Deputation by Rhoda Potter Provincial Budget Sub-Committee Meeting – January 18, 2025
My name is Rhoda Potter, I have lived in Scarborough for 48 years. I am President of the Agincourt Village Community Association. In1986 the Sheppard Subway to Scarborough Town Centre was first proposed; and here I am again (like last year) to urge you to ensure that Sheppard Subway Extension finally happens after decades of starts, stops and campaign promises.
Twenty-five years ago, phase one of the Sheppard Subway was built but the second and much-needed phase has languished for decades despite the enormous need in this still growing, densely populated but poorly serviced part of the City. During the intervening years promises have been made, but other projects keep leapfrogging the completion of the Sheppard Line.
I support those other transportation infrastructure projects. However, it is frustrating for those who live in the northeast part of the City to be repeatedly passed over when it comes to transit investments.
Extending this subway will address one of your most pressing priorities – the development of new housing. Despite government efforts, Ontario housing starts are way down when compared to other provinces and the crisis is only going to get worse. The Transit Oriented Development Projects, heralded by this government are still years away and in terms of magnitude, pale in comparison to what private builders could quickly build at the new station nodes along Sheppard Avenue.
New towers have sprung up along the existing Sheppard Subway and the pipeline of near-ready and approved residential developments at Don Mills, Victoria Park, Warden, Kennedy and elsewhere along the proposed subway extension appear stalled due to economic conditions.
Evidence in the upcoming Provincial Budget that the subway will be funded and extended is an ideal catalyst to get all that new housing built.
In 2018 and again in 2022, your government campaigned on a promise to extend the Sheppard Subway, it is repeated in government and party statements and speeches but so far, there is little in the way of action. A year ago, your government tasked Metrolinx with developing an Initial Business Case – a formal exercise that will only prove what we already know and what you have already promised. That study was to be done last summer, then by the end of 2024 and still- we are waiting.
Our communities desperately need it and you know it and have campaigned on it. But we are still a long way from shovels in the ground and have nothing to show for all the talk -except the promise of an overdue Initial Business Case.
We have heard many promises over the past 40 years! Will this government be the one that converts them into action or is this government just like the ones that preceded it?
We’re waiting, but not patiently.
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