New plan for Ford's subway doesn't inspire confidence

It's been a while since we've heard much about Ford's Sheppard subway extension, but the latest, courtesy of a Toronto Star interview with Gordon Chong, is that the line will be financed and built one stop at a time. Chong, who has been tasked with securing private investment to fund the Sheppard extension, has yet to reveal whether his plan will call for the use of revenue sources like road tolls and congestion charges, but even this station-by-station approach likely signals the difficulty he's faced in raising funds for the project.

"Our project and plan is to go to Scarborough Town Centre, but we['ll] do it in phases, opening each new station as we're ready," he told David Rider. "The most important thing is that we get started in this council's term. As long as progress can be shown, I think the mayor kept his promise."

That's one way to look at it, I guess. Ford, many will recall, campaigned heavily on the promise that he'd have his subway extension completed by the Pan Am Games in 2015. What's noteworthy about the way that Chong frames this new strategy is that it appears to be the product of political necessity. Construction work on the extension, even if it's just to go one station further east, must be started prior to the next municipal election in order to prove that Ford's subway isn't already dead in the water.

Not exactly a confidence-inspiring strategy, is it?

Photo by akimota in the blogTO Flickr pool