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Council unanimously approves streetcar purchase from Bombardier

$568-million deal will purchase 60 new streetcars, upgrades at TTC's Hillcrest yard

Torontosun.com
May 27, 2021
Bryan Passifiume

Just one day after TTC commissioners voted to amend their capital budget, Toronto City Council voted unanimously to approve the purchase of 60 new streetcars.

The vote took place Wednesday at a special meeting to vote on plans to increase the city’s initial order of 13 streetcars, approved by council last October.

“Anticipating a positive outcome, this will be a great day for transit in the city of Toronto,” said Mayor John Tory during the meeting, adding the new vehicles will ensure the city has an “upgraded and reliable” transit system for when the city emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purchase -- an extension of the city’s original $1.2-billion contract with Bombardier -- comes after the announcement earlier this month of a $10-billion transit funding grant from the federal government, and will cost a total of $568-million -- $180-million from both Ottawa and Queen’s Park, and $208-million from city coffers.

Meeting funding obligations will involve withdrawing $65.8-million from Toronto-York-Spadina extension project’s capital reserve fund, prompting Coun. Anthony Perruzza to ask how the withdrawal will impact the project -- the only question asked during the 25-minute meeting.

“Based on work that’s been completed and funds that have been allocated, we’re able to leverage those reserve funds for appropriate use,” said Executive Director of Financial Planning Steve Conforti, explaining the city’s share is being funded by transferring council-approved debt from one project to another.

This deal comes a little more than two years after the city settled a lawsuit against Bombardier for numerous delivery delays in their initial order of the new low-floor Flexity Outlook streetcars.

In 2016, Tory and then-TTC chair Mike Colle authored an open letter to Bombardier, accusing the company of a “complete failure to perform.”

What’s changed between now and then, Tory said, is that Bombardier got their act together.

“They knew -- if they didn’t pick up their socks and get onto a delivery schedule that was acceptable and had streetcars that were well put together -- that we wouldn’t buy the other ones,” he said.

“After 2016, where they were delivering the last ones under the initial phase of that contract on exactly the schedule they said it would, and the streetcars were performing well.”