Exploring the ideas and innovations needed to create a sustainable transportation system.
I sat down with Paul Bedford, former chief city planner for Toronto, and heard his views on expanding transit in Toronto.
From subways, streetcars and LRT’s, Paul believes the biggest obstacle to expansion is money. Toronto, he says, lacks the funding to build transportation infrastructure or to even maintain what is currently in place. He thinks Torontonians are prepared to pay for good transit, and encourages people to come together and “have an adult conversation about how we are going to pay for the transit we need.”
Paul argues there are many tools with which Toronto can pay for an expansion in transit, like regional sales tax initiatives, and cites transportation as the key to the success of cities like New York, London and Paris.
It is his hope that in the next 20 years, Toronto will stop talking, and start building before it is too late.
