Scarborough subway moves forward as Tory rejects value-for-money analysis

Subway advocates say the time for study is done, even as city staff confirm they have never compared the one-stop subway extension with a competing plan for light-rail transit.

Thestar.com
March 28, 2017
By Jennifer Pagliaro

Mayor John Tory and his allies have rejected a request for a value-for-money comparison between the proposed one-stop subway extension and a light-rail alternative before voting to move forward with the $3.35 billion subway plan.

“We’ve got to get on with this,” Tory told reporters after the vote Tuesday night, following arguments he made at council that no one would doubt it was a wise investment decades from now. “I think there’s been plenty of sources of information put in front of people.”

For hours earlier on the floor of the council chamber, city staff - including the head of the public service, city manager Peter Wallace - repeatedly explained they had been directed by council to bring forward a subway plan and that they had never been directed to do the comparison with an LRT, nor had it ever been provided.

Asked if it was possible to conclude the subway is better value for money, Wallace said, “We obviously would not know the answer to that in advance of doing the work.”

Councillor Josh Matlow made a motion to ask staff to provide that business case analysis. The motion failed 27 to 17 without Tory’s support.

Council voted 26 to 18 to advance the design work of a 6.2-kilometre subway tunnel aligned with McCowan Ave. to the Scarborough Town Centre.

“I think it’s reckless, it’s irresponsible and it’s disappointing,” Matlow said after the vote. “Whether one believes that we should have one mode of transit versus another, at the very least I think we should expect that the decision and the debate be based on factual information and evidence and anything other than that should have no place in this room.”

The failed motion followed a tense question-and-answer period at council, with staff providing a unified statement to council on whether the subway or an LRT was a wise investment.

“Staff are at this point responding to city council direction. City council direction has been towards the development of a subway that was originally envisioned as three (stops) now going forward as an express subway,” Wallace said.

“I have been vocal in my discomfort with some of the original planning associated with this, particularly the tendency to fix budgets and fix times on the basis of both very little design and very little information.”

Wallace dismissed a controversial briefing note provided by the TTC ahead of a July debate that cast doubt on whether it was feasible to return to the seven-stop LRT, which would have been fully funded by the province.

Wallace said the original seven-stop plan would require “considerable modification” to account for changes to the planned network in Scarborough, including a proposed GO station at Lawrence Ave.

“The TTC did do a very quick briefing note to indicate that but, frankly, those costs are not known.”

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote, Tory used claims of 15 to 20 minutes in overall travel time savings each way with a subway - claims which have not been substantiated by either the staff or independent analysis. On Tuesday, Tory again defended that claim and chastised reporters for questioning it, saying it was based on the “experiences” of Scarborough residents.

“For those people, it is a fact,” Tory said under questioning from Matlow.

“It’s not just a fact just because you say it’s a fact,” Matlow replied.

Potential funding pitfalls remain with the plan advanced Tuesday.

The city’s chief financial officer, Rob Rossini, told council that the plan assumed the $1.48 billion committed by the province for a subway in 2010 dollars would be escalated to $1.99 billion. He said the province, however, is contending it is only $1.77 billion - leaving a $220 million gap.

Council also voted Tuesday to tie the one-stop extension together with a proposed 17-stop LRT extension along Eglinton Ave. E. that staff pitched as an improved network for Scarborough and a better use of $3.56 billion in available funds.

But since that plan was brought forward in January 2016, costs of the one-stop subway have ballooned to $3.35 billion with other necessary financing costs not yet included, leaving virtually no funding for the LRT line. Staff were asked to provide a funding plan for the LRT in the second quarter of next year.