John Tory says he still supports the downtown relief line. It has been hard to tell from his recent remarks.

No policy debate during the mayoral election has been more confusing than the debate about the relief line. Tory and Olivia Chow have essentially switched places over the past six months: As once-tepid Chow has become an outspoken supporter of the subway project, once-advocate Tory has stopped saying anything nice about it.

Though a downtown relief line would benefit suburban commuters travelling to and from the city core, the “downtown” part of the name has always posed a marketing problem for its proponents. Tory, stronger than Chow in the suburbs, appears to be using her support for the subway to suggest to voters that she is more concerned about her own area than the rest of the city.

In August, his campaign issued a map titled “Olivia Chow's Transit Plan Avoids Toronto.” The map included the relief line, very much in Toronto.

In a news release in early September, he contrasted his “SmartTrack” surface rail line with “her downtown-only subway line” — the “her” giving the impression that he does not himself support it.

He referred to “her downtown relief line” a second time in a speech to the Board of Trade last week. Later in the speech, he said SmartTrack could be built 10 years faster than “the conventional downtown relief line favoured by Olivia Chow.”

He sounded, again, like an opponent of the project. When he was asked about his stance after the speech, though, he said again that he is not.

“My problem, if I have one — it’s not a ‘problem’ with the downtown relief line, but the challenge that it presents for me, is that it’s 17 years away,” Tory said. He added: “We’ll get to the downtown relief line, we’ll continue with the work on it, but we’ve got to proceed ahead with SmartTrack.”

“They’re in the preliminary stage of engineering studies and things like that, and those should go ahead, and obviously then I’m going to have to go to work with the other governments in making sure that that is funded and so on,” he said.

Tory’s rhetoric was far different at the beginning of the campaign.

Upon his launch in February, and in his first three months on the campaign trail, he said the “Yonge Street subway relief line” was to be the centrepiece of his platform. Though he seemed to be clearly talking about the downtown relief line, he unveiled the SmartTrack surface rail plan in May instead, insisting that was the project he had been referring to all along.

“Mr. Tory’s position on the downtown relief line has changed so many times, it’s making people dizzy,” Chow said before a Monday debate.

Chow’s rhetoric has also evolved, though less dramatically. She began the campaign sounding only vaguely committed to the relief line, saying it would be built “eventually” and that it did not need to be an election issue. She is now the candidate keeping it alive as an issue, pushing regularly for immediate action.

The relief line is generally envisioned as a U-shaped subway running down through the core from both sides of the Bloor-Danforth line or farther north. The project, the TTC’s own chief priority, is meant to reduce crowding on the Yonge line.

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Chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat says the first section of the line could open in “between 12 and 15 years,” not 17, if the city keeps its “foot on the pedal.”

With files from Paul Moloney

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