my job to stand up for those projects on behalf of the council and with the councillors and to make sure they happen, and that's what I'll be doing.”

With files from Kristin Rushowy and Ben Spurr

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