This article was written by Reece Martin and was published in the Toronto Star on January 3, 2026.
Public transit in Toronto feels slower than it’s ever been.
The streetcars have crawled along since we bought new vehicles without learning any new operational tricks. The subway is still in a state of constant slow zones, including along Allen Road where the tradition of subways zipping past cars has been reversed. And even the notparticularlyfast buses are getting stuck in everworsening congestion.
And then a few weeks ago, Toronto opened the multibilliondollar Finch West light rail line and managed to make it not only slower than the buses it replaced, but also most halfdecent joggers.
Fortunately, the crisis has not gone to waste. The mayor and TTC chair have launched into a blitz of motions and moves to not only try to fix the deficiencies on Finch, but also to capitalize on this moment to fix the same set of issues on the downtown streetcars. It’s been a rare positive moment of political leadership and improvisation.
But at some point, once the dust settles, there’s an uncomfortable truth we’ll need to grapple with: Even with signal priority — as well as things we aren’t likely to do like institute fewer stops — transit running on or next to the street is just never going to be truly rapid.
The choice of what kind of transit to build became highly politicized in the 2010s, particularly with Rob Ford’s mantra of “subways, subways, subways!”
But the reality is that roadbased transit is the equivalent of our local roads, and transit still needs its highways.
I recently was on Bloor at a holiday party, and upon opening Google Maps to see my travel time to get home to Scarborough on transit, my jaw dropped at the hourandahalf travel time. Were we to hop in a car, I could have gotten to Niagara Falls in that time, or just home in half that time. This is ultimately what creates congestion and keeps people off transit: driving is so often dramatically faster than what’s supposed to be “the better way.”
The Transit City plan that birthed Finch West and also envisioned the Eglinton Crosstown wanted to “improve” my trip to Scarborough, making sure that the bus part of my journey was now on a snazzystreetcar like we’ve now opened on Finch. This is still the playbook that’s shaping transit decision making at the city of Toronto, even though the city’s own studies show the Eglinton East LRT would be slower than the express buses running on Eglinton today; and yet the project is one of the city’s top transit priorities.
The reality is that to actually achieve rapid transit, you need to have transit that isn’t chained to the road network.
This not only means never waiting for a traffic light and going through urban areas at 80 kilometres an hour or faster, but maybe even cutting across the street grid in diagonals.
The subways being delivered by the province would actually probably shave 15 to 20 minutes off of my trip and those of tens of thousands of others if they were open today, and they are only being accepted begrudgingly. New GO stations under the “SmartTrack” program are being treated like they are exclusively for the use of rich 905 commuters, but had they all been open, my trip home could have been done in just 30 minutes — a third of the time it actually took.
The subways are coming, and more GO train service and stations are coming, too, but we need to lean into this transitbuilding renaissance. There need to be more GO lines and more trains on them to more places, and additional stations to provide access to more neighbourhoods. The subway network needs to expand further, with branches to other outlying areas, extensions, and more lines in the central city.
Achieving this means changing the way we do things. Toronto currently has among the most expensive transit projects in the world — the Finch LRT has cost more than the Sheppard subway. Tackling these costs isn’t straightforward, but a start would be to stop thinking that trains have to be underground. People rave about the London Underground, but more than half of that system is actually above the ground — viaducts, embankments and cuttings might remind people that transit actually exists, and they also let cities afford transit. If we can change the way we do things, lay out some nationbuilding projects for the nation’s largest city, and get building, we could finally have a transit system to be proud of — and yes, that means subways, subways, subways.
This article was written by Andy Takagi and was published in the Toronto Star on August 23, 2025.
Premier Doug Ford’s government is appealing a Superior Court decision from last month that found its plan to remove several Toronto bike lanes was unconstitutional.
The government served a notice of appeal on Thursday to Cycle-Toronto and the cycling advocates who launched the court campaign.
A decision by Superior Court Justice Paul Schabas on July 30 had found that sections of the Ontario government’s Bill 212, the Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, violated the Charter by infringing on cyclists’ rights to life and security of person. Parts of that bill, which became law in November, called for the removal of protected bike lanes on Yonge, University and Bloor streets. Immediately after Schabas’ decision was released, the province pledged to file an appeal.
In its notice of appeal, the government said Schabas and the Superior Court “exceeded its jurisdiction and proper constitutional role and made multiple errors of law.”
The Charter challenge was initially launched by cycling advocates, including CycleToronto, in December.
“We were elected by the people of Ontario with a clear mandate to restore lanes of traffic and move bike lanes off of major roads to secondary roads to get drivers moving,” said Dakota Brasier, a spokesperson for the minister of transportation, in a statement Friday, adding the government will “continue with the design work necessary to begin removals of bike lanes and get some of our busiest roads moving, as soon as possible.”
Michael Longfield, executive director of CycleToronto, said Schabas’ initial decision gives him confidence.
“We’re on the right track,” he said. “I think if the premier were to sit down and pause and think this through in terms of … what his own experts are saying, he could really help meaningfully move Torontonians and Ontarians more efficiently across the city, instead of picking these fights and this badfaith culture war.”
