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CouncilWatch - Mayor Ford's transit plan snubs the suburbs

April 12, 2011
New Transit Plan leaves out the Suburbs

On March 31st, 2011 Mayor Ford and Premier McGuinty announced their new transit plan. This new plan builds only half as much new transit as the original Metrolinx / Transit City plan, but it costs more!  See TEA's press release about the plan.

  • This plan leaves out the very communities and neighbourhoods the original plan was designed to help.
  • Thankfully, it includes an Eglinton Crosstown Light Rail Transit (LRT) line.
  • However, it leaves out the promised Finch West LRT line and doesn't go further than the Scarborough City Centre. 
  • Torontonians deserve an explanation as to why it should cost us much more to deliver so much less new transit.
  • There are no plans to consult with Torontonians about the plan.
  • This new plan should be brought to our elected City Council for a vote after public consultations take place.
Click here to send an email to the Mayor, the Premier, Metrolinx and your City Councillors about Mayor Ford's new transit plan.

The Mayor’s new plan does little to address road congestion and gridlock across the City, which means cars will continue to pollute our air with smog emissions and greenhouse gases.

TEA held a press conference about the communities left out of the new transit plan with community representatives from across the City. See TEA's media coverage on the transit plan on our TEA In The News page.



Scarborough Good Neighbours

TEA has been working with community members in Scarborough Centre to turn Atlantic Packaging into a Good Neighbour as part of our Good Neighbour Initiative. Residents from three distinct communities have come together to voice their concerns, and in less than a year, Atlantic has responded to the complaints about odour, noise and chemicals coming from their Progress Ave. facilities near Scarborough Town Centre.

Atlantic has invested over $1 million, consulted with community members and they are on track to resolve their odour problems in time for the warm weather so residents can enjoy their backyards this summer!

Read more about this campaign history and updates on our Good Neighbour website.

The momentum to turn local polluters into good neighbours is building, and TEA has been busy providing advice and assistance to other concerned communities across Toronto. If you want to turn a local polluter in your community into a good, green neighbour please contact Heather at  [email protected].
Have a great week!

The TEA team

Help us fight for better transit and clean air!

TEA has spent the last 4 months fighting to get the word out that Mayor Ford's vision for transit is a bad one for the environment and for Torontonians.

Now, that the Mayor's plan is finally public, the real battle begins.

We need your help to stop this terrible plan from becoming reality. Please donate now.

Donate online now with PayPal

We need your donations today to: 
  • fund our community outreach activities that will talk to Torontonians – one-on-one
  • print brochures and maps to distribute
  • pay for staff time to meet with Councillors to talk about how this plan harms the City and our environment
We've knocked on over 40,000 doors and convinced over 20,000 Torontonians to contact their elected officials. We've connected with hundreds of community organizations and delivered our message out through the media consistently. Put simply, we've been sprinting, but we're almost out of energy. 
Please donate now and help us sustain and expand our public transit campaign. 

Thanks, from the TEA Team


Last week's TTC meeting was short and disappointing -- read the update from Jamie Kirkpatrick, TEA's Transit Campaigner on the TTCriders website.


Calling all Volunteers!

We need volunteers to help with our Transit campaign - contact Tsering at tsering@ torontoenvironment.org or fill in our volunteer sign up form.


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