Article content

Rob Ford wants subways instead of streetcars. Olivia Chow and David Soknacki would scrap the Scarborough subway. John Tory pledges to build the downtown relief line as soon as possible, and Karen Stintz suggests selling part of Toronto Hydro to pay for it.

Transit is the main focus of this year’s mayoral debate so far, but underneath various pledges to build or scrap multi-billion-dollar expansion projects, a key fact is getting lost.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Missed in the transit debate: The TTC needs $9B in 'must-have' capital work. It only has $6.3B Back to video

The TTC is hurtling towards a financial cliff. The TTC will need $9-billion for “must-have” capital work in the next decade. The commission only has $6.3-billion in confirmed funding.

The $2.7-billion shortfall is a mammoth problem that transit experts wish candidates would address.

“Everybody talks about capital projects and building new lines and all this great stuff, but they don’t talk about maintaining what we have or improving the quality of the service that we have today,” says transit advocate Steve Munro. “We’re now in the age of the TTC rapid transit system that we can’t just live off the capital value that was spent decades ago.”