The premier, at an unrelated press conference in early August, had lambasted Schabas’ decision as “the worst case of trampling on people’s rights I’ve ever, ever seen in the courts. Ever.”
The provincial government said the judge and the Superior Court “exceeded its jurisdiction and proper constitutional role and made multiple errors of law”
He declined to comment on whether his government would use the notwithstanding clause to override the court’s decision, and instead said he would wait for a ruling at the Court of Appeals.
The premier and his government campaigned on removing bike lanes in Toronto’s downtown core during February’s election. The provincial government argued that road space dedicated to cyclists was taking away road space from drivers, contributing to congestion, and cyclists should instead be diverted to “secondary roads.”
Premier accuses Superior Court ruling of being motivated by `ideology’
This article was written by Andy Takagi and was published in the Toronto Star on August 7, 2025.
Premier Doug Ford railed against a Superior Court judge on Thursday, decrying his decision to protect Toronto bike lanes as “the worst case of trampling on people’s rights I’ve ever, ever seen in the courts. Ever.”
“What was the reason for even going to court over this?” Ford said, at an unrelated press conference about the Yonge North subway extension on Thursday morning.
The provincial government’s attempt to remove bike lanes on Bloor, University and Yonge streets was ruled unconstitutional by Superior Court Justice Paul Schabas last week. The government said it would appeal |immediately after Schabas released his decision.
The Charter challenge was brought forward by cycling advocates, including CycleToronto, who alleged the removal of those bike lanes violated the Charter by infringing on their rights to life and security of person.
Ford said the decision by Schabas was “the most ridiculous” he had ever seen, a “trampling on the democratic rights of Ontarians” and that the judge was motivated by “ideology.”
Ford, who said he had been democratically elected to remove the bike lanes, said Schabas had decided, “`Well, I’m smarter than everyone else, so we aren’t going to do it.’ ”
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Ford added.
The premier and his government campaigned on removing bike lanes in Toronto’s downtown core during February’s election.
The provincial government argued that road space dedicated to cyclists was taking away road space from drivers and cyclists should instead be diverted to “secondary roads.”
“This judge has been attacked by every single person right across the country for this ridiculous decision,” Ford said. Though he added that the decision wasn’t a surprise, because “we knew when they picked this judge where it was going anyways.”
Still, the premier said several times that he has confidence in the courts.
“You always get one or two people who go a little offside and work on their personal ideology,” he added.
Ford declined to say whether he would use the notwithstanding clause, and added that he would wait to see what happens at the Court of Appeals.
Ford had previously scolded “unelected judges” — taking aim at Schabas — when the bike lane removals were blocked by a temporary injunction, and floated the idea of electing judges to the bench. Those comments earned him a rare rebuke from the province’s top justices, who reaffirmed the need for judicial independence.
Government documents released as part of injunction hearing warned that removing the bike lanes may not ease congestion, and instead could increase the risk of collisions and negatively impact businesses.
Schabas found that parts of the Ford government’s bike lane legislation violated the constitution because it put people at risk. The decision does not guarantee a right to bike lanes, but instead protects cycling infrastructure on the three target roads.
“The government has the right to make decisions about roads and traffic infrastructure,” Schabas wrote in his decision, “but where the government takes action that puts people at risk, and does so arbitrarily, its actions may be restrained by the Charter.”
City officials insist regulations comply with new legislation
This article was written by David Rider and was published in the Toronto Star on June 22, 2025.
A battle is brewing over the fate of environmental standards that Toronto has long imposed on homebuilders, with the Ford government and developers in one corner and city officials in the other, the Star has learned.
The fight includes a stern warning from the province to the city, and harsh words on both sides. City councillors are calling Premier Doug Ford’s government “inept” at drafting housing legislation. A developer’s lobby group is blasting city hall as “arrogant” and suffering from “utter obliviousness” about the housing market.
Ford’s latest legislation aimed at boosting meagre housing builds in Ontario was introduced last month as Bill 17, and quickly passed in the legislature as Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act.
The multipronged law includes a provision that municipalities cannot impose on developers requirements that exceed Ontario’s building code, echoing a demand from developers who are suing the City of Toronto in a bid to kill its “Green Standard” environment regulations.
The Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON) cheered the apparent legislated death of requirements introduced in 2010 to ensure new buildings are lowemission and resistant to climatechange impacts such as flooding. Such municipal requirements increase projects’ cost and complexity, exacerbating the affordable housing crisis, RESCON said.
However, “City staff have reviewed (the new law) and determined that there is no impact to the City’s ability to continue to apply the (green standard) to new development,” stated a report to Mayor Olivia Chow’s executive committee that met June 17.
Requirements include bicycle parking at new multiunit residential buildings, limits on hard surfaces to minimize stormwater runoff, highrise design that allows tenants to recycle rather than put everything in trash, and window glazing on a share of lowerfloor windows to minimize strikes that kill birds.
City staff also said the new law’s restrictions on development charges — fees levied on builders to pay for sewers, roads and other infrastructure to service each project’s new residents — will cost Toronto taxpayers at least $1.9 billion over the next decade.
At the meeting, Coun. Gord Perks, council’s housing chair, said the law fails its name because it will not protect Ontarians or build homes faster or smarter.
