TTC staff has been given the go-ahead to
start designing the seven new streetcar lines included in Toronto’s proposed
C$6-billion Transit City program. A new compressed environmental and public
consultations process could allow construction on the first route, either
the Etobicoke-Finch West line or the Sheppard East project, to start in
2009; preliminary studies on both have been finished. Revenue service on
the initial segment could begin by late 2011 or early 2012. Work on the
19-mi. (30.5 km) Eglinton-Crosstown line from Kennedy station to the airport
could also commence in about two years. “Eglinton is going to take a number
of years,” TTC chairman Adam Giambrone told The Toronto Star. “We're going
to build an underground section about the same length as the Sheppard
subway, which is five kilometers.” Two-thirds of the funding for Transit
City is to be provided by the Ontario provincial government and the
remainder from the federal government, although the latter has yet to be
confirmed and the former won’t actually be available until after the
provincial election in October. Also not approved is C$400 million for two
maintenance bases needed to service 260 new light rail vehicles that would
be ordered for the new lines.
