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Rob Ford promised during the recent election campaign to kill David Miller’s Transit City project of light rail trains on Sheppard, Finch and Eglinton avenues in Toronto. But a look at what is already underway underlines just how difficult this will be for the mayor-elect to carry out.

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Mr. Ford’s preference is to extend the subway on Sheppard Avenue from Don Mills Station, where the subway now ends, to Scarborough Town Centre. He told the National Post

he is “pretty confident” Premier Dalton McGuinty will transfer the money he has committed to a light rail network to extending the Sheppard subway.

But if the province won’t agree, nothing will get built.

That doesn’t mean nothing will be spent. In fact, the TTC has already spent $137-million on Transit City, says Ryan Bissonnette, a spokesman for the light-rail project at the Toronto Transit Commission. At present, 150 people are working on it full time, divided equally between TTC staff and consultants.Killing the trains will not save Mr. Ford any money, since the City of Toronto has not paid nor committed a penny to Transit City. Of the $8.15-billion cost, the lion’s share comes from Queen’s Park; Ottawa is paying a third of the $950-million cost of the first light-rail line, a 26-stop, 14-kilometre stretch on Sheppard Avenue East.