Coun. Mike Colle, a former Liberal MPP and one of Chow’s deputy mayors, blasted the law as the latest in a series of Ford housing bills, each producing fewer and fewer new homes. The number of Ontario housing starts between January and April was the lowest since 2009.
“You can’t build housing with stupid legislation — they don’t know what they’re doing,” Colle said, before taking direct aim at Rob Flack, the Progressive Conservative MPP who became minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing last March.
“Now they’ve got some new minister of municipal affairs who used to sell farm equipment — he’s in charge of building,” homes, Colle said to gasps and laughs from his executive committee colleagues.
Flack’s online biography says the Elgin Middlesex London MPP is a former chief executive of Masterfeeds, a farm animal feed company. His office, which declined to respond to Colle, says the minister also remains a proud farmer.
Chow, who has boasted of her good working relationship with Ford and his government, did not join the insults, instead focusing on the predicted $1.9billion loss in development charge revenue. She urged the province to announce how it will make the city “whole.”
Richard Lyall, RESCON president, issued a scathing rebuttal, calling city staff’s determination that the green standard can continue “hallucinatory” and “a display of utter obliviousness.” Colle’s comments, he said, were “childish” and “disturbing” while committee recommendations to Ford would “reverse virtually every meaningful provision of the legislation.”
Flack’s deputy minister, Martha Greenberg, then weighed in, sending city manager Paul Johnson a June 19 “clarification,” obtained by the Star, that attempts to set the record straight on the fate of Toronto’s green standard.
“Municipalities cannot use provisions in the Municipal Act, City of Toronto Act, and Planning Act, including site plan control, to create and require construction or demolition standards for buildings,” including environmental requirements, she wrote.
Greenberg added that the ministry “has been directed to monitor outcomes to ensure actions are not taken to bypass this.” If necessary, the government will take “additional legislative action to ensure municipalities are adhering to the provincial framework and reducing red tape in this space.”
Asked to explain the city’s position, a spokesperson said the green standard “is not a bylaw enacted under Sections 7 or 8 of the City of Toronto Act, which Bill 17 referenced. As such, staff’s review of Bill 17 did not find any impact on the City’s ability to implement the (green standard) as part of the development review process.”
Perks, the housing chair, said that as far as he’s concerned, the green standard lives — unless city council says otherwise.
“Once again the province is showing they don’t know how to write a law, they’re a bit inept at it, and that’s why they have had to rewrite planning legislation every six months since Doug became premier …” said the Parkdale—High Park councillor.
“The province keeps insisting that they can pass a law that makes private market housing more viable, and they keep failing at that. In the meantime, city staff have given us clear advice that the current legislation does not remove our ability to have a green standard.”
This article was written by Jeff Gray and was published in the Globe & Mail on April 23, 2025.
The Ontario government cannot override city officials and rip out the Toronto bike lanes targeted by Premier Doug Ford until a court decides on a constitutional challenge against the move, a judge has ruled.
A decision issued Tuesday from Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Schabas blocks the province from demolishing the bike lanes on Bloor Street West, University Avenue and Yonge Street until he issues his final decision on the legal case launched by advocacy group Cycle Toronto and two cyclists.
The ruling reverses the decision of another judge who had ruled against granting the applicants’ request for an injunction last month. In his decision, Justice Schabas says he had more evidence before him than the other judge.
Tuesday’s decision says there is a serious case to be tried, noting evidence that removing bike lanes would not improve congestion and that cyclists would be at risk of “irreparable harm” – both legal tests for granting an injunction.
The ruling also says, in evaluating the “balance of convenience,” another legal test, that Ontario had provided no plans and only a “vague assertion” it intended to go ahead with demolition soon.
“Despite professing an urgent need to reduce congestion, no evidence of any plans to demolish the lanes or what would go in their place was presented” by the government, Justice Schabas writes in his decision.
The judge also scolds the province for refusing to agree to hold off on demolishing the bike lanes before the April 16 hearing on the merits of the constitutional case, forcing a separate motion for an injunction to be heard last month: “That motion now appears to have been an unnecessary use of Court time necessitated by the government’s intransigence.”
Last fall, Mr. Ford’s Progressive Conservative government passed legislation that forced municipalities to seek permission to install any bike lane that would remove a lane of car traffic and provide data to the province for it to evaluate the future of other bike lanes.
But the law was also amended to order the pre-emptive removal of bike lanes on the entirety of three Toronto streets singled out by Mr. Ford in public comments: Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue.
Despite professing an urgent need to reduce congestion, no evidence of any plans to demolish the lanes or what would go in their place was presented [by the government]. PAUL SCHABAS ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT JUSTICE
The law also insulated the government against some legal challenges, including those launched if cyclists were killed or injured.
In their constitutional challenge, lawyers for Cycle Toronto and two local cyclists argued that the removal of the lanes would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees “life, liberty and security of the person,” as it would put cyclists at renewed physical risk. A ruling on the merits of the case could still be months away.
Despite the court battle, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said recently that talks between the city and the province could result in a compromise that would preserve bike lanes on the three routes but provide for the restoration of car-traffic lanes on some portions.
