Duly Quoted: John Tory, on the Positive Response to SmartTrack

Mayor-elect says "the city is strangling itself on transit," wants to bring sense of urgency to transit planning.

By Sarah Sweet

“I have not yet identified a councillor in all of my meetings—and they’ve been from all points on the spectrum as it were and all parts of the geography of the city—not one person yet who is saying, ‘Well, I’m going to stand up there, and I’m putting you on notice.’ They’ve been very, very positive.”

—Mayor-elect John Tory, responding to a question at a press conference today on what he’s been hearing from city councillors about his SmartTrack transit proposal. Tory had just wrapped up a transit-focused meeting with his advisory council and told reporters that he intends to bring a sense of urgency to the transit file: “The city is strangling itself on traffic and lack of available public transportation, and it is causing serious harm. We’ve had this discussion, we’ve seen the numbers—nobody argues with the numbers—and yet, there doesn’t seem sometimes to be that collective sense of urgency about getting things done.” He said that nothing he’s heard in his meetings and briefings with City officials, Metrolinx, and the TTC has caused him to adjust the SmartTrack timeline of seven years or his intentions to build it without increasing property taxes and to use other means to finance construction—there has thus far, he said, been no “significant debate” about the viability of using Tax Increment Financing as a tool for raising the necessary money.