Finch LRT delayed another year

With the upcoming provincial election casting doubt on the future of the light rail line, Metrolinx now says it can’t be completed until 2023.

Thestar.com
April 19, 2018
Ben Spurr

The Finch West LRT has been delayed yet again, with Metrolinx now saying the $1.2-billion light rail line planned in northwest Toronto won’t open until 2023.

The new completion date is a year later than a 2022 estimate Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency for the GTHA, released last September, and is two years behind the previous estimate.

A Metrolinx spokesperson said Thursday the agency had revised the completion date to 2023 after consultation with Mosaic Transit Group, the consortium the province announced last week had been selected to build the 11-kilometre line.

“They gave us a construction schedule that they believe they can meet, and that was 2023,” said Anne Marie Aikins.

The line would have 18 stops and run between Finch West station on the TTC’s Line 1 subway and Humber College’s North Campus, and is jointly funded by the province and federal government.

In 2015, the province said work on the line would begin the following year and it would open by 2021. Metrolinx conceded last fall it would miss that date, and blamed the setback on problems with its vehicle order from Bombardier.

The latest delay comes as political machinations ahead of the June provincial election threaten to cast uncertainty over the future of the project.

Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford was opposed to building LRTs when he served as a city councillor during the administration of his brother, the late Rob Ford. The pair cast light rail as second-rate transit, and pushed to build more expensive subways, instead.

The PCs, who are leading the incumbent Liberals in the polls, have yet to reveal a detailed platform, but Ford has told reporters he would put all transit projects under review. A portion of the Finch LRT would run through the Etobicoke North riding where Ford intends to seek