Earlier this month, a spokesperson for Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria, Dakota Brasier, had suggested in an e-mailed statement that the government was open to a compromise “where both a reinstated car lane and a bike lane can exist.“
But on Tuesday, she said the province would keep preparing to remove the bike lanes, pending a final ruling.
“We were elected with a clear mandate to get people out of traffic by restoring driving lanes to keep some of our busiest roads moving. We intend to respect the court’s decision,” Ms. Brasier said in a statement.
“We will continue with the design work necessary to begin removals as soon as possible should the decision uphold the legislation.”
In an interview on Tuesday, Cycle Toronto’s executive director, Michael Longfield, said he believed the city should wait for the ultimate decision on the constitutional challenge before it agrees to any bike lane deal.
“Yes, we are definitely pleased the mayor seems to be looking for ways to keep bike lanes,” he said.
“But a compromise that restores car travel lanes isn’t the solution that we need anyway.”
In an e-mailed statement, Zeus Eden, a spokesperson for Ms. Chow, did not directly address the question of holding off on any deal until a court ruling but said she is “willing to work collaboratively with other orders of government, instead of pursuing a path that ends up in legal battles and conflict.”
Torontonians made heartfelt pleas, gave angry lectures and implored city hall’s budget subcommittee on what services should be a priority.
Rikki LaCoste works at the Weston King Neighbourhood Centre, a drop-in that he says once saved his life. LaCoste appeared at council’s budget subcommittee this week, making the case for increased funding for drop-in agencies, which he called a “lifeline.” Michelle Chang/Toronto Star
This article was written by Mahdis Habibinia and Ben Spurr, and was published in the Toronto Star on January 27, 2025.
Rikki LaCoste lost everything after a house fire in 2015: he was homeless, his mental health plummeted and he pushed his friends away out of embarrassment.
“I was struggling to see any value in myself or my place in the world or any prospects of the future,” said LaCoste, who has now completely rebuilt his life. “It was the Weston King Neighbourhood Centre (in 2017) that stepped in to hold me together when I couldn’t.”
LaCoste was among the hundreds of Torontonians who showed up this week to a series of public consultations about this year’s proposed city budget. Over two days in person and online, deputants made heartfelt pleas, gave angry lectures and implored city hall’s budget subcommittee on what services should be a priority at a time when money is short. The city’s operating shortfall was estimated at $1.2 billion heading into 2025.
LaCoste, a 53–year-oldmental health advocate, was among multiple community workers who said they want to see an extra $3 million allocated to citywide drop-in agencies to extend hours, hire more staff and improve services. The proposed 2025 budget currently allots $12.87 million for the agencies, an increase of more than $1 million over last year’s funding.
Without the additional funding, LaCoste told the Star in an interview, he and his colleagues at Weston King will need to start turning people away because drop-ins — which he called “a lifeline” and a “cornerstone of Toronto’s social safety net” — are at or over capacity.
“There is nothing like having someone metaphorically and literally hold you together in your darkest moments,” said LaCoste. “Too often the city’s response to visible poverty has been to fund reactive measures such as increasing police budgets, but that doesn’t address root causes.”
Last fall, the city sent out digital surveys and hosted meetings where it received more than 22,200 responses that informed its budget plans. There were several recurring issues the public said they wanted addressed through this year’s spending: affordability, community services including shelters, safety, climate action and mobility, including better transit or congestion management. Respondents picked the police service, meanwhile, as the number one area the city should give less money to.
Many of those sentiments were reflected in this week’s public deputations. Mayor Olivia Chow is expected to consider this public input as she crafts her final version of this year’s budget, which she said she plans to release on Thursday.
Christina Vladimirov, a university student, recalled witnessing what she described as “the misuse of police resources” in 2020 on the evening her cat was hit by a car.
“We were heartbroken and spent most of the day crying,” Vladimirov told the budget committee. That night, officers knocked on her door after someone called the police because they heard shouting.
“Why were six police officers, three squad cars and hours of work used to bother two women grieving their cat?” Vladimirov said.
Whether it was Vladimirov mourning her cat, a senior arguing “the biggest threat is climate change, not auto thefts,” or pro-Palestinian protesters saying they were being overpoliced, many argued those millions could instead be put to social supports, including the now-citywide mental health crisis service.
New mother Michelle Neal spoke of consoling her neighbour who witnessed police “hog tie” a naked man to the ground. The man only stopped screaming when paramedics arrived, placed a blanket over him and asked him his name.
“My neighbour was almost in tears as she recounted … how grateful she was someone showed the man humanity and respect,” said Neal, who also wants to see some of the additional police spending diverted to transit.
Transit
Candice Zhang is turning 13 this year and told councillors that the $2.40 youth fare is unaffordable — especially coupled with the fact her parents, at $3.35 each, take the subway to school with her everyday because they don’t think the TTC is safe.
“Please consider discounted fare policy for youth,” she said. “Please increase frequency of security patrols.”
Those like homeowners Tony Saunders, who oppose the property tax increase, understand the importance of transit but questioned why the city should solely bear the burden of subsidizing the TTC to the tune of an extra $85 million this year to improve service and safety. “It shouldn’t be the responsibility of Toronto residents to cover this a hundred per cent,” he said.
