Toronto is dying; suffering a slow, sickly demise. Try traveling its highways or getting around on its public transit and the symptoms become obvious — the MegaCity is crumbling under its own weight, its arteries clogging.

Love it or hate it, Toronto is the economic engine driving Canada  — more so than Montreal and Vancouver, often to their chagrin.

Billed as the “centre of universe” by detractors and devotees alike, T.O.’s population, and the population of the Greater Toronto Area, is swelling dramatically, bringing more people, more traffic and more strain to an infrastructure unable to sustain the growth.

Push the filibuster aside and the problem boils down to two issues: too many cars for too few roads and an embarrassingly inadequate transit system. Drive in and out of the city, and there’s little traditional “rush hour,” now, but a sustained, grueling crawl of traffic most of the day.

Meanwhile, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and GTA transit groups consistently use band-aid solutions (i.e. - dedicated bus lanes) for its growing list of maladies in the city core and outlying communities. Worse, when ridership falls, fares tend to rise, forcing more people away. Why go through the hassle of a bus/train/streetcar ride downtown, when sitting in your comfy car (albeit in traffic) is more affordable?

I’m partial to driving, but if I could cheaply and easily take transit from the World of Wheels offices about 30 km west of Toronto into the downtown core, I’d gladly climb aboard.

While Toronto and the GTA have been wincing over the growing congestion for years, the symptoms are finally becoming a genuine concern to provincial and federal politicians. Most recently they’ve squabbled over a small 8.7-km subway extension up to, and past, York University north of Toronto. That six-station extension could take a reported 80,000 vehicles a day off the roads. As per usual, however, there’s infighting over how to divvy up the project’s significant costs, meaning it’s stalled yet again.

For solutions, legislators should look to European cities. I recently spent two weeks in Paris and London, discovering a subway and high-speed commuter train system that makes Toronto’s (and Montreal’s and Vancouver’s) look half-baked.        

The subway systems alone are uncanny. Take London’s Tubes, with 12 lines, 275 stations (as close together as 0.26 km) and lines that stretch 43 km outside the city centre. That would be like riding the subway all the way from Toronto to Hamilton, Ont.Even more impressive is the Paris Metro, with 14 lines and a massive 380 stations.

It sounds like an exaggeration, but I’ve heard that every building in Paris is within 500 metres of a Metro station. Toronto has just three subway lines, and 69 stations, which barely stretch into the GTA. For a city that is constantly billing itself among the globe’s best, it’s pathetic.

Here’s a fervent idea — let’s bulk up the transit system now. While our roadways need to be maintained, added lanes will just clog with traffic if viable transit solutions don’t become available. Yes, environmental assessments are necessary, but at a rapid pace, so shovels can hit dirt. No less then three new subway lines crossing Toronto’s core and extensions of the existing system need to be planned. Instead of waiting for entire lines to be completed, open stations two or three at a time. Remember, the point is to get folks out of their cars as soon as possible. London says three million people ride its Tubes each day — just imagine. I’m no greenie, but the environmental benefits of a move like this could only be positive, especially when dealing with greenhouse gases. If more transit means less vehicles on the road, then hopefully smog alerts and that thick brown porridge that hangs over Toronto on a summer’s day would become a distant memory. Remember too that the former Liberal government committed us to the Kyoto Accord.

To distribute cost, let’s paraphrase Ringo Starr and, “get by with a little help from our friends.” The Feds need to cough up the most cash. They’re running a budget surplus and downloading services onto our cities, and, more importantly, will be the first to bitch when Toronto’s banks and corporate juggernauts falter because of the horrific traffic and transit conditions.

The greatest responsibility lies with the GTA. Each municipality needs its own efficient network, which connects to the larger Toronto system. Buses, while inexpensive, are out the question, mainly because if I want to take my wife downtown for a fancy dinner, we’re not getting on some smelly, diesel contraption that lurches through traffic. Give me a smooth streetcar with a dedicated laneway and a direct link to Toronto’s extended network.

Oh, and like Paris and London, create one card for all transit services. No more separate purchases of bus, train and subway tickets — just one payment for the whole ride.

Yes, an improved Toronto transit system will be extremely expensive, billions of dollars no doubt, (the same goes for Montreal, Vancouver, et al), but can we really put a price tag on Canada’s economic engine? And on Canada’s environment?