I can’t believe that Ford is still our mayor. In fact, I still can’t believe we elected him in the first place.

In case you missed it, Toronto’s Police Chief announced today that they are in possession of a video depicting Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. Outside of Canada, it was reported in the Huffington Post, the Guardian, as well as many other places.

It’s an embarrassment for Toronto. It’s an embarrassment for Canada. 

But even after all of this, Ford came forward today and said that he will not resign:

“I have no reason to resign. I’m going to go back and return my phone calls. I’m going to be out doing what the people elected me to do and that’s save taxpayers’ money and run a great government that we’ve been running.”

Toronto is a global city. And yet we have this profound leadership deficit. Today our successes are in spite of our governance. I know that there is a lot talent in this city so, please, somebody step forward.

We need a new mayor.

Politics rewards consistency. Even if you’re wrong, it’s better to be consistently wrong than come across as wavering - however noble and rational the intentions may be. And that’s exactly what happened with Rob Ford and his commitment to subways, subways and subways.

John Lorinc of Spacing wrote an interesting piece yesterday on how, despite all the debating that went on, Ford is delivering what he said he was going to deliver: a subway. It doesn’t matter that all technical and financial considerations were thrown out the window, he got it funded.

As I said earlier this week, I think the Scarborough line is the wrong subway to be building and that the downtown relief line is infinitely more important for the region. However, Lorinc makes a good case in his article for why this line will not be funded despite the current focus on subways, subways and subways:

“Fourth, it’s important to recognize that there will be one notably perverse exception to the foregoing, which is the [Insert Euphemism Here] Relief Line. I do admire Josh Matlow’s advocacy on this front. But Ford will never take up the DRL cause because (i) he doesn’t get the purpose of said extension; and (ii) because the project doesn’t butter his bread, electorally speaking. I’m guessing it will be years before someone with the mayor’s block-headed tenacity emerges to champion a line with a politically inconvenient name and an eye-bulging price tag.

In fact, the sheer heft of the relief line will allow marginally useful yet politically supported subway projects — extensions in the west end to Sherway Gardens or up Yonge to Richmond Hill – to continue to elbow their way to the front of the line, just exactly as the Scarborough subway project did. Indeed, because we no longer care, at any level of government, about subjecting our transit investment choices to a rational policy framework, the most crucial project in the GTA will always lose out in the funding lottery because it has the most diffuse constituency and the most conceptually complicated purpose.”

The disparaging thing about these two paragraphs is that it’s a sad reality.

It was announced this morning that the feds will be contributing $660M towards Toronto’s new Scarborough subway line. While transit investment of any kind is generally a good thing, it’s a shame that we can’t get our priorities straight. Decisions are being made based on politics rather than rational thought.

Here’s what TTC CEO Andy Byford said:

“We all know that Toronto has a congestion problem, so it can only be good that we get more funding,” Andy Byford told reporters after the announcement. “I’ve said since the day I got here that the downtown relief line remains a priority for the TTC. I reiterate that point. But I think that, with the time scales available, it’s possible we can do more than one thing at a time.”

This is Byford being diplomatic.

The downtown relief line is absolutely the most important (planned) subway line in Toronto. For one, the Yonge & Bloor subway interchange is at capacity. Until these pressures are relieved, any extension of existing lines will only exacerbate the problem.

At the same time, the density levels are way higher in the core, meaning that ridership levels will be higher and the required government subsidies will be lower. Not surprisingly, subway lines make more fiscal sense when you build them where demand is greatest.

So the irony is that our Mayor - who ran on a campaign to “stop the gravy train” - is pushing to build a rail line that will ultimately cost taxpayers more money.

Oh, politics.