Anyone who’s ever squeezed onto a Yonge line subway car in rush hour or endured an endless bus commute through Scarborough won’t be surprised that transit is a key concern for Torontonians in the Oct. 22 municipal election.

No wonder. A reliable transit system is the key to alleviating the traffic congestion and pollution that already costs the city $6 billion a year in lost productivity.

But instead of attracting riders to the system, the TTC is driving them away with overcrowded and delayed buses, subways and streetcars. Indeed, since 2014 adult ridership has actually dropped slightly even as the population grows.

What the city needs now is an honest discussion about transit priorities so it doesn’t end up pouring money into projects chosen for purely political reasons while the most pressing needs, such as the downtown relief line, languish in the slow lane.

But so far neither of the leading candidates for mayor — John Tory and Jennifer Keesmaat — has shown convincingly they will stand up for projects that are needed over boondoggles aimed mostly at winning votes.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in their fancy footwork around the proposed one-stop subway extension along the Bloor-Danforth line to the Scarborough Town Centre, a project that will cost taxpayers a mind-boggling amount, somewhere between $3.35 billion and $5 billion. (What the cost will be if it is bumped up to three stops, as Premier Doug Ford has promised, is unknown.)

Commuters and taxpayers alike would have been better served by the $1.48-billion seven-stop LRT that the the city had originally planned and the province had agreed to pay for in full.

Still, Tory has stuck by the subway extension through four years of divisive debates, in what can only be seen as pandering for suburban votes at the expense of good transportation planning for the entire city. Of course, he’s had plenty of company; Liberals, Conservatives and New Democrats have back the Scarborough subway. But that doesn’t make it a wise decision.

Nor has Keesmaat shown much leadership on this issue. When she was Toronto’s chief planner she was clear that the LRT was the better option. “The subway option DOES NOT make the list of (ten) priority projects when compared with other projects across the across the city,” she wrote in 2013.

That was then. Now, as a candidate, she’s basically ducking the issue. Since the province will build the three-stop extension “no matter what,” she says, the city should simply take its $910 million contribution to the project and spend it on other parts of the network.

This is politically smart: Keesmaat simultaneously gets to say she’s not opposing the subway, but not putting money into it either. But it doesn’t inspire much confidence that she will stand up for what is right in the future, anymore than Tory’s all-out support for the extension does.

That’s a problem, considering that whoever wins the mayoral race will have to stand up to Ford’s whims. He has vowed to take over ownership of the city’s subways and is already musing about building extensions to Richmond Hill and Pickering, where the PCs won big time in the election.

Getting him onside for the downtown relief line, which should be the city’s No. 1 priority (and is Keesmaat’s stated one, to her credit), could prove to be a challenge. Especially if he perceives it as a project for urbanites who did not elect his government.

This isn’t a fight the city can afford to lose. The relief line, which will connect the eastern end of the Bloor-Danforth line to downtown, is desperately needed to take pressure off the over-crowded Yonge-University line.

If Ford wants an extension to Richmond Hill, which will only exacerbate overcrowding, it will be up to the new mayor to convince him to build the relief line first.

But transit isn’t just about capital projects. It’s also about improving service (more than a quarter of the TTC’s bus and streetcar routes regularly exceed TTC crowding standards) and making the system more affordable.

To accomplish that, Tory and Keesmaat should commit to increasing city subsidies and freezing transit fares. Even if that means raising taxes, rather than squeezing the system — and riders — further.

Indeed, though Toronto’s subsidy per rider rose to roughly $1 in 2017, it remains lower than that of other North American systems, including Los Angeles ($3 U.S. per rider), New York City ($1.52 U.S.), and Montreal ($1.16).

Meanwhile, the price of a monthly Toronto transit pass, is among the highest in the world. Only London’s, Dublin’s, Sydney’s and New York City’s are more expensive.

None of this is to say Tory hasn’t accomplished a fair amount in the past four years.

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Under his watch the TTC unveiled the six-stop, $3.2-billion subway extension to York Region, opened the subway earlier on Sundays, bought hundreds of new buses, rolled out the Presto fare card system, installed automatic train control on the Yonge-University line to run trains more reliably, and introduced free rides for children under 13.

Keesmaat doesn’t have that record to run on. Still, as the city’s chief planner for five years, she understands transit issues well, as her 30-year, $50-billion transit plan shows. On this issue, in fact, she is giving Tory a run for his money with her plans to extend the Eglinton LRT to the airport, design and build the Jane LRT and enhance bus service.

Now what’s needed is the leadership to have that open and honest discussion with voters. The people who account for the TTC’s 1.8 million daily rides deserve no less.

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