Mayoral candidate Rob Ford has released his proposed transit plan. 

As expected it contains a lot of talk about “subways, subways, subways” and not much else. You see, calling what Rob Ford has suggested in this paper a plan is being all together too generous. He calls for the city to build 32 km of additional subway tunnels at the cost of $9-billion yet does little to show how taxpayers are supposed to pay for it.

One of his so-called funding strategies is to appeal to the private sector. “The private sector accepts responsibility and risks of design, financing, construction and maintenance of the project- the City retains ownership of all assets (not privatization). P3s engage the expertise and discipline of the private sector to deliver better value for taxpayers money, reduce costs and reduce construction times.”

The truth is that no private sector company would take on all the costs of building and running an expensive transit system while forgoing a stake in the system.

The best part of his transit paper is when he goes on to compare the “advantages” subways have over light rail traffic. According to Rob Ford, subways cause “less disruption to traffic” and have “lower long term operating costs”. This should tell you everything you need to know about his plan. Even you overlook some of the gross lies presented in this paper, the reality is that the current mayor has kept very few of his transit promises.