Metrolinx is expropriating city-owned land near Union Station for GO expansion

Thestar.com
December 5, 2019
Ben Spurr

Metrolinx is expropriating city-owned land in the heart of downtown in order to push ahead with a new construction project at Union Station.

According to a city staff report going before Mayor John Tory’s executive committee next week, the provincial transit agency has notified the municipality it plans to expropriate a strip of property south of Union because the two sides have failed to reach an agreement for a voluntary sale of the land.

Metrolinx says it needs access to the property soon in order to begin work next September on station modifications that will enable increased GO Transit service at the nation’s busiest rail hub.

“This decision is about building more transit as quickly as possible,” said Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins in an email.

She said the city “will receive fair market value” for the expropriated land.

By law, a government authority expropriating property has to compensate the owner at market rates, and pay damages.

The property slated for expropriation includes two corridor areas that provide access to Union’s southernmost platforms, airspace above York and Bay streets, and access points to Maple Leaf Square.

Neither the city nor Metrolinx would say how much they consider the property to be worth.

The report states Metrolinx has “committed to continuing negotiations with the city while the expropriation process unfolds in the aim of reaching a friendly agreement” to purchase the land.

The planned Metrolinx work includes building a new concourse and constructing wider platforms at Union’s southern end. It’s intended to increase capacity at track level and provide better pedestrian connections to the station.

The city report describes the project as “a positive development,” although it notes “there will be impacts during construction that will need to be actively managed.”

The new work is separate from the ongoing Union Station revitalization project, a joint city, provincial and federal project that was approved in 2009 and was originally supposed to be finished by 2015. It’s now not expected to be complete until the third quarter of 2020, and its cost has grown to $824 million from $640 million.

Disruptive construction at the busy station in recent years has been a major source of frustration for commuters. More than 250,000 people use the station daily, according to the city.

Aikins said the new work will be done “largely behind the scenes without impacting customer flow.” Metrolinx’s upgrades to Union are projected to take five or six years.

Aikins wouldn’t say how much the new work will cost. But it’s expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

In the past, the city and Metrolinx have sparred over financial issues. The provincial agency has so far refused to compensate the TTC for millions of dollars in lost revenue the city transit authority claims is a result of faulty Presto fare card machines, and last year Metrolinx accused the municipality of overstating amounts it was owed by the province for cost overruns on the Union revitalization.

Asked whether the city was confident it would be fairly compensated for the expropriated land , city spokesperson Tammy Robbinson said the municipality “has a long-standing working relationship with Metrolinx on Union Station-related matters and is confident that compensation will be determined appropriately and paid per the terms of any agreement.”