Metrolinx finally releases report on controversial GO stations
The transit agency said it withheld the study for 15 months after the decisive vote in order to correct grammar, factual errors.

TheStar.com
Oct. 1, 2017
Ben Spurr

Fifteen months after Metrolinx approved two controversial new GO Transit stations, the agency has released the internal report that recommended against building the stops.

The study, which was prepared by consultants, ranked new stations Metrolinx considered for addition to the GO network last year.

As the Star previously reported, it determined Kirby and Lawrence East stations shouldn’t be considered for another decade. Despite that evidence, the Metrolinx board voted in June 2016 to proceed with the stops.

Kirby is in the Vaughan riding of Liberal MPP and Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca, and Lawrence East in Scarborough is part of Mayor John Tory’s “SmartTrack” plan. Internal documents show the board initially decided not to support the stations, but changed course after being pressured by Del Duca’s ministry.

A draft version of the report was leaked to the Star in June, but on Friday the agency posted it on its website, making the analysis public for the first time.

Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins confirmed board members, who are appointed on the recommendation of the minister, were provided with a draft of the report before the vote “to aid with their decision making.”

Although the version the board saw was not substantially different from the one posted Friday, Aikins said Metrolinx didn’t make the report public until now because it “was a work in progress and needed revisions before it was considered final.”

The report’s conclusions and data weren’t altered, according to Aikins. Instead “the revisions focused on grammar changes, readability and factual errors or overstatements.”

Ontario PC transportation critic Michael Harris said it shouldn’t have taken so long for Metrolinx to make those revisions. He argued the report should have been ready to publish at the time of the vote.

“I would hope that when a board like Metrolinx is about to render a decision on hundreds and millions of dollars worth of taxpayers’ money, that they would have a report that contained all of the facts, and that would be in its final form,” he said.

Kirby would cost an estimated $100 million to build, while Lawrence East is expected to cost $23 million. They were among 12 new stations the board approved as part of Metrolinx’s $13.5-billion regional express rail expansion program.

Harris, who represents Kitchener-Conestoga, said if the report had been published before the vote, Metrolinx would have had to explain to the public why it was rejecting analysis it had commissioned.

“I still don’t think we’ve had that explanation yet from Metrolinx or the minister on why the decision was made, other than political interference,” he said.

As a result of the Star’s ongoing investigation into the station approval process, Metrolinx said earlier this month that from now on it will publish reports about projects before they are put to a vote.

The report released Friday was prepared by the AECOM engineering firm. It analyzed the business cases for 24 proposed stations and ranked them from best to lowest performing.

Criteria used to rank the stops included whether stations would provide benefits that exceeded their costs, meet strategic objectives, contribute to the overall fit of the network, and allow GO to maintain rapid express rail service.

The report also considered how certain “sensitivity scenarios” — including the proposed redevelopment of the Unilever site and allowing passengers to board at Toronto stops for the same price as a TTC fare — would impact stations’ performance.

After being put through the analysis, Kirby ranked last out of seven potential new stations on GO’s Barrie line. Although the Metrolinx board approved Kirby, it rejected two stations that ranked above it, St. Clair West and Highway 7 Concord.

Lawrence East ranked fourth out of five proposed stops on the Stouffville line. The three stops ahead of it were also approved.

Emails obtained by the Star show that in June 2016, the Metrolinx board met in private and approved a list of 10 stations that didn’t include Kirby or Lawrence East. The following day, Del Duca’s ministry sent the agency news releases showing he planned to announce stops the board hadn’t supported. Twelve days later the board reconvened in public and voted to approve Kirby and Lawrence East.

Del Duca has said he provided “input” into the station approval process, but has declined to answer specific questions about his role, dismissing the events as “historical details.”

He has said he believes “several significant residential and employment developments” planned around the Kirby site will justify a new GO station there.

Earlier this month Metrolinx announced it would review the two stations, and the agency and Del Duca have both stated neither will be built if the additional analysis doesn’t support them. The review is expected to be completed by February. It will not examine the role political interference played in the approval process.

On Wednesday, the all-party public accounts committee at Queen’s Park voted to ask the auditor general to perform a “value-for-money” audit of Kirby and Lawrence East. She is expected to include the review in her 2018 annual report, which will be released around November.