New SmartTrack plan unanimously approved by Mayor John Tory's executive committee

Mayor John Tory's executive committee unanimously approved the new scaled-down SmartTrack transit proposal on Wednesday hours after Tory said it is better than the version he pitched on the campaign trail.

"The service levels, if anything, are going to be better," Tory told reportersbefore his hand-picked executive committee voted onthe plan. "I'm proud of it and I'm going to fight for it and it's going to happen."

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The SmartTrack program looks much different than the one Tory campaigned on.

The plan initially called for 53 kilometres of heavy-rail service with22 new stops to be built withinseven years at a cost of $8 billion.

That number has been pared down to between four andeight new stops, which are expected to be constructed aspart of the ongoingGO Transit expansion effortsat an unknown cost to the city.

The original planpromisedservice every 15 minutes along the newSmartTrack, andTory saidWednesday that will still be the case.

Tory said concessions were necessary in order to craft aplan he can get through city council.

"We have to stop defeating ourselves with endless hand-wringing," the mayor said,"We simply have to get on with more transit for Toronto,and Imake noapologiesfor using my energy anddeterminationand policies to make that happen."

Torysaid it was his responsibility toaddress deficiencies in the original plan that wereoutlined in two separate city reports.

"We didn't have endlessamountsof money or experts available to us during an election campaign," he said.

It's not yet clear how much the project will ultimately cost or how the city plans to pay for SmartTrack.The federal government has committed$2.6 billion towards the project onethird of the original$8-billion price tag.

Scarborough subway

Executive members also unanimouslyendorsed a pared-down version of Tory'sScarborough transit plan.

During his election campaign, Tory promised to build the three-stop subway in Scarborough from Kennedy Station to Sheppard Avenue,whichcouncil approved before he was elected.It was supposedto replace the aging ScarboroughRT.

But facing a revolt at city council,Tory shifted in January to a one-stop subway extension toScarborough Town Centre and a17-stop light-rail systemalong Eglinton Avenue East to the University of Toronto'sScarborough campus.

"The vast, vast majority" of Scarborough councillors support the changes, Tory said.

But somecouncillorswho represent downtown wardsaren't buying Tory's defence of his plan.

"The year we just spent studying the original SmartTrack proposal and finding out it wasn't possible is a wasted year,"Ward 14 Coun. Gord Perks said.

Coun. Mike Layton, who represents Ward 19 in Trinity-Spadina, said transit planning in Toronto has become too politicized.

"We have to start having a mature conversation about transit in this city based on facts and not political promises made during elections," Layton said.

The city also plans to move ahead with adowntownrelief subway line that will start atPapeStation, but the mayor has repeatedly stressed this is along-termproject that could take 12 to15 yearsto get off the ground.

The new transitplan is expected to go before city council in June.