Ford official outlines major changes to Toronto transit, claims costs of Relief Line, Scarborough subway have soared

Yokregion.com
March 27, 2019
Ben Spurr

In newly released letters that could signal a major shakeup of Toronto transit plans, provincial officials have detailed big changes Premier Doug Ford’s government intends to make to four projects as part of his government’s proposal to take ownership of the city’s subway network.

The provincial officials also claimed in the correspondence that the estimated costs of two planned Toronto subways have doubled, a contention city officials firmly denied Tuesday evening.

The pair of letters are addressed to TTC CEO Rick Leary and city manager Chris Murray from Michael Lindsay, the special adviser Ford appointed on his government’s plan to “upload” the subway network to Queen’s Park, and co-signed by deputy transportation minister Shelley Tapp.

They were posted by the city Tuesday afternoon and are expected to be debated by Toronto council Wednesday as part of a previously released report by city staff on discussions with the province.

In the first of the letters, dated March 22, Lindsay referenced a March 8 meeting with city officials and stated “it is evident that we are not aligned on key issues related to the design/delivery of priority expansion projects.”

“It is also clear that this lack of alignment is likely to persist until the responsibility for the design/delivery of these projects is transferred to the province,” he said.
Lindsay cited incongruities between the city’s and Queen’s Park’s positions on four projects:

• The Scarborough subway extension, which the Ontario government wants to convert from a one- to three-stop extension.
• The Eglinton West LRT, which Lindsay said should be put underground for a “significant portion” of its route, instead of running mostly at-grade as the city intends.
• The Relief Line, which the province proposes to build using unspecified “alternative delivery methods” that would create a “truly unique transit artery” and “free-standing project” separate from other parts of the “technologically outdated” subway system.
• The Yonge North Extension to Richmond Hill, work for which the province proposes should “progress in parallel to the Relief Line” in order to accelerate its opening date “to the greatest extent possible.”

Some of the province’s proposed changes, like adding stops in Scarborough and speeding up the Yonge extension, were already public.
But the proposal to build the Relief Line using alternate technology is particularly unexpected. The letters don’t say what the technology would be or what benefits it would deliver.

Lindsay wrote that to speed up work on the four projects, “the province is actively considering significant financial commitments.” But those commitments would come with conditions in the form of an “expectation that the province will have a leadership in the planning, design, and delivery of these projects.”

On his regular call-in show on CP24 Tuesday evening, Mayor John Tory said he was not surprised by the letters after transit promises Ford made during the provincial election, but he argued it wouldn’t be in the city’s interest to walk away from discussions with the province.

“Does it mean I agree with him? No. Because they’re inconsistent with our transit plan that has been approved by the city council.”

Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 4, Parkdale-High Park) warned the province’s plans would mean scrapping years worth of planning work and severely delay delivery of new lines.

“It’s Ford transit fantasy season two. We got absolutely nothing built when Rob Ford was the mayor because he scrapped all the existing (Transit City LRT) plans and came up with his own impossible-to-deliver plan. Now his brother, the premier, is doing exactly the same thing -- he’s scrapping all the work we’ve done and come up with an impossible-to-deliver fantasy,” Perks said.

Tory said the city “can’t afford” any delays building new transit and Torontonians would be best served if the subway remained in the city’s control with more funding from the province.

Tory said he’d be open to parts of the Eglinton West line being buried, assuming the province paid the additional cost. He stressed there shouldn’t be changes to the Relief Line design and noted the Scarborough subway is already moving towards approval for construction as a one-stop extension.
In the March 22 letter, Lindsay wrote the city’s cost projections for the Scarborough subway extension and the first phase of the Relief Line “have significantly increased to nearly double or greater than the figures released publicly.”

The comment was apparently based on figures the TTC and city provided at the March 8 meeting.

In a followup letter dated Tuesday, Lindsay appeared to walk back the statement, acknowledging that the cost estimates for the Relief Line and Scarborough subway that city officials had shared were not finalized and “actual budget figures remain to be determined.”

Previous estimates put the cost of the Relief Line at $6.8 billion, and the one-stop version of the Scarborough project at $3.35 billion. If those estimates doubled, the cost of the two projects would be more than $20 billion combined.

City spokesperson Brad Ross said Tuesday evening that costs for the projects “have not doubled.”

Ross said neither the city nor the TTC provided any figures to the province to suggest the cost had doubled, but he wouldn’t say what the city’s current cost estimates for the lines are, or what numbers it had shared with Queen’s Park.

In a statement, Tory said he hadn’t been briefed on the updated cost estimates for the Scarborough project “except to be told it is not significantly changed from prior estimates.” He made no similar claim about the Relief Line.

Updated cost estimates for both projects are expected to be presented to council next month, according to the mayor’s statement.

Premier Ford’s office declined to comment on the letters Tuesday, but in the past he and members of his government have argued uploading the subway would lead to transit lines being built faster, because the province has more financial resources than the city.

But Perks said that the city had already significantly advanced design of a one-stop Scarborough subway, and consulted with residents on an Eglinton West LRT that would be mostly above ground.

The three-stop version of the Scarborough line was last estimated at $4.6 billion, but additional work on that concept hasn’t been carried forward after council voted in July 2016 to move ahead with the one-stop plan.

A 2017 city staff reported estimated that elevating or burying the Eglinton West LRT just at six key intersections would add between $881.9 million and $1.32 billion to construction costs. The report did not break out extra costs specifically for the underground option.

City staff recommended against either option, saying in all cases the cost of burying or elevating the line at intersections exceeded estimated benefits to commuters and the city over the long run.

In a potential sign of a showdown at city hall Wednesday, Perks, who is a frequent critic of the premier and the mayor on transit, called on council to break off talks with the province and approve a plan to launch a public campaign against the proposed subway takeover.

“People in the public who have been telling us Doug Ford is leading us down the garden path and we have to fight this every inch were right,” he said.

His comments were echoed by Councillor Joe Cressy (Ward 10, Spadina-Fort York), who said he was “speechless” after reading the letters from the province.

“We are the fifth largest government in the country and we are the economic engine of this province and country and we are being treated like children who have been scolded for doing something wrong.”

Cressy said council can’t plan and build a livable city “with a province that with the swipe of pen announces changes to our integrated transit system planning.”
The province has said it intends to introduce legislation on the proposed upload by June.