With the Toronto municipal election a mere two months away, mayoral candidate Jennifer Keesmaat, took to the airways to announce a transit plan that includes making the King Street Pilot permanent and building the Relief Line three years earlier.

The announcement for Keesmaat’s Network Transit Plan came on Thursday the 30th of August, 2018. The plan is bold, ambitious, and highlights major areas in Toronto’s Public transit system. The idea is to deliver shorter commute times to every area in the city.

According to Keesmaat, John Tory's transit vision for Toronto was “a political promise drawn on the back of a napkin.” She then went on to unveil her own plan for the city’s transit future.

The former chief city planner told reporters that her plan includes a blueprint for decades of development and goes beyond “election cycles.”

“This is about real transit and a real plan for the City of Toronto over the long term,” she said.

Keesmaat broke down her plan into seven key components. They include:

• Build the downtown relief line by 2028, three years sooner than current projections.
• Make the King Street pilot project permanent, a move that Keesmaat called "low-hanging fruit."
• "Unsnarl the mess" in Scarborough by building the Scarborough subway with provincial funds and cancel the eastern extensions of Tory's SmartTrack plan.
• Extend the Eglinton LRT to Pearson airport.
• Implement "enhanced bus service" in areas where it makes sense.
• Design and build the Jane LRT.
• Complete the Waterfront LRT.

Before she made her announcement, observed wondered if she would lend her support to any of the provincial government’s controversial plan to create a three-stop subway extension in Scarborough, a plan that would cost $4.6 billion.

“I think the province is going to do it no matter what, I think that's very clear,” Keesmaat said.

Keesmaat instead suggested an alternative; that the city uses the capital investment it saves from the province covering the cost of the Scarborough walkway to construct the eastern component of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.

Keesmaat who was once a co-worker of Tory during her tenure at city hall also took the opportunity to explain her criticism of John Tory’s SmartTrack plan; a plan that has been considerably diluted since it was introduced in 2014 during the last municipal election campaign.

"SmartTrack was a distraction. SmartTrack was a mirage. It took us away from building a true transit network," she told reporters gathered at a downtown YWCA.

Mayor John Tory also issued a statement after hearing Keesmaat’s announcement saying  the only thing new in the plan is more chaos and further delays.”

“Her plan is a risky proposition and that means nothing is getting built. We’re going back to the bad old days of endless debates, endless re-drafts,and endless talks,” says the statement.

“Toronto needs a mayor who will end the talk and get on with building. Someone who will stick with [a] plan; a plan developed by City transit experts, approved by Council, and funded by the other governments. This is what Mayor John Tory has done and what he will continue to do.”