TTC chair Karen Stintz wasn’t always a light rail fan

City council is meeting Wednesday to vote on reviving the Sheppard LRT rather than Mayor Rob Ford’s dream of a Sheppard subway.

While TTC chair Karen Stintz has led the charge at City Hall to revive the Transit City light rail lines cancelled by Ford, she wasn’t always a fan of LRTs.

Back in 2009, Stintz told the Sun the LRT plan was “short-sighted” and argued Sheppard Ave. E., Eglinton and Scarborough-Malvern lines should be subways.

At that time, she advocated the idea subway lines be used to encourage development in areas where increased density is desirable.

“Had we taken that approach on Yonge St., we wouldn’t be the city we are today,” she said. “From a long-term city-building perspective, (Sheppard) really should be a subway, as should the Eglinton and Scarborough lines.”

“I think that we are taking a short-sighted approach to how we’re going to use this investment to benefit the city.”

Stintz of course did change her take on Transit City, even joining then-Mayor David Miller in fighting the “Save Transit City” campaign in 2010 before the municipal election.

Asked this week about her anti-LRT comments in 2009, Stintz said she had a view that LRTs were streetcars.

“I now have a better understanding of the technology and a better appreciation of how important it is to spend scarce resources wisely to improve transit across the city,” Stintz wrote in an e-mail response.

“I can also tell you that I support subways and support their construction. Our challenge is finding the resources to meet all our transit needs.”

She is a hypocrite who has gone out of her way to deceive scarborough votes…Resign Karen.. We do not want you as TTC chair….No improvement have been made during your leadership…Go back to your reality show..

Good for Stintz, educating herself to make a well informed decision rather than blindly taking someone’s word on what LRT is. Maybe everyone else who is going to post their tell tale balking of “resign!” should go do some research too.

They already have three years of funding for the Scarborough subway in the form of $1B. Surely in the next 3 years, Toronto cit ocuncil could trim a mere 2% from its operatikng budget to fund the rest over several years. We have one manager ofr every five employees in Toronto and a rearkable 50,000 staff. Why not cut 5% to built Toronto’s transit and create some 46,000 (TTC figure) person year sof work plus spinoff businesses, and jobs.

If Karen didnt know the difference what was she doing on the TTC board, just trying to snowball everyone, again and again. In 1911 a subway was first proposed, even a platform to support one built in the bloor viaduct circa 1914 implemented by the public works commissioner W Harris. ( forthought how about that) A 100 yrs of Nothing for a great city. Typical council not representing the needs of the future and Karen Stintz is just one of many on this and previous councils not pursueing whats best for the city. Maybe Karens great grachildren can hope for a subway to pass by. Oh wait another lifetime for a LRT.

Yeah, that’s what people do when they get information that is contradictory to what they believe is true. They get more information and then decide what they believe. It’s called thinking.
It doesn’t mean that you are right necessarily, but the odds are in your favour.

@Andy …surely Sheppard would have to support the need for an actual subway before building it? Which let’s face it the stubway was just put in because Lastman has a big mouth.

Surely everyone in the city should just subsidize a transit line that _will never break even_ Surely! How about no? How about find a funding model to build a DRL that makes sense instead? How about building transit that fits the area it serves?

In reality, the subway could have been done and completed by now, all the funds lost when Smitherman had the Health Portfolio on Provincial level. Now we appear to see a similiar “POWER EGO TRIP” with Ms Stintz at the helm. Does Ms. Stintz not realize this amount of money is for “long term investment”? Subways are like email compared to sending letters by mail called snail mail.
But apparently some councillors still think in the snail mail mode. Wake up were in 2012!!!

JUST CHECK OUT CITY OF TORONTO’S WEBSITE ON COLLE AND STINTZ……you wonder if these two
are self serving?

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Don Peat

Don Peat is the City Hall bureau chief for the Toronto Sun. He covers municipal affairs at Toronto City Hall, a beat that has him writing about everything from garbage to transit to taxes to multimillion-dollar spending scandals.