It’s official. Ana Bailao is running for Toronto’s mayor.

A Toronto Star report says the former city councillor and deputy mayor confirmed in an interview on Thursday she will enter the race.

And if she wins, Bailao says she will make reversing TTC cuts and off-loading municipal highways to the province her top priorities.

Bailao explains that in order to increase ridership on the TTC, the only way to do this is to have a safe and reliable and convenient service.

And in order to provide funding to undo recent cuts to transit, Bailao plans to press the governing Ford PCs to take over Toronto’s two municipally owned highways, the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway.

There are early indications the East End Gardiner Refurbishment Project will be among the issues in the Toronto mayoral byelection race.

Former Toronto Mayor David Crombie told Zoomer Radio’s Fight Back with Libby Znaimer, the benefits for the future are doubtful in terms of the amount of money that’s being spent, and he says he would just take it down. Listen to the full conversation by clicking here.

The current plan for the Gardiner Expressway East work is to realign the expressway from Jarvis Street to approximately Logan Avenue, and help transform the area to improve transportation corridors and provide more efficient public transit and new public facilities.

The $1-billion dollar project was given the go ahead by Toronto city council more than 6 years ago.

Nominations for the Toronto mayoral byelection officially open April 3rd.

The byelection is June 26th.