Transportation minister gave ‘input’ on controversial GO station in his riding

Steven Del Duca says decision to approve new rail stop in Vaughan was a “collaborative” one with provincial transit agency.

Thestar.com
June 22, 2017
By Ben Spurr

Ontario’s transportation minister said he contributed “input” to the provincial transit agency’s decision to approve a new GO station that will be in his riding and which a secret internal report determined should not be built.

Minister Steven Del Duca also asserted that demand for the new station would be “off the charts.” But a government analysis found the stop would actually cause a net loss in transit ridership.

At a Wednesday event to mark the groundbreaking for a new downtown bus terminal and office complex, Del Duca was asked about his role in the approval of Kirby GO station in his Vaughan riding.

As the Star reported Sunday, an internal report commissioned by Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, recommended that Kirby not be considered for construction for at least another 10 years. The report has not been made public, but a copy was obtained by the Star.

An initial business case for Kirby released in March determined the station’s negative effects on the transit system and the economy outweighed any potential benefits.

Despite those reports, the Metrolinx board approved Kirby last June, along with 11 other new GO stations as part of the province’s regional express rail program. The station is expected to cost $125.7 million to build and operate over the next six decades.

Asked whether he directed the agency to approve Kirby, Del Duca responded that the approval process was a “collaborative effort” between Metrolinx and him. “Throughout the deliberation process on this, I had the opportunity to provide input, and I did,” he said.

“I have been a long-standing supporter of the Kirby GO station, as the MPP for the community and (as) someone who understands not only what the current plans are in the community, but on a go-forward basis what those evolving plans are.”
Asked what his input was, Del Duca said: “My input was that, not just for Kirby but across the board, when you look at some of the circumstances that exist, that we have to take into account a holistic or an entire picture.”

He said that over the next 10 to 15 years “literally tens of thousands of new people” are expected to move into the Northern Vaughan area, and they will need access to transit.

Del Duca predicted demand for the Kirby stop would be “off the charts.”

Asked why the Metrolinx analyses didn’t reflect his prediction of high demand for Kirby, Del Duca said “there are other considerations that have to be taken into account in terms of the broader growth potential” around the station.

He suggested the reports commissioned by Metrolinx, which analyzed potential new stations according to a methodology developed by the transit agency, didn’t fully capture development potential near Kirby because they focused on the 800-metre radius around the station.

He said the city of Vaughan and York Region had provided information to Metrolinx about projected density in the wider area around the Kirby site, which showed it could support an express rail line in the future.

He said the government needs to ensure it isn’t building transit “for what we anticipate in this moment or in the next couple of years.

“We have to build for what we know is coming in the near and long-term,” he said.

“I don’t want to be in a position to say later on to individuals or to communities ... ‘we missed an opportunity to provide you with that higher order transit access in relative proximity to where you live, so you’re going to keep taking your car.’”

The initial business case for Kirby station examined the potential performance of the stop over a 60-year period. It determined that by 2031 more than 5,100 people would use the stop every day, but more than half of them would be existing GO riders who currently use the nearby Maple and King City stations.

But the report predicted that the additional time it would take for trains to stop at Kirby would make GO service less attractive for “upstream” riders on the Barrie line and cause about 3 per cent of them to take their cars instead.

That would lead to a net loss of 188 daily riders on the line, which over 60 years would mean 688.1 million more kilometres driven on the region’s roads.

The business case determined that the “benefits which could be realized by a Kirby station are not large enough to outweigh the anticipated negative impacts to GO Transit and the economy” but didn’t make a recommendation about whether to proceed with it.

However, the internal report obtained by the Star recommended not proceeding with Kirby. Consultants hired by Metrolinx ranked all the stations under consideration and determined Kirby was one of seven stops that “should not be considered further during the next 10 years.” It found the projected density around the site didn’t support express rail service.

Kirby ranked last out of seven proposed new stations on the Barrie line. Two stations that ranked above it were not approved.

The Metrolinx board approved two of the seven stops the report recommended not be built: Kirby and Lawrence East, which is part of Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack plan.