City council votes to extend Eglinton LRT to Malvern

Thestar.com
May 22, 2018
Ben Spurr

Toronto city council voted Tuesday to proceed with plans to extend the proposed Eglinton East LRT to Scarborough’s Malvern neighbourhood, despite having no clear plan for how to pay for the project.

At a news conference before the meeting, Mayor John Tory described the LRT project, which would be an eastward extension of the Eglinton Crosstown line currently under construction, as “an important part of the Scarborough network transit plan which has been overwhelmingly supported by the city council.”

He predicted the line would “play an important role in building a stronger, more prosperous, better connected Toronto” and “bring opportunity, investment and access to jobs” to Malvern.

Councillors approved the plan in a vote of 35 to 3.

A shorter version of the Eglinton extension was part of the so-called Scarborough Transit Network Solution that Tory and then-chief city planner Jennifer Keesmaat pitched in January 2016, as the controversial Scarborough subway proposal was whittled down from three stops to one over concerns about its high cost.

The initial version of the Eglinton East LRT would have terminated at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus, south of Hwy. 401, and was originally estimated to cost $1.67 billion.

Staff are now recommending a route that would take the LRT north of the 401 along Morningside Ave., then west along Sheppard Ave. E., and then north again to Neilson Rd. and Sewells Rd.

There is no firm estimate for how much the longer LRT would cost, but city transportation staff told council Tuesday extending it to Malvern would likely add $400 million to the bill. Staff expect to report back on updated designs and cost estimates early next year.

The province and federal government recently announced $9 billion in transit funding for Toronto over the next decade, but it’s still not clear how the money would be split between council’s priority projects, which in addition to the Eglinton East LRT include the relief line subway, Tory’s SmartTrack plan, and the Waterfront LRT.

The estimated price tag of the one-stop subway extension has continued to rise, with the most recent projections setting the cost at $3.35 billion. That would eat up almost all of the $3.56 billion that was originally supposed to pay for both the one-stop subway and the Eglinton East LRT.

Councillor Josh Matlow (Ward 22 St. Paul’s) made a motion Tuesday to scrap the subway extension and use the money to move ahead with a previously approved seven-stop LRT that would replace the existing Scarborough RT.

He argued that, in conjunction with the Eglinton East LRT, it would create a light rail network in Scarborough that would provide better transit options the subway-LRT plan backed by the mayor.

“I think Mayor Tory’s plan is fundamentally wrong and will leave Malvern residents on the bus longer,” Matlow said.

“If we put politics aside and put people first, we would do the right thing. Unfortunately this council isn’t prepared to do the right thing.”

Speaker Frances Nunziata ruled Matlow’s motion out of order on the grounds that the subway plan wasn’t before council.

In addition to extending the line to Malvern, council approved a recommendation to study putting the LRT underground near the intersection of Kingston Rd., Lawrence Ave. and Morningside Ave. to avoid conflicts with car traffic.

The tunnel is expected to add between $249 million to $466 million to the project cost.

City staff said building the LRT would take about four years, and could be completed by 2025.