While the Chinese raised money on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to build modern transportation like the Shanghai maglev train that moves at 400 km/h, all that David Miller’s crew managed to build in seven years, was the St. Clair Avenue Horse & Pony show.
When you are stuck with a regressive city regime for seven years that made its reputation by tearing things down instead of building them, things like this happen. There hasn’t been a new major road built in
How can we find money to build subways?
We’ll start by convincing Dalton McGuinty to allow
The Sheppard Subway must take precedence to avoid costly cancellation fees for the already signed LRT construction contracts.
If we were to build the Eglinton line as a subway next, it would make no sense to build an underground LRT at a cost of $220 million, when for a similar amount, you can build a really efficient subway. Consistent transportation across the city makes for economies of scale. The Downtown Relief line would come next, possibly along Queen Street.
I also believe that the Federal government would be willing to invest money in subways in
Our City fathers must remind the Federal Government that they are now collecting an extra $1.2 billion per year for HST on our gasoline taxes. Surely, they should be willing to spend much of that on subways and roads.
Additional funds for Eglinton and the Downtown Relief line could easily be raised by way of a public offering or bond. There are billions of public funds available in
* CPPIB’s Wiseman focuses on