Budget chief Shelley Carroll said council has been advocating for a “return to the Bill Davis deal” for two decades now, referencing Ontario’s former premier at a time when the province funded 75 per cent of the TTC’s capital spending on transit improvement and 50 per cent of its operating costs.
“There wasn’t this constant panicky back and forth, and in fact, it was a very stable property tax at the time,” Carroll told Saunders.
Property taxes
Anne Keary told the budget committee she’s lucky to be a homeowner and if it means her property taxes build a more “livable, affordable and sustainable city for everyone,” then so be it. “I see an extra $5 a week as money well spent if it advances the community and climate programs that we need,” she said.
City council has noted at almost every turn how local governments lack revenue tools, get the least share of tax dollars compared to higher levels, and that the property tax base is one of the city’s major revenue sources.
“If we want better services, we have to collectively pay for them,” resident Val Endicott said. “Perhaps people need to be reminded of this more often when they grumble about taxation.”
Millie Devillis, a senior, remembered Chow’s 2023 campaign which promised a “modest” tax increase. “This is outrageous,” she said. “How can she now possibly justify (this) … as modest?”
“I don’t know a lot of people whose incomes have gone up 17 per cent,” said Paul Beatty. “The pockets are not getting any deeper … Things are not getting any cheaper in this country and I’d hate to see what happens when Trump and his tariffs come in.”
Gabe Ermatinger, a senior and a volunteer, said helost three brothers to drug overdoses in the last five years and pleaded for more funding for addiction, homelessness and mental health. “Supportive housing would have saved people like my brothers, who did not have access to safe and affordable housing to assist in their recovery journey,” he said.
A day after deputations wrapped, the need for more supportive housing was front and centre at the city’s planning and housing committee on Thursday. A new report looked at the city’s recent progress, and pointed to a federal funding program it has relied on heavily in recent years, which provided $4 billion nationally over three years starting in 2020. That program was replaced with one that offers only $963 million over five years. The report appeals for a “significant increase” to this federal program — to at least $1.5 billion per year.
Tenant Millicent Parke wanted more investments in RentSafeTO and frequent enforcement of property standards. Her bedroom windows are leaking heat, she said, so she bought a heater and is sleeping in her living room.
“The pests that are in there?” Parke added. “My refrigerator is their holding house. I think they’re getting more accommodation from my refrigerator than me getting from the house itself.”
The city’s budget plans include new line items to start addressing the risks and impacts posed by extreme weather, including a $200,000 operating fund to help vulnerable residents install indoor cooling and $500,000more in its capital plans for greener streets to help capture rainwater and prevent flooding.
The Toronto Green Standard, which sets out greenhouse gas levels and other requirements for new private developments, saves the most GHG emissions of any city program, other than replacing TTC buses with electric ones. The initiative, at a community level, is slated to get $48 million in operating funds this year — but a recent legal challenge by a group of developers to strike this down threatens the city’s climate plans, which were already off track to achieve net zero by 2040.
There are also investments in converting TTC buses and city vehicles to electric, shifting waste trucks away from diesel, creating a new program so residents can find solar and heat pump installers, among other measures. While overall plans in general mean more money this year compared to past climate investments, some residents said they believe the city’s climate plans are moving too slow.
Virginia Thomson pointed to the L.A. fires devastating local communities as a reminder of what climate change is capable of. “There’s no time to move at a snail’s pace,” said Thomson, who supports the commercial parking levy, which is on the chopping block, and would give the city an extra $100 million a year.
Correction – Jan. 27, 2025
This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said that under the Bill Davis deal, the province funded half of the TTC’s operating budget, while the federal government covered 75 per cent of its capital spending. In fact, Ontario funded half of the TTC’s capital expenditures and 50 per cent of its operating costs. The federal government did not contribute.
This editorial was written and published by the Globe & Mail on January 27, 2025.
Canada spends vastly more building a kilometre of rail transit than many other countries. It gets less bang for its buck and projects are shrunk to fit budgets, making them less effective. Meanwhile, residents wait impatiently as promised opening dates slip by again and again.
The longer this continues, the more Canada risks losing the social licence to pursue such crucial projects.
This is not an exaggerated concern. The government of Ontario is currently moving forward with a $70-billion expansion of subways and light-rail transit in the Greater Toronto Area. If these projects aren’t done better, it’s hard to see how much longer residents will support the vast cost and grinding disruption of building transit. Which would lead to a disastrous future of even more gridlock, commuter frustration and economic damage.
Unfortunately, warning bells are ringing.
Political meddling has made some projects unnecessarily expensive, such as a light-rail transit (LRT) extension in westend Toronto being buried at huge cost. On Friday, the same day Premier Doug Ford announced a snap election, his government promised to tunnel an LRT project in downtown Brampton, about 45 kilometres northwest of Toronto, massively increasing the cost compared with running the line on the surface.
Also, data by the Transit Costs Project at NYU show the signature Ontario Line, a subway in Toronto, is expected to cost close to $500-million per kilometre to build, in 2019 dollars. That is about 60 per cent more than a subway expansion from Toronto into its northern suburb of Vaughan that opened in 2017 and was itself widely criticized for its cost.
