TORONTO - Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty may have found a way to call off Ford Nation ahead of a fall provincial election.
The premier and Toronto's right-leaning mayor Rob Ford have joined forces for a $12.6-billion transit project for the city.
The province will contribute $8.4 billion to a revamped Toronto transit plan, including a new light-rail line along Eglinton Avenue from Black Creek Drive to Scarborough City Centre shopping mall, McGuinty said Thursday.
Much of the 25-kilometre line will be underground - one of Ford's priorities for transit expansion - and the 130 LRT cars needed for the line will be built in Thunder Bay, Ont., boosting the Liberals' profile ahead of the Oct. 6 vote.
"More people will be able to get across town quickly," McGuinty said at the joint news conference with Ford. "That means more students can get to classes faster and more moms and dads can get to and from work sooner."
The line will be underground from Black Creek Drive to Kennedy, then partially elevated from Kennedy to the Scarborough mall. Metrolinx, a provincially funded agency, will be responsible for the project, which is expected to cost $8.2 billion.
The city will also extend the Sheppard subway to Downsview station in the west and the Scarborough mall in the east, Ford said.
The 13.5-kilometre extension will include nine new subway stations, subway cars and maintenance and storage facilities. The city will be responsible for finding money for the project, which is expected to cost $4.2 billion.
The new plan also scraps a proposed 17-kilometre Finch line, from the new Finch West subway station to Humber College. However, Ford said the city will improve bus service along that route.
The penny-pinching mayor insisted the new plan was "good news for taxpayers" who elected him to build subways, but stumbled when prodded for details on how the Sheppard project would be financed without taxpayers footing the bill.
The private sector will pay for the construction of the subway, Ford said, and the city will own and operate it once its completed. But he couldn't say how the city planned to pay back the private investors.
"I'm not quite sure where taxpayers' money comes into it when we're using private money," he said. "All the financial details will be coming out, but it will be the private sector that will be building it, with some help from the provincial and federal government."
The province could kick in some extra cash once it confirms costs for the Eglinton line, and the city will continue talking to the federal government, which promised $300 million to build a Sheppard light-rail line, Ford said.
McGuinty originally committed $8.15 billion in 2007 to a plan called Transit City, which called for more extensive light rail on Eglinton, Sheppard, Finch and the Scarborough RT route.
Transit City was almost entirely funded by the province, with the federal Conservatives chipping in $300 million.
But Ford declared his predecessor's cherished transit project dead as soon as he took office last year, saying there would be no more tracks down the middle of Toronto streets.
He pointed out that streetcar renovations along St. Clair - originally budgeted at $40 million - ended up costing taxpayers $120 million.
Ford demanded that the transit deal be changed, even though he wasn't prepared to dole out city money to build the more expensive subways.
As the weeks passed, tensions between Queen's Park and the mayor's office seemed to escalate. Ford even threatened McGuinty with an uprising of "Ford Nation" - the conservative supporters who got him elected - to vote the Liberals out of office if the premier didn't cough up more money for the city.
The challenge came after McGuinty shot down Ford's request for $153 million for roads, transit, child care and new visitor's centre, plus half the TTC's annual $429- million operating budget.
But the two men were all smiles Thursday, taking turns posing for photographers from the driver's seat of a new light-rail car. However, Ford kept his distance as the premier spoke at the podium rather than standing next to McGuinty as expected.
McGuinty's new bromance with Ford is "rather suspicious" considering an election is just around the corner, said NDP transit critic Cheri DiNovo.
"We have a city with the worst gridlock now in North America, and yet every four years politicians come and trot out promises about transit that never gets built," said the Toronto MPP.
Voters won't be fooled, she added. McGuinty helped to kill a comprehensive transit plan for Toronto, replacing it with one that cuts the Eglinton line by 13 kilometres, dumps the Finch line altogether and leaves the Sheppard project up in the air until private funding can be found.
"This is a private-public partnership building something, sometime - maybe, before an election when the Liberals are down in the polls," DiNovo said. "I mean, c'mon."
Progressive Conservative Jim Wilson said he wasn't surprised that McGuinty capitulated to Ford's wishes, given the mayor's popularity in vote-rich Toronto.
"I think (the election has) a lot to do with it, and the fact that Rob Ford has a mandate from the people of Toronto, having just come out of his own election and been successful in that election," he said.
The new deal also requires that the PRESTO fare card system be used on the Metrolinx portion of the project, with the promise that both sides will work together to see it implemented across the TTC.
The province and city had previously butted heads on the fare system, with the former TTC chairman demanding that the province cough up the cash to implement the system.
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