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economist sunjtribune transportation thursday dec 9 1999 way is paved to better transit in the gta something must be done to ease congestion for the 600000 trips made daily in and out of york region by lisa queen staff writer every workday morning chris sawczak leaves her newmarket home to battle traffic for more than an hour so she can make it to her job near pearson international airport and every afternoon after work she and her husband who works in stroud take turns racing to two different day care centres to pick up their son and daughter by 6 pm before heading home sawczak an account manager for a large computer software company in the carlingviewairport road area would love to leave her honda crv in her driveway and take reliable and affordable public transit to work i think its a great idea id be all for it its stressful going to work and by the time you get home youre drained she said unfortunately while there have been some go transit improvements in the last year that have helped get york com muters to downtown toronto sawczak bndsthe expense and time of taking transit to the outskirts forbidding its kind of a vicious cycle you want to live in york region to live in a nicer area but you need to work in toronto for the money and you cant afford to live in toronto so you need to com mute she said but it would be more economical in the long run if there was transit and there would be fewer stressed people even if taxes went up a bit to pay for better transit it would be worth it in the longrun alan tonks chairperson of the greater toronto services board is float ing an extensive plan to take transit into unserved communities of the gta although officials are stressing it is just one of many visions on the table the strategy would weave transit between toronto and the growing regions particularly york where public transportation has been sorely lacking the plan suggests several options including running buses on hwy 407 building parking lots beside the 407 for commuters who want to drop their cars off before jumping on transit and estab lishing high occupancy vehicle hov lanes along yonge street but perhaps the most ingenious idea is operating streetcars on underused railway tracks initially surplus special ized ttc streetcars would be used because their axle widths can be widened to run on train tracks york region chairperson bill fisch chairperson of the gtsbs transporta tion committee and a go transit board member has set up a meeting jan 28 to discuss that plan and various other options one solution hes focusing on would see go purchase freight lines from cn rail so more commuter trains can run throughout the gta while fisch thinks some of the ideas tonks is suggesting sound intriguing he points out the plan doesnt address issues such as extending the yonge subway to richmond hill or the spadina subway up to york university arid on to vaughans corporate centre at highways 400 and 7 regardless of the solutions ultimate ly settled on fisch argues transit defi ciencies can no longer be ignored i think ifs become fairly clear were facing major congestion in the region we only have so much room to build roads in terms of space and dollars available he said it will get much worse if we dont do something about it well still build the roads we require but i think our economic wellbeing is going to be at risk without improved transit transit is key to maintaining our economic wellbeing if you cant move goods and services and people around it affects our economy its a key economic linch- pin knitting together transit service between york and toronto is a top pri ority contrary to popular belief as many commuters travel into york region from toronto each day as do travel into toronto from york about 600000 trips are made between toronto and york every weekday john long is president of dslea associates a consulting firm that has examined transit in the gta and pulled together dozens ofstudies for the gtsb to investigate he believes running streetcars on railway tracks is an attractive idea because several cars can operate on the lines at the same time as opposed to trains streetcars which can reach speeds of 90 kmh can start and stop faster than trains allowing more stations to be built along the route long is worried by the reliance of york residents on the automobile only 5 per cent of the regions commuters use transit the lowest rate in the gta he believes a reliable and affordable light transit system such as the street car option might provide an incentive to get those drivers out of their cars youve got severe gridlock in the gta an accident on a major route can tie traffic up nearly all day long he said weve got to start getting people out of their cars youve got to provide a service and not just downtown in the morning and back up north in the evening long said canadian cities have fared poorly in improving their transit sys tems compared to urban centres in the us clearly in the states they make much more significant investments in their transit and road systems to keep mobility and accessibility he said long estimated the cost of installing streetcar routes on rail lines at between 5 million and 15 million a kilometre far cheaper than the 125 million to 150 million required for trains the total cost of running the street cars on three rail lines is pegged at 425 million richmond hill mayor bill bell warned theres no way municipalities can fund major transit projects like that without funding from ottawa and queens park bell chairperson ofyorks trans portation commit tee said the gta may be able to tap into a new federal- provincial infra- structure program expected to be announced next year the federal provincial and municipal govern ments each pay a third of capital works but that would leave municipal taxpayers with ongoing operating costs bell argues that will be impossible unless the upper levels of govern ment agree to give municipalities a slice of gas taxes if theyre going to download ser vice its one thing to download all this responsibility and take the bows but ifs another thing to give people the resources to fund these things transit upgrades were are tfie highlights of improvements to the gta transit system being considered by the greater toronto services board establishing 85 kilometres of new streetcar lines along three underused railway corridors running between toronto and the 905 regions taking one of those lines into the new pearson airport terminal as a 35minute tran sit link to downtown toronto running buses across hwy 407 to serve large regional centres and the new streetcar interchanges eventually replacing these 407 bus routes with a 60 train or streetcar service along a transit corridor beside the highway establishing a string of large parking lots along the 407 to feed bus and streetcar links with toronto running high occupancy vehicle hov lanes on yonge street between the 407 and finch avenue to feed 905 commuters into the ttc 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