With his subway plan appearing to be on track, a new poll released Wednesday finds that roughly half the city (49 per cent) approves of the job that Mayor Rob Ford is doing.
That’s up five percentage points from last month, when 44 per cent said they approved of the job the mayor was doing.
“It's safe to say the handling of the subway card over the last week has played into the mayor's favour, and it's only contributed to his solid popularity," said Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff in a press release.
In the wake of announcements by the province and the federal government in recent weeks, Ford has managed to claim a victory on one of his key election promises – building a subway to Scarborough to replace the ageing rapid transit system there.
In a move led by Ford, council voted July 17 to switch course and build a subway to Sheppard Avenue in Scarborough instead of a light rail line that had been previously approved and funded.
After several weeks of heated public debate, Murray announced the province would build its own subway to Scarborough Town Centre, with fewer stops, at a total cost of $1.4 billion.
Despite it falling short of the city’s transit goal, Ford welcomed the announcement and praised the province for its commitment to subways.
The following week, he was joined by federal officials at a press conference to announce that Ottawa would contribute $660 million toward the longer subway project.
City Manager Joe Pennachetti has said Toronto taxpayers would have to kick in $745 million to pay for the subway plan endorsed by council and that it would require a phased-in tax increase of 1.6 per cent that would exist for 30 years.
However Ford said Tuesday he would only commit to a 0.25 per cent property tax increase to fund the subway. He said he would seek a meeting with Premier Kathleen Wynne to discuss the potential shortfall.
Residents favour term limits
“We’re going to have to sit down with the province. Again, they’ve committed numbers. We’re gonna have to see what route we’re gonna go and take it from there,” Ford told reporters Tuesday.
While the poll appeared to be ringing endorsement of Ford, it also found that nearly six in ten Torontonians (59 per cent) favour term limits for the mayor’s job.
Three in 10 respondents said they didn’t approve of term limits for the mayor, while one in 10 didn’t know.
An even larger proportion of respondents (63 per cent) said they favoured term limits for city councillors.
The poll surveyed 1,082 randomly selected people by phone between Sept. 21 and Sept. 22. It’s considered accurate to within plus
