How Ford’s transit plans could impact Toronto

Thestar.com
March 28, 2019
Ben Spurr

The provincial government’s push to take over Toronto’s transit network could throw into chaos city plans that are underway or in development.

While Premier Doug Ford wants to build more subways in the city and beyond, some Toronto councillors say the province’s proposal will only cause more delays.

TTC subway cars make their way along the Yonge St. line around the Rosedale subway station. In newly released letters to the city, the province says it intends to take over Toronto's subway system in order to make radical changes to four major transit projects.

“The risk here is further, and further, and further delays to actually build transit,” said Councillor Joe Cressy (Ward 12, Spadina--Fort York) on Wednesday.

But the province argues that by taking responsibility for new lines it can use its greater financial leverage to accelerate projects.

Here’s what the province’s proposed changes could mean for four key lines:

Downtown Relief Line

City and TTC staff have spent the past five years advancing design work for the proposed 7.4-kilometre subway--long considered by experts to be the city’s most pressing transit priority--which would connect the eastern end of the Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) subway to Line 1 (Yonge-University-Spadina) downtown.

Last October the line reached an important milestone when the city and Metrolinx completed their environmental assessment, a necessary step before moving to the construction phase.

The line had a tentative completion date of 2031 but earlier this month council approved a plan to spend $325 million over two years to bring forward its opening to 2029.

That planning could go out the window if the province has its way. Ford’s government envisions a very different version of the relief line, built using unspecified “alternative delivery methods” that would create a “truly unique transit artery” separate from other parts of the subway system.

City and TTC officials told council that provincial representatives have so far been tight-lipped about their vision for the line.

“They have not given us any specifics whatsoever,” said TTC chief executive Rick Leary.

“They talk about different elevations, they talk about a lighter train. The slope and the taper of the rail. But no specifics.”

The lack of details led Councillor Mike Colle (Ward 8, Eglinton-Lawrence) to quip that Queen’s Park was planning “a magic carpet ride in the sky.”

In an email, a spokesperson for Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek said “the new relief line will be a subway” but the government is “open to new ideas and technologies that will help us to deliver subway lines better, faster and smarter.”

It’s not clear how many stops the province’s version of the relief line would have, where it would run, and by when it would be complete.

Eglinton West LRT

The Eglinton West light-rail transit (LRT) line would be an extension of the under-construction Eglinton Crosstown LRT that would run from Mount Dennis toward Pearson airport. The city has been planning it since late 2014.

The province wants to put a “significant portion” of the Eglinton West line underground, an option that city staff have already studied and advised against.

In a 2017 report, they determined tunnelling or elevating the LRT for portions of the nine-kilometre route would add between $881.9 million and $1.32 billion to the cost, and concluded the expense wouldn’t outweigh the benefits.

James Perttula, the city’s director of transit and transportation planning, told council that because the line was still in its early design phases, it was difficult to say if burying it would delay its opening. But he said “certainly building the tunnelled structure as opposed to an at-grade LRT would take longer.”

Scarborough subway extension

The Ford government’s stated intention is to convert the one-stop extension of Line 2 to a three-stop project.

Although previous versions of the three-stop extension would terminate at Sheppard Ave. E., the minister’s spokesperson would only say Wednesday that the province would push the line “beyond the existing planned terminus at the Scarborough Town Centre.”

Adding two stations would dramatically increase the cost, but it’s unclear by how much. Previous city estimates put the three-stop version of the plan at $4.6 billion, compared to $3.35 billion for the one-stop plan--although city staff say an updated estimate, to be released in a report next week, put the cost of the one-stop version “just shy” of $3.9 billion. It’s not clear if the three-stop plan has also grown more expensive.

The province has floated the idea of enlisting private developers to pick up the costs of the additional two stops in exchange for development or air rights near the line, although experts doubt such a scheme could raise the hundreds of millions of dollars required.

According to a city spokesperson, next week’s report will recommend council put the one-stop plan out to tender, which would mark a major step to completing the project. The city has previously said construction could start next year, with a tentative completion date of 2026, by which time the aging Scarborough RT that the subway would replace is expected to reach the end of its service life.

Councillor Shelley Carroll (Ward 17, Don Valley North) said that stopping that work and designing a three-stop version would ensure nothing gets built for the foreseeable future.

“Scarborough will have nothing for 12 more years,” she said.

Yonge North Extension

The province wants to advance planning work for a 7.4-kilometre extension of Line 1 to Richmond Hill “in parallel” with work for the relief line, in order to ensure the extension’s opening date is “fast-tracked to the greatest extent possible.”

That runs counter to the position of city and TTC officials, who are adamant the relief line open before the Yonge extension. They argue the extension would only add passengers to the already crowded Line 1, and congestion will become unmanageable if the relief line isn’t already open to provide an alternative route downtown.

“We’ve been very clear that if there’s an order to these projects that the Yonge extension would not be a first priority,” city manager Chris Murray told council Wednesday.

While Yurek, the transport minister, has in the past said it “makes sense” to open the relief line first, his spokesperson wouldn’t commit to that sequencing Wednesday.

“Both the downtown relief line and the Yonge North extension can be built in parallel. Our government will work to ensure that this is done in a way that addresses congestion,” wrote Mike Winterburn.