These problems are not unique to Ontario – the Green Line LRT in Calgary is a poster child for escalating costs and political interference – or even Canada. They crop up across much of the English-speaking world.
Those countries often benchmark against each other, making soaring costs within the group seem less egregious. They tend to have engineering standards that are more onerous than in other nations. And they often disregard transit building for decades and lack institutional experience, making it harder for them to oversee complex projects.
These countries need to learn less from each other and look instead to places where it’s cheaper and faster to build. Italy, Spain and France are all showing that it’s possible to insert new subway lines under ancient dense cities for less per kilometre than Canada manages in sprawling suburbs.
In just one example of how it could be done differently, a subway tunnel in Milan is being made with a nine-metre diameter, according to a report from the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. Meanwhile, a subway expansion tunnel in eastern Toronto is 10.7 metres across, to fit slightly wider trains and a firewall added between the tracks. The difference may not seem like much, but the 18-per-cent increase in diameter means 42 per cent more earth must be excavated.
Canadians can also try to learn the lessons of the few recent domestic projects that have gone well. Because there are some successes. Both the Canada Line in Vancouver and the Réseau express métropolitain in Montreal have aspects worth emulating.
A crucial driver for both projects was strong political backing. Vancouver needed the Canada Line to open before the 2010 Winter Olympics and Quebec’s premier took a personal interest in the REM. The point is not that politicians stuck their noses in; it’s that everyone knew the pressure was on.
Both projects took advantage of smaller rolling stock. A shorter train can be served by a smaller and, because an enormous part of transit building cost is excavation, much cheaper station. Depending on demand, running smaller trains more often may provide service as effective as a longer, less frequent train.
The Canada Line and REM avoided tunnelling where possible. Raising the tracks above the ground is a vastly cheaper option. The REM also repurposed an old tunnel to save money and the Canada Line used cut-and-cover to build part of its tunnel. The latter option is a cheaper method though more disruptive. It does not suit all situations, but politicians need the backbone to insist on it when the savings are sufficient.
Good transit networks are the only thing that stop urban areas grinding to a complete halt. Expanding them will always be expensive and disruptive, but Canadian cities can minimize that pain by building on the examples of others.
Critics warn group’s bid to scale back Toronto building rules would `gut’ sustainability standards
This article was written by Kate Allen and was published in the Toronto Star on January 18, 2025.
Toronto’s Green Standards set mandatory performance requirements for new buildings for energy efficiency, electric vehicle charging stations, green space and more, as well as higher, voluntary tiers.
A group of developers is asking a court to strike down the city of Toronto’s sustainable building standards — a legal challenge that the builders say would make homes cheaper but that critics say will make them substandard and “gut” the city’s already flagging climate change strategy.
The association, the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON), represents developers of residential buildings. In a legal application filed in midNovember, RESCON asked an Ontario court to prohibit the city from imposing its Toronto Green Standard, and to rule that the city doesn’t have jurisdiction to set its own requirements for new construction above and beyond what is already in the provincial building code.
RESCON president Richard Lyall said the association hopes winning the legal challenge will set a precedent that applies to all Ontario municipalities, who are increasingly adopting their own green building standards. Many are modelled on Toronto’s, which sets mandatory performance requirements for energy efficiency, electric vehicle charging stations, green space and more, as well as higher, voluntary tiers. It applies those standards to new low and highrise residential construction.
“We’re not antigreen,” said Lyall. The goal of the lawsuit, he said, is to clear away requirements that are duplicative or inconsistent, and that he said add extra costs that are born by consumers. “If you want to introduce new measures and whatever, let’s do it through the building code process where all parties are there,” said Lyall. “Let’s do it through a disciplined process … it’s just about bringing clarity.”
Others in the industry say the consequences of invalidating the Toronto Green Standard would be severe, and would last for generations.
“Given the phenomenal amount of growth we’re going to witness in the Toronto region over the next 20 to 30 years, we’re going to be building so many buildings to accommodate the population growth,” said Ted Kesik, a professor of building science at the University of Toronto. Kesik was retained by the city as a thirdparty researcher to lead a costbenefit analysis of the standards in 2008.
“And what are we going to then do, hand over a bunch of these substandard buildings to the next generation and say, `You fix them up, because we were too cheap to do it?’ ”
The city solicitor’s office served a notice to the court in December saying it intends to respond to the lawsuit; a spokesperson said the department “will respond to the application in due course.” No hearing date has been set.
The first version of the Toronto Green Standard was rolled out almost 20 years ago in an effort to curtail Toronto’s contributions to the climate crisis and tackle a list of other environmental woes. Buildings, and the fossil fuels used to heat them, are Toronto’s top source of greenhouse gas emissions. Impermeable surfaces such as concrete also contribute to stormwater runoff that exacerbates flooding and pollutes Lake Ontario, while losing green space ratchets up the urban heat island effect and worsens air quality.
The city also intended the standards to make homes more resilient. In a power outage, energyefficient designs hold indoor temperatures for longer, lowering the risks from ice storms, summer floods and other severe weather events that are becoming more likely because of climate change. The city has strengthened the measures over time.
