Alex Kvaskov | News Editor
Featured image: Students salivating over the subway extension might have to wait another year as proposed budget cuts include delaying the subway. | Michael Zusev
Students hoping to take the subway to York might have to wait another year as the TTC responds to Toronto Mayor John Tory’s call for “efficiencies” in the city’s 2017 budget. Delaying the subway extension to York was one of several measures proposed by the TTC to meet the council’s directive to make 2.6 per cent worth of cuts to all city agencies, including Toronto Community Housing.
Stuart Green of media relations at the TTC says the agency is committed to meeting the new opening date at the end of 2017. Meanwhile, TTC CEO Andy Byford has refused to endorse the “unpalatable” cuts.
Fourth-year communications student Mayeesha Chowdhury says that cuts are understandable once budget season rolls around.
“However, I don’t think our [transportation] department can afford any more cuts. In the last few years, we’ve barely seen any tangible improvements in public [transportation],” she says.
“The York subway has been postponed for the last god knows how long, and I don’t think students should have to bear [its] weight,” she adds.
Chowdhury suggests action be taken so that students don’t become collateral damage.
“Further subsidize the Metropass so we don’t have to sacrifice an arm and a leg to get to school — if you’re not going to make it easier, might as well make it cheaper.
“I don’t think constant construction is a good environment for aspiring students. If they care about students and the younger generation as much as they like to say they do, maybe provide us with a better environment and sort out production timelines,” she says.
“The York subway has been postponed for the last god knows how long, and I don’t think students should have to bear [its] weight.”
The problem with the cut is not limited to the 2.6 per cent figure, but also the failure to fund the cost of planned service improvements, inflationary cost increases and the start of the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension project, according to transit expert Steve Munro.
“The delay in opening is not politically realistic, but it is one of the larger items in the new costs the TTC faces next year. Savings from service cuts elsewhere would have to be substantial to offset this,” says Munro.
Although delaying the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension is bound to anger York students, Munro says the extension would be used by relatively few current users such that customer perceptions of the TTC should not suffer drastically despite the delay.
“Customer perceptions of the TTC will depend as much on what happens to the rest of the system, including fares and the effect of the Presto rollout,” he says.
“I know that York has been salivating over their subway for years, but the fact is that most TTC riders won’t have cause to use it. Indeed if service cuts elsewhere are needed, there could be resentment of the new subway most don’t use.”
Milan Gokhale, board chair of TTC riders, a transit advocacy organization, says the proposed funding cut is unrealistic without being accompanied by drastic cuts to service and large increases to fares, both of which he says would be devastating for the public perception of the TTC as a reliable, affordable and robust transit network.
“Simply put, the mayor is proposing the single largest cut to TTC funding in the city’s history,” he adds.
Council is expected to approve 2017 budgets for city agencies early next year.
