ONTARIO - A $1.2-billion deal to replace Toronto's fleet of aging streetcars is a go after city council voted to put up $834-million - twice its original commitment - to keep the project on track for 2012.

Council voted 36 to 6 at a day-long special meeting yesterday to approve the extra funds after Toronto Mayor David Miller failed to bring the federal government on board to pay for one-third of the project.

He brushed off critics who blamed him for a "slipshod" process that led to the meeting a day before the Toronto Transit Commission's proposed contract with Bombardier Inc. for 204 replacement streetcars was to expire at midnight tonight.

"We have just secured the transit future for this city for a generation," Mr. Miller said, jubilant over a vote he called "extraordinary and historic."

The city had worked in the past six months to nail down $10-billion in transit funds over the next decade from the provincial government, mostly, but also from Ottawa.

"We are changing the face of Toronto through that work," the mayor said.

Others took a dimmer view, questioning the 11th-hour decision-making and the consequences for Toronto in picking up two-thirds of the tab.