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A new poll suggests that a majority of Toronto residents, even in Scarborough, support Mayor John Tory’s proposal to cut the Scarborough subway down to one stop and build an additional LRT.
The Forum Research Poll found that 58 per cent of Toronto residents approve of the new plan, which will see a subway connection between Kennedy Station and Scarborough Town Centre alongside an LRT that connects Malvern Town Centre to the easternmost section of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.
Twenty-seven per cent of respondents disapprove of the new plan and fourteen per cent said they had no opinion.
In Scarborough, 59 per cent approved of the plan, while 33 per cent were opposed and 8 per cent said they had no opinion.
“It appears the very fact of a decision, any decision, on the much discussed Scarborough subway has had the effect of creating consensus where none existed before,” Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff said in a news release. “When we see Scarborough agreeing with the rest of the city on its transit needs, an important milestones has been achieved.”
It also appears support for the new Scarborough transit plan scores well with downtown dwellers, residents with incomes of less than $40,000 per year, and those who have completed post-graduate education.
But the Scarborough subway is not high on many residents’ overall list of transit needs.
When asked which project should be given the highest priority and be completed first, 28 per cent of respondents said the downtown relief line should be top of the list, while 22 per cent said the Eglinton Crosstown LRT and 17 per cent said the Scarborough subway.
“That has been the case for several years,” Bozinoff said of the desire to build a downtown relief line.
Only 10 per cent said that Mayor Tory’s vaunted SmartTrack surface rail project should top the priority list.
The automated telephone poll reached 908 Toronto adults on March 22. The poll has a margin of error of +/- three per cent, 19 times out of 20.
