Six months ago, when Scarborough transit riders heard the news that the Scarborough RT had derailed and will no longer function, thousands knew they were in big trouble. They depended on the train to go north from Kennedy station to the Scarborough Town centre at McCowan. There were stops at Lawrence, Ellesmere and Midland. Unless the TTC offered some relief, the 35,000 daily riders would have to make two or three bus transfers to make the same trip.
Editorial
Six months ago, the City said that relief was coming in the form of a busway along the abandoned line. But last week, Scarborough residents were dismayed to find out that nowhere in the 2024 City’s budget proposal is any mention of funding for it.
Scarborough residents are not surprised at this decision; they have grown accustomed to the City government neglecting their needs; transit being just one of them.
It is especially galling that these needs were well documented and acknowledged by the City for many years. So, residents had reason to celebrate when in 2007 the City government, led by former mayor David Miller, began preparations to build a Light Rail Transit system to serve them. It was to be an 18-kilometre light rail transit (LRT) system. The line would extend from Kennedy Station to Malvern Town Centre via the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus (UTSC), with a connection to the future Line 2 terminus at Sheppard Avenue and McCowan Road. With construction originally scheduled to begin in 2014, the line was expected to open in 2019. The $1.2 billion to build it was already approved by the Provincial government.
Miller’s plan spelled immense relief for Scarborough until Mayor Rob Ford scrapped it and had it replaced with a three-stop subway scheduled to be completed by 2030. Yes, Scarborough folk must wait another 7 years (or more) for a subway when they could have been riding trains 4 years ago.
Many residents of this eastern Toronto suburb are aware of the ongoing disrespect they get, going as far back as when it was a proud city. Some say the subway fiasco, overseen by the hapless Rob Ford, was the original sin for which they are doing penance up to this day. Others of a certain vintage and a longer memory place that original sin at the door of Ontario Premier Mike Harris who, in 1998, ended Scarborough’s city government when he amalgamated six municipalities with Toronto creating the megacity we’ve come to know.
Commuters in Scarborough LRT
We are on the side of the geezers with a memory. We recall Scarborough with its own mayor and city council catering to the needs of a city with a unique multi-cultural identity. No other municipality came close to the variety of people who called Scarborough home. Scarborough City Hall, which shared the same compound as the Town Centre, was a welcoming place for a citizenry that was deeply involved in the running of their city, and kept the councillors’ feet to the fire.
Of course, the city and its government were flawed as can be expected with any city of that size, but pre-amalgamation Scarborough was a city that worked well, and took care of its needs without having to look to downtown for solutions to problems that are best solved locally.
Rob Ford’s refrain of “subways, subways, subway” condemned Scarborough to interminable waits at bus stops, whereas the effects of the Mike Harris’s curse made Scarborough dependent on a central City government that places Scarborough low down on its list of priorities. It also took away Scarborough’s ability to take care of itself.
If the people of Scarborough do not see an end to the ongoing abuse soon, then they should let the megacity know that a majority of residents would gladly say goodbye and become the City of Scarborough again.
