Excess Underground

All this talk of subways to York University has gotten me thinking. You know there was a time when I was all for new subways in Toronto. One for Queen Street of course, Eglinton too. Filling in the missing pieces of the subway system. Heck, let's put one in Hamilton. Who wants to ride buses and streetcars when you can go underground, right?

Maybe I'm becoming a fiscal conservative in my advancing years but I now realize that this was a huge dream. Per kilometre subways cost the earth compared with light rail, buses or streetcars (a form of light rail). Instead of spending billions just to get this measly extension done think what kind of a system could be built. Dedicated bus lanes, light rail, more transit vehicles on the road/rails. Winning an election is not a good priority, building a complete transit system is.

Sadly subway construction belonged to a different time when, due to cheap and abundant energy, governments could literally do anything they wanted. Peak oil is making short work of this philosophy. I think the Skydome (AKA Rogers Centre) and the Sheppard Line were the last of these great monumentally wasteful projects. Let's not fool ourselves that Toronto is going to have a subway system like Paris or New York. Even those great cities are considering other options. Let's choose realistic goals and not waste our dwindling energy reserves on egotistical thinking.