While the court challenge hinges on a narrow legal question of jurisdiction, the battle for public approval revolves around whether these standards make life better for residents of this city or worse.
“We’ve got the single biggest housing crisis ever, and affordability for young people — I mean, the numbers are just brutal,” said Lyall, adding families are being “crushed.”
“You can have the most energyefficient, greenest buildings in the world, which is great. But if you can’t build them because nobody can afford them, where does that get you?”
Lyall suggested that money and effort would be better spent on retrofitting old buildings, which are the least energy efficient but hardest to fix. “Politicians are good at creating new things, not fixing existing problems,” he said, adding that he would be fine with Toronto’s requirements if they were adopted by the province and applied consistently across municipalities.
Proponents of the Toronto Green Standard say that abandoning these measures now would foist expensive repairs and retrofits onto homeowners later, and leave residents in homes illequipped for the threats and transformations brought on by climate change.
“It’s much more cost effective to build it from the start rather than try to change it later,” said Bryan Purcell, the Toronto Atmospheric Fund’s vicepresident of policy and programs.
As an example, Purcell pointed to electric vehicle charging stations. Premier Doug Ford’s government stripped requirements for EV charging stations from the building code in 2019 after developers complained they added $500 to the cost of a new home; it chose not to reverse that decision last year. The Toronto Green Standard makes it a requirement to build in a power source that can be used for charging EVs if needed.
Electric vehicles made up just 3.1 per cent of the market in 2019 when the provincial code was changed, but hit a record high of 16.5 in the third quarter of last year; gaspowered car sales, meanwhile, have dropped significantly in recent years. Federal rules require all new cars to be zeroemission by 2035.
Purcell noted that the cost to homeowners of adding an EV plug after a home is built is up to five times higher than roughing it in from the getgo, and said that the standards create “just generally betterquality buildings that will preserve the health and wellbeing of the residents.”
“We’re building a city here, not just buildings.”
A 2017 costbenefit analysis done for the city found that the current Toronto Green Standards would add 2.1 to 3.5 per cent to the costs of building low and highrise multiunit residential buildings compared to the minimum requirements in the Ontario building code. They would also result in life cycle cost savings of $1.15 to almost $2 per square foot from lower energy bills and other cost reductions over 25 years.
Hanging over this local problem is a global one: climate change. The city has set an ambitious goal of reaching netzero emissions by 2040, and the Toronto Green Standard has been “the most successful part of their plan, and would really gut their climate action strategy” if lost, said Purcell.
Even with the green standards, however, the city recently acknowledged it was unlikely to meet its 2025 targets. In a budget document released this week, the environment and climate division also said the pace of emissions reductions made it unlikely it would meet its 2030 targets, too.
“Losing Toronto’s Green Standard would be catastrophic for the city’s climate progress,” said Sarah Buchanan, campaigns director for the Toronto Environmental Alliance. “We have a province that has largely abdicated from climate action. If cities lose the ability to take action on their own, what do we have left?”
It’s unclear to what extent opposition to the Toronto Green Standard is shared among developers. RESCON said it could not share its membership list for privacy reasons.
EllisDon, a major developer involved in residential projects in Toronto, submitted a letter in 2017 in support of a previous version of the Toronto Green Standard, the Toronto Atmospheric Fund noted in a factcheck on its website. It reads, in part: “We believe that the focused priorities and metrics are necessary if we want to transform into a low carbon economy and meet our climate change commitments. EllisDon is prepared to support this standard and framework in its implementation, promotion and awareness.”
The company did not respond to emails asking if it supported RESCON’s legal challenge.
Tridel, another major developer that frequently touts its green credentials and in a recent press release said that “innovation and sustainability are core to Tridel’s mission,” sits on the steering committee of the city’s Net Zero Transition Study, which will help inform the next generation of the Toronto Green Standard, due to be considered at city hall later this year.
Tridel’s executive vicepresident of project management innovation and sustainability also sits on the board of RESCON and was previously its chair.
A spokesperson for the company said it will “continue to collaborate with Toronto Green Standards staff and other municipalities, serving as a resource for their policy development. While we support efforts to reduce emissions and enhance energy efficiency, it’s essential to balance these goals with policies that maintain consistency across the industry.”
Experts say toll system can reduce gridlock if city can offer viable transportation alternatives
This article was written by Estella Ren and was published in the Toronto Star on January 9, 2025.
Drivers cross the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan this week after New York became the first U.S. city to adopt a congestion pricing system.
A congestion charge, a longdebated idea in North America, has finally come into effect in New York City and is being praised by experts who say Toronto could benefit from a similar approach.
On Sunday, New York was the first U.S. city to adopt the system after years of studies and delays, joining the likes of London, Stockholm and Singapore which have seen lasting traffic reductions since implementing congestion charges.
The toll system, which is applied to the most congested parts of a city, is meant to reduce gridlock and pollution and raise revenue for public transit.
Toronto council once endorsed tolls on the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway in 2016 to help improve gridlock in a city that has some of the worst traffic in the world. But the plan was scuttled by the Liberal government at the time. In the past September, the city’s transportation department once again said a congestion charge on motorists is not an option on the table.
