Update — Monday, February 16, 3:07 p.m.: Council voted:

• to receive Councillor Matlow’s administrative inquiries about the Scarborough Subway. It could have referred the inquiries to staff to act upon, but, by merely receiving the inquiries, it’s decided to do nothing about Matlow’s issues and, effectively, reaffirm its support for the subway.
• to approve funding for the SmartTrack studies.
• to approve the Board of Health recommendations about platform-edge doors; and
• to refer Councillor Mammolitti’s motion about the LRT projects to Executive Committee. (The City of Toronto Act requires the committee to discuss matter of this nature first, before council can proceed.)

Public transit issues dominate the agenda of this week’s meeting of Toronto City Council.

Among many other items, the 44 councillors and Mayor John Tory will discuss:

• Councillor Josh Matlow’s administrative inquiries about the costs to extend the TTC’s 2 Bloor - Danforth subway line further into Scarborough (the “Scarborough Subway”):

• an inquiry into Metrolinx’ ‘sunk costs’ resulting from Council’s earlier decision to cancel its plans to replace the 3 Scarborough rapid transit line with light rail transit. (Metrolinx had already started work on the project.) You can read the councillor’s inquiry and City Manager Joseph Pennachetti’s response here.
• an inquiry into the operating and capital expenses for the proposed “Scarborough Subway”. You can read the councillor’s inquiry and City Manager Joseph Pennachetti’s response here.
• an inquiry about the study area for the proposed new subway and why it did not include Agincourt GO Station. You can read the councillor’s inquiry and City Manager Joseph Pennachetti’s response here.
• an inquiry about the number of new subway cars the TTC would require to operate trains along the new subway extension. You can read the councillor’s inquiry and City Manager Joseph Pennachetti’s response here.
• an inquiry about “ridership” — the number of passengers that the TTC expects will ride the new subway. You can read the councillor’s inquiry and City Manager Joseph Pennachetti’s response here.

Council will also consider approving a work plan for the Mayor Tory’s SmartTrack proposal to operate frequent above-ground rapid transit service along GO Transit rail corridors. You can read the City staff report here.

It will also review a report from the Medical Officer of Health on strategies to prevent suicide in Toronto. The Board of Health approved this report, but asked Council to direct and provide funding to the TTC so that it could improve passenger safety, including preventing suicide, and realize significant benefits from completing automatic train control to upgrade the signal system by:

• including platform-edge doors or other means for restricting unauthorized access to the subway tracks by members of the public when designing all future rapid transit stations; and
• retrofiting current stations with platform-edge doors or other means for restricting unauthorized access.

Finally, council will discuss a member motion from Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti to reconsider its position about the proposed light rail transit line along Finch Avenue West and reaffirm its support for the “Scarborough Subway”. You can read Councillor Mammoliti’s motion here.

City Council meets in the Council Chamber at City Hall, 100 Queen Street West, starting 9:30 a.m. today, Tuesday, February 10. The meeting likely continues tomorrow, Wednesday, February 11 and Thursday, February 12.

You can view the agenda for the meeting here.