You’ll have to wait at least two more years for subway, Vaughan
Earliest Vaughan Metropolitan Centre subway station - at Jane Street and Hwy. 7 - could open is fall of 2017

YorkRegion.com
March 21, 2015
By Tim Kelly

You’ll have to wait at least another two years before you get to ride the Red Rocket into downtown Toronto, York Region.

What has been long suspected was confirmed Friday by Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) CEO Andy Byford when he told a news conference in Toronto that the Toronto-Spadina Subway extension is now officially at least two years overdue and $150 million over budget.

That means the earliest the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre subway station - at Jane Street and Hwy. 7 - will open for riders will be the fall of 2017.

When it was first proposed back in 2008, the station was targeted for a 2015 opening.

But multiple delays pushed the date back at least one year to fall 2016 and yesterday Byford admitted the project is now at least two years behind schedule.

“There are challenges ahead of us. This is still not going to be easy. To have it done by the end of 2017, certain issues must be addressed,” Byford said.

On Thursday, two of the top managers who had been in charge of the project were fired by Byford.

“It’s not the first management change I’ve made at the TTC, it may not be the last,” he said of the firings. He added the changes in staffing mean he now “expects to be accountable.”

Byford said there was an 18 month delay that caused problems with the project back in 2007 when the project had a funding delay. “That 18 months was not added to the project schedule. The project schedule was compressed, I’m not going to hide behind the fact, it was the TTC, that did agree to it at the time.”

The TTC CEO also said tensions between the transit authority and its contractors has led to delays and problems with contractors.

“Unless we change the dynamic between our relationships with our project team and the contractors we risk a much later opening date,” Byford said.

Byford’s news conference and announcement comes a few weeks after Toronto Mayor John Tory spoke to the media about his frustration with the project’s delays and cost overruns. At that time, Tory said he believed it might be time to have the TTC get out of the business of managing transit construction projects.