February 10, 2015
CBC News

Toronto city council voted this morning not to send questions asked by Coun. Josh Matlow about the Scarborough subway extension back to the executive committee, effectively ending any possibility of reopening the debate.

Late last month, Matlow submitted the questions to city staff and council, which focus largely on the sunk costs of the project and how Mayor John Tory's SmartTrack plan might affect ridership.

Council could have voted to forward the information to the executive committee, who could have then theoretically decided to reopen the debate about the controversial project. Instead, they voted to receive the information, essentially meaning it will go no further and will remain shelved.

February 9, 2015  
City Centre Mirror
David Nickle

One thing John Tory said he didn’t want to see happen in 2015 was a rehashing of the 2013 debate over building a subway in Scarborough.

But that is what is likely to happen this week if St. Paul’s Councillor Josh Matlow gets his way.

Matlow was one of the most vocal opponents of council’s 2013 plan to scrap a provincially funded light rail line to replace the crumbling Scarborough RT line running east from Kennedy Station with a three-stop subway line.

Matlow had questions about the plan then, and in 2015, after the election of pro-subway Mayor John Tory, Matlow has more. Broadly speaking, five more.

February 9, 2015
Toronto Star

It’s widely understood that Toronto’s planned Scarborough subway extension is a bad deal for the city. But residents don’t yet know how rotten it really is. It’s time they found out.

Councillor Josh Matlow is endeavoring to fill in the blanks at a city council meeting starting on Tuesday. Relying on a rarely used provision in council’s rules, he has submitted five “administrative inquiries” demanding answers from staff on key subway-related questions. The public would be well-served if Matlow succeeds.

It’s remarkable how much still remains unknown about an ill-judged decision that had a fully funded, ultra-modern, seven-stop light-rail line replaced by a three-stop subway that will cost the average Toronto household a total of at least $1,200 in additional property tax.

February 9, 2015
Toronto Star
Jennifer Pagliaro

More than year after council voted to build a subway instead of light rail in Scarborough, it remains unclear how many people will actually ride it and what it will cost to operate.

But on Monday, Mayor John Tory said he wants stay the course on the subway plans, brushing off questions over a lack of information ahead of s council meeting this week.

“I’m committed to is the present plan for the Scarborough subway, I believe it is the right thing to do,” Tory, who promised to make the subway a priority during the campaign, told reporters after touring a TTC maintenance facility Monday. “I don’t want to re-open this debate and go back to do what we do so well in this city — which is debate things to death.”

February 5, 2015
Toronto Sun
Shawn Jeffords

TORONTO - The controversial Scarborough subway project will be back on the docket at city council next week, with one of the project’s opponents demanding answers to key questions about ridership and financial viability.

Councillor Josh Matlow, who represents Ward 22 (St. Paul’s), has asked for clarification on a number of aspects of the planned project from city staff in a series of five so-called “administrative inquiries.”

He said he hopes that those questions will help provide councillors with key pieces of information on the three-stop subway project.

“Let’s get real,” Matlow said. “Let’s have this conversation based on facts and then take action based on facts. So my intent is not to re-open this debate. My intent is to get transit to as many Scarborough residents as possible at the quickest possible date.”

February 5, 2015
The Globe and Mail
Oliver Moore

Only a bit late for Groundhog Day, the biggest transit battles of Toronto’s last council term are about to pop up again.

A light rail project in the city’s northwest and subways for Scarborough will both be on the table at next week’s council meeting, according to the agenda published Thursday.

Councillor Josh Matlow put forward a series of “administrative inquiries” that demand answers from the city manager about the viability and logic of an extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway line farther into Scarborough. Among them, he wants to know how much the city has budgeted for the sunk cost in return for assuming the project, a secret figure that insiders peg at close to $85-million.

The city assumed responsibility for these costs when it voted to turn the provincially funded LRT into a subway. The city has balked at the bill presented by the regional transit agency Metrolinx, insisting it should be smaller.