City wants to look at improved methods to manage TTC capital projects

‘It is our basic responsibility to look at other ways to manage these,’ says mayor


Insidetoronto.com
March 26, 2015
By David Nickle

Toronto’s Executive Committee voted to look at finding better ways to manage construction of the Scarborough subway extension - and turned its back on a request to build two more subways instead of light rail lines on Sheppard Avenue East and Finch Avenue West.

The two separate subway matters were before Mayor John Tory’s March 25 Executive Committee meeting.

Mayor Tory himself brought forward the motion from TTC Chair Josh Colle, to ask the City Manager to look at different ways to manage large TTC capital projects, so as to make cost overruns such as were revealed on the Spadina Subway extension less likely.

It was revealed earlier this month that the Spadina subway extension to Vaughan is now $400 million over budget and won’t be able to open on schedule.

The motion spoke of examining among other things public private partnerships - so-called P3s - to manage the TTC’s next big subway project, the Scarborough extension from Kennedy Station.

Colle spoke in favour of the motion despite some reservations from councillors about ceding control of the project to a private company over the TTC’s own management.

“There’s a lot of blame to go around,” said Colle, pointing out that the problems with the Spadina extension weren’t simply the fault of the TTC and the two managers who lost their jobs over the overrun.

Colle said that it might be worth paying a small premium up front to a private sector partner, if that meant that the city was protected from unexpected cost-overruns.

Tory, meanwhile, was strongly in favour of looking at new ways of doing business and dismissed arguments that bringing in private-sector management would harm the TTC.

“We have to put aside some of the polarization that happens with these discussions,” said Tory. “Whenever we have something that looks at options to do do things differently we have people come and say this will be the end of transit.”

He pointed out that “it hasn’t worked out well” when the TTC has managed projects in the past.

“It is our basic responsibility to look at other ways to manage these.”

Willowdale Councillor David Shiner took it a step further.

“I think it’s time to be the end of the TTC as you know it,” he said. “I think the service delivery out there ... needs to be fixed.”

The committee voted to ask for the study-and then sat down to lengthy deputations on a motion from York West Councillor George Mammoliti and newly-elected Scarborough-Agincourt Councillor Jim Karygiannis, asking that two light rail projects by Metrolinx along Finch and Sheppard be scrapped, and subways considered there instead.

Mammoliti kicked off the debate early in the day by bringing Mayor Tory a Subway sandwich, and joking that the submarine sandwich maker does not sell an LRT sandwich.

He said that businesses along Finch West are worried that the light rail line will disrupt truck traffic, and told the committee that the LRT “is going to be a disaster. Please stop it now before it’s too late. You will get resistance.”

Deputations took the committee meeting into early evening, with every member of the public there arguing strenuously against the proposal.

Mammoliti had left the committee at that point but Karygiannis sparred with some of the deputants, wondering if they were aware of the level of resistance to the provincially-funded Sheppard subway.

He asked Scarborough resident Brenda Thompson if she was “aware that a large number of people in Ward 39 want a subway?”

Thompson responded that she wasn’t sure what “a large number” meant.

“I’m not really against a subway per se,” she said. “i’m more interested in getting transit to the outer neighbourhoods of Scarborough. Right now, we don’t have enough density to warrant a subway.”

The deputations repeated the theme, and continued even after Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong wearily indicated he intended to move a motion to defer the matter indefinitely — effectively killing the issue.

At the end, Karygiannis only spoke briefly to ask for a report, and the committee followed Minnan-Wong’s lead.