All Things To All People Is Nice In Theory

But the reality is that there are times when we can't afford to follow that mantra. I believe this is one of those cases. In this particular case I think we should spend the money on redesigning the wheelchairs rather than the street cars or do away with streetcars and replace them with kneeling buses. But of course our teflon mayor will promise the more expensive way because he knows if he doesn't keep his promise no one really cares.

Miller in rush for improved TTC cars

By ROB GRANATSTEIN, CITY HALL BUREAU

Mayor David Miller has vowed to push very strongly to accelerate the arrival of low-floor streetcars in Toronto.

The city's aging Red Rockets are completely inaccessible for the disabled, as well as being heavy and ancient technologically.

But the TTC voted to refurbish 196 streetcars -- complete with new propulsion systems, air conditioning and other improvements -- at a cost of about $1 million each.

By doing that, new accessible streetcars wouldn't roll out until 2018. In that year, only 10 new-style vehicles would be on the streets.

"The resolution at council to simply refurbish the old ones simply isn't good enough," Miller told the Toronto Sun editorial board last week. "We have to do much better."

ALREADY IN THE WORKS

The TTC's Rick Cornacchia said a plan is already in the works to speed up the arrival of the low-floor streetcars.

Instead of refurbishing 196 of the 30-year-old streetcars, the TTC would fix up 100 and buy 64 new, state-of-the-art, longer, low-floor streetcars.

The problem is the first new vehicles still wouldn't get here until 2011. Then because of all the testing needed to be done, they would spend a year on the streets in test mode.

So it would be 2012 when Toronto saw 30 new streetcars.

"That's best case," Cornacchia said.

One problem is that Toronto has a curvature on its tracks seen in no other city. Cornacchia said it will require a lot of engineering to make new cars work here, meaning they can't be bought off the shelf.

In the city's disabled community, there's just one mantra: The sooner the better.

"I would welcome them for sure," said Eli Shupak, 32, who wheels around Toronto in his electric wheelchair.

"There's no acceptable transit where there are streetcars," Shupak said.