Despite the Ontario government’s efforts to double down on car mobility, Canadian transportation experts say a congestion charge in Toronto could be a more efficient way to alleviate traffic jams.
“I do think Toronto is at the point where the congestion is so bad. And, the drag on our economy and our quality of life is getting to the point where this does have to be on the table, and has to be studied very carefully,” said Matti Siemiatycki, a geography and planning professor at the University of Toronto.
During peak traffic hours — between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays and on weekends between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. — drivers of cars, SUVs, small vans and pickup trucks with an EZPass need to pay $9 (U.S.) once per day to enter Manhattan south of Central Park. During off hours, the toll is $2.25 for most vehicles.
Drivers without an EZPass will receive bills by mail and pay more: $13.50 for peak hours and $3.30 overnight.
When charging a price on the road, based on the laws of supply and demand, people will drive less and opt for alternative ways to travel to the city, Siemiatycki said.
Congestion has a price tag too, even though it is often not thought of in this way: people either pay in money, or in time and lost in economic productivity, he added. The latter was estimated at $11 billion annually in the GTA by a study in 2013.
Siemiatycki pointed to Highway 407 as an example of how road tolls work in Toronto and said no matter how much people dislike the cost, it ensures people get across the city in “a reliable fashion.”
“This New York experiment, or an example, is so important because it has the potential to show what’s possible across North America,” he said.
While Jeff Casello applauded the congestion charge in New York as “a fantastic policy,” the urban planning professor at the University of Waterloo said he is concerned about implementing a similar charge in Toronto when there “isn’t any viable alternatives” for transportation.
“Imagine that there was a massive park and ride where you could park your car in a parkandride facility at Pearson Airport, for example, and then take the UP Express downtown. That’s what we ought to be encouraging,” he said.
Siemiatycki, who echoed the sentiment, said if the system is implemented, the city needs to have equity at its core and make sure the public transportation is in place.
“The other point that often doesn’t get talked about is, at the moment, it’s almost virtually impossible to run an effective public transit system on those highways because they’re so congested,” he said.
The key to the congestion pricing system in New York and London is their ability to collect the revenue to improve public transit, while the tolls of Highway 407 are not used for that benefit, said Bruce Hellinga, a transportation engineering professor at the University of Waterloo.
Toronto’s city council has considered the road levy as a potential revenue tool in to relieve the city’s financial pressures. However, the city determined that road pricing policy involves high costs as it will require the city to partner with a technology company to implement the licence plate capture system.
Dakota Brasier, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Transportation, said in a statement that they will remain focused on building the critical infrastructure including allocating nearly $100 billion toward new roads and transit.
“Unlike the Liberals, we will never add a tax or toll to any road in Ontario,” he said.
Siemiatycki also acknowledged that road pricing is an unpopular idea in suburban areas while taking off road tolls, expanding highway networks and cutting bike lanes have “an effective political wedge.”
“We do have to acknowledge that the approach that they’re following is popular. The problem is it hasn’t been effective. I mean congestion has gotten worse during their six years in office,” Siemiatycki said.
“It might be good policy, but it’s not good politics,” he said.
This article was written by Nathan Bawaan and was published in the Toronto Star on December 12, 2024.
At some point while riding the TTC, we’ve thought it — but now it’s official: Toronto has one of the worst transit commute times in Canada.
A new report from Moovit, a commuter app, says taking transit through the city takes about an average of 55 minutes, the second longest commute in Canada and the U.S. And, across a Torontonian’s lifetime, they will spend one year and seven months taking transit.
Vancouver tops the list as the Canadian city with the longest commute times, with an average trip of 60 minutes, while Mexico City has the longest commute time worldwide, with a trip taking around 67 minutes.
Moovit compiled its study based on data gathered from 50 cities in 17 countries.
Along with commute times, the app’s report found that transit riders in Toronto spend the same time waiting for a ride — 14 minutes — as those in New York, Boston and Chicago. Miami has the worst wait time, with 21 minutes, and Seattle has the shortest, with 12.
However, Stuart Green, senior communications specialist at the TTC, criticized Moovit’s report. In an email to the Star, he said that it doesn’t take into account distance travelled or ridership, and compares cities with varying modes of transit.
“More than half of TTC customers rely on the bus network, which would be slower than rapid transit,” he wrote.
“So comparing a city that has a robust rail network like London, Paris or NYC is difficult.”
Raktim Mitra, an urban and regional planning professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, agreed that the report’s findings should not come as a major concern.
The TTC says the report by commuter app Movit doesn’t take distance travelled, ridership and types of transit into account
“In general, people travel longer distances, so it’s not surprising that the commute time would be longer as well,” he explained. “If anything, the data represents the importance and significance of public transportation for people living within the wider geographic region.”
On a brighter note, Torontonians are able to get to wherever they need to go without any transfers more than in other cities, according to the report, although the same percentage also said it takes three or more transfers to get to a destination.
When asked what could be fixed about the city’s transit system, 29 per cent of Torontonians said having more vehicles and 26 per cent said lower fares. Nineteen per cent said more accurate arrival times.
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