Torontonians who use public transit often commiserate over their public transit woes – and it appears those sentiments even extend itself into city council meetings.
During Toronto’s city council meeting on Wednesday, councillors discussed the future of the SmartTrack transit station program first pitched by former mayor John Tory, with several of them expressing their frustrations over the project.
Originally, SmartTrack was set to have 22 stations – at a price tag of about $8 billion – running along existing GO Transit rail corridors between Markham and Union Station, through Toronto’s Pearson airport. The transit project was one of the key promises during Tory’s successful 2014 mayoral campaign and at the time he promised that construction could start in 2021.
Years later, the plan was substantially pared down to five new stations along three existing GO corridors.
Then at Wednesday’s meeting, councillors voted to make three of those stations – East Harbour, Bloor-Lansdowne and St. Clair-Old …