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Photo by Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun files

Don’t forget that that instead of expected cancellations of up to three LRT projects — Finch West, Hurontario (in Mississauga), and Hamilton — the government is moving ahead with their budgets intact.

It’s true that there are still dozens of hurdles to jump between here and a finish line where we have a world-class Toronto transit system.

For example, the Wynne government promised to increase gas tax transfers to cities to help pay for transit repairs. Mayor John Tory and City Hall had obviously and wisely committed to spend those increases on more bus service, replacing old buses and repairing our subways.

All this work is urgently needed.

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It won’t do us much good to have a new subway in 10 years only to find the existing subways and buses are falling apart around them.

However, in its 2019 budget, the Ford government cancelled those increased transfers. It’s easy to say the city should find efficiencies to cover those costs. But City Hall is also trying to keep property tax increases low, pay for public housing repairs and finance road and freeway repairs, too.

Torontonians of all political stripes should encourage City Hall and Queen’s Park to work together to fix the next problem, and the next one.

But the best launch point for that discussion is to recognize the positives alongside the challenges, starting with the fact that the province has budgeted for a multi-billion-dollar commitment to our top transit priority.

If critics are complaining that the proposal is aggressive or ambitious, consider the possibility that these might be good things.

Sometimes, a win is a win.

Toronto’s transit system needs more wins to come. There’s a lot of work to do to fix our subways, to add surface transit service, and to integrate systems to work more smoothly for commuters.

But the Ontario Line is as good a starting point as any to get on with that job.

— De Silva is president & CEO of Toronto Region Board of Trade