politics
Poll Position: Toronto Favours Scarborough LRT, Again
Residents prefer more value for money, even if most of their elected representatives don't.
“If the three stop Scarborough Subway is increased to four stops, it will cost more than $3 billion dollars. For the same amount of money, a 30 stop LRT network that would cover the entire municipality could be built. Which would you prefer overall, a four stop subway or a 30 stop LRT network across Scarborough, if each cost the same?”
Thirty stop LRT network: 61%
Four stop subway: 29%
Other/Don’t Know: 11%
January 24-25, 2015
843
±3%, 19 times out of 20
Interactive voice response telephone survey
Forum Research
843
±3%, 19 times out of 20
Interactive voice response telephone survey
Forum Research
NOTES: A poll from Forum Research shows that on a value-for-money basis, building an LRT network in Scarborough is more popular across the city than a four-stop subway extension by a two-to-one margin. This hypothetical 30-stop LRT network, which would cost the same as the subway proposal, comes from a recent Toronto Star column in which Edward Keenan used an apples-to-apples comparison to identify the transit opportunities Toronto would miss out on by pursuing its current plan.
In the Forum poll, LRTs won out over subways by 23 percentage points in Scarborough, proving that it’s not always about what kind of transit technology you offer, but the kind of planning and access you provide. While LRTs have proved consistently popular in polls over the past year or so, there is one demographic that light rail cannot seem to win over: risk-averse politicians.
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