Executive Director of the Residential & Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario (RCCAO), Andy Manahan, shares why they believe a subway relief line is necessary.
Click here to watch the interview clip on YouTube.
Question from interviewer Kevin Frankish
Is it really going to make a difference, that little stretch?
Andy Manahan’s responses
The transit specialists that we talk to say that this is not just a project for downtowners as “Downtown Relief Line” may imply. This project will have system-wide benefits, so even if you never ride the relief line, it’ll ease other portions of the network.
It’s a long process. We do need to look at technical innovations… We’d like to find out what other jurisdictions are doing so that we can do things a little faster in Toronto. Current plans are that it would be open by 2031 but we’ve seen this project slip in the past, so we want to keep the pressure on.
No one expected five decades ago that we’d have this kind of growth, including the residential condos that we see in downtown Toronto. So the pressing need is even more than it was in 1969 when the TTC said the relief line was its second highest priority after extending the subway to Yorkdale Mall.