TORONTO

Last month, Toronto councillors approved a plan that will spend $250 million of taxpayers’ money to reconfigure Eglinton Ave. as part of the Eglinton Connects project.

While I am supportive of the Eglinton Crosstown Line, a transit expansion that will connect Etobicoke to Scarborough, I have serious concerns with what councillors are planning to do as part of Eglinton Connects, a separate project aimed at reconstructing Eglinton Ave.

The Eglinton Connects plan will replace crucial lanes of traffic along Eglinton with widened sidewalks, trees, a boulevard and new bike lanes, among other things.

In some areas along Eglinton Ave., such as the intersection of Yonge St., general traffic will be reduced from five lanes down to just one in each direction, with a turning lane.

Spending $250 million to permanently reduce lanes of traffic on already gridlocked streets makes no sense. Toronto will be forced to relive the St. Clair nightmare on an even larger scale.

What happens along Eglinton is an extremely important issue that will shape the future of our city. Toronto residents must have an opportunity to speak on this issue in the upcoming election.

After careful consideration, I am calling for an immediate halt on all work relating to the Eglinton Connects plan to allow Toronto residents to have the final say on this project.

When I am re-elected, I will cancel the Eglinton Connects project and reallocate the $250 million from this project to the Eglinton Crosstown line. This will help ensure this new transit line is built underground all the way through Scarborough.

Under the current plan, the Eglinton Crosstown line (now under construction), will run underground until it reaches Scarborough, after which it will go above ground.

We cannot have a two-tier transit line that runs underground through the majority of the city, but leaves the residents of Scarborough, literally, out in the cold.

Building the Eglinton Crosstown above ground in Scarborough will cause years of construction chaos, and permanently reduce space on this already congested road.

The cost of burying the remainder of the line has been estimated at around $1 billion.

Once I am re-elected, the $250 million councillors want to spend on bike lanes, wider sidewalks and boulevards on Eglinton will be reallocated to the Eglinton underground transit line.

This would make up a large part of the difference between building above ground transit and going underground along Eglinton Ave. in Scarborough.

I will immediately begin negotiations with the other levels of government to secure their investment in this important project and create a viable plan to complete the remainder of the Eglinton line underground.

While wider sidewalks and a boulevard are nice to have, they cannot come at the expense of space on our already congested roads. The city should be fighting traffic congestion, not making it worse.

Furthermore, spending $250 million on “nice to haves” when we are trying to deal with Toronto’s serious transit deficit, is not a prudent use of taxpayers’ money.

Whether it’s the new report on the causes of congestion along King St., the short lifespan of the Scarborough SRT or streetcars freezing up in the wintertime, we have repeatedly seen that underground transit is superior to above ground in almost every way.

Expanding Toronto’s subway system is the only way to build a world-class city with a reliable and efficient transit system at its core. I am the only leading candidate fully committed to expanding Toronto’s subway system.

- Rob Ford is the mayor of Toronto and running for re-election this fall​