Former MPP Del Duca 'influenced' choice of Vaughan GO train station: report

Metrolinx 'inappropriately' backed Kirby GO station after Del Duca's meddling: auditor general

Yorkregion.com
December 6, 2018
Lisa Queen

Former transportation minister Steven Del Duca “clearly influenced” Metrolinx to approve a proposed Kirby GO train station in his Vaughan riding, Ontario’s auditor general said.

Metrolinx initially did not recommend Kirby and a proposed Lawrence East GO station in Toronto be built as part of the former Liberal government’s expansion of the GO public transit system, auditor general Bonnie Lysyk said.

Metrolinx’s business analysis originally discounted the Kirby station because it could increase car traffic, reduce the number of people taking public transit and create more greenhouse gases.

But Del Duca and the City of Toronto swayed Metrolinx to approve the stations in their communities, Lysyk said.

“We found that the minister of transportation and the City of Toronto influenced Metrolinx’s decision-making process leading up to the selection of the two stations. As a consequence, Metrolinx inappropriately changed its recommendation on the Kirby and Lawrence East stations,” she said in her Dec. 5 report.

“Metrolinx’s initial business cases concluded that the stations’ costs and disadvantages significantly outweighed their benefits. Metrolinx overrode that conclusion and recommended its board approve them because the minister of transportation and the City of Toronto had made it clear they wanted these stations.”

Del Duca, who lost in the June provincial election, could not be immediately reached for comment.

But he had earlier issued a statement after Metrolinx approved the two stations, saying having the Kirby station in his riding would have a positive impact on the community.

Del Duca pointed to Metrolinx data showing benefits of $437 million over 60 years.

“It will ultimately provide access for more than 10,000 daily trips on higher order transit and will help to serve the explosive population growth anticipated in northern Vaughan over the next 10 to 15 years,” he said.

However, Del Duca didn’t use legislated channels to direct Metrolinx, which would have made it clear to the public that the government was overriding Metrolinx’s business decision, Lysyk said in her report.

Instead, he and Toronto influenced Metrolinx to override its own GO station planning process, the report said.

In addition, the Ministry of Transportation issued media releases announcing the Kirby and Lawrence East stations before the Metrolinx board even met to make its final recommendations, the report said.

Metrolinx’s response to the influence was to make the Kirby and Lawrence East evaluation results look better, Lysyk said.

“Metrolinx’s lack of a rigorous transit-planning process that weighs all costs and benefits against established criteria enabled Metrolinx to deviate from the recommendations of the original business-case analyses and find a way to justify building the Kirby and Lawrence East stations,” she said.

Metrolinx moved the two stations from its not recommended category to a new low performing stations category and the remaining not recommended stations to a very low performing category.

In a June 28, 2106 report to the Metrolinx board, it was recommended the board approve all but the very low performing stations.