David G.
Metrolinx, the Ontario provincial transit
agency, has recently unveiled the new Union-Pearson Express (UPE) train which
will run from Pearson International Airport to Union Station in Toronto
starting in May. This will start a month before the Toronto 2015 Pan-Am
Games open which have already caused some controversy for its outlandish
overspending problems, fast-tracked development projects leading to
gentrification, and the lack of proper infrastructure. The Pan-Am games will
cause traffic jams across Toronto which will affect the city's ageing
infrastructure. Recently, the capitalist CEOs in charge of the Toronto 2015
Pan-Am games have been caught overspending their budgets, which consists of
public money from taxpayers. Money went to paying for expensive limousine rides
and purchasing luxuries such as designer shirts. This is one of many
controversies that the TO2015 committee has got itself into in recent months.
The UPE will run every 15 minutes on the
clock and you can get from Union Station to Pearson in just 25 minutes. Right
now it takes about an hour and a combination of subway and bus to get from
downtown to the airport on the existing public transit system. But here is the
catch that Metrolinx has openly said. An adult one-way ticket from Union to
Pearson will be $27.50, $19.00 if you have a Presto card. The prices were
approved by the Wynne's neo-liberal Government back in December of 2014, which
is now the most expensive ticket price for a similar airport express system in
North America. For example, the Airport rail link in Vancouver built in 2010
costs $9.00 one-way, and the Airport rail link in Chicago costs $5.00
one-way.
These outrageous prices has caused many
Torontonians to be concerned, since transit prices and the cost of living in
Toronto has skyrocketed over the past decade. Mayor John Tory raised cash fares
for the TTC above $3 only two months ago. A poll conducted recently that was
reported in the CBC that two-thirds of Torontonians find that the prices for
the new UPE train are too expensive. Parkdale NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo has already
criticized the UPE that “it should not be an executive boutique for business
travellers”. Why did the Ontario Liberal government and Metrolinx pour $456
billion dollars into a transit line that is not for the people but only for the
privileged elite? Because according to Metrolinx “business travellers are the
demographic”.
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| Premier Wynne checks out the new UPE |
The demographic statement by Metrolinx is
very ignorant, one-sided and fails to mention that the vast majority of people
in the Toronto-area that take public transit, like myself, are people of all
kinds that travel everyday on buses, subways and streetcars.
What demographic group does the
Union-Pearson Express serve? This Liberal bondoogle obviously doesn't serve the
people that regularly use public transit. This new express line certainly
doesn't serve the thousands of workers at Pearson Airport that make minimum
wage and who need to get to work, nor will Metrolinx give the airport workers
any discount for the UPE. According to union reps at Pearson, there are between
10,000 to 15,000 workers that live in Toronto. Martin Smith, President at CUPE
Local 4047 says that “if the fares aren't affordable, the public will not use
the Union-Pearson express.”
The prices for the Union-Pearson Express
are unjustifiably expensive for the majority of the people in Toronto. It will
not benefit anyone except the wealthy and Kathleen Wynne's cronies. We should
continue to fight for affordable transit everywhere in Canada first by freezing
fare hikes and putting a cap on fare prices, and moving towards free public
transit for all!
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