Toronto Considers Fast-Tracking Downtown Subway

"Toronto has long had reservations about pushing the already crowded Yonge subway line by six stops into Richmond Hill and the executive committee had already attached a slew of conditions to the city's support of the project, which would have doubled the price from $2.5-billion to about $5-billion."

"But yesterday council added a few more -- including asking Metrolinx to move up the so-called downtown relief line to its 15-year plan from its 25-year blueprint and asking that the regional transportation body prioritize the new downtown subway over the extension into York region."

"The downtown relief line refers to a U-shaped subway line studied by the Toronto Transit Commission in the 1980s that would link the west end of the Bloor-Danforth line to the east end by swooping through the core."