A transit blunder in the name of equity

Many readers will have heard by now about Toronto’s latest public transit debacle: the Finch West light-rail line, on which the cars move slower than a person can run. What they might not know is that the debacle had its roots in a desire to serve the disadvantaged. Seldom has the road to hell been so well-paved.

To understand how this happened, we need to go back two decades to the mid-aughts. David Miller, a left-leaning former Bay Street lawyer, was mayor. Toronto was booming, spreading in all directions and adding throngs of new residents from every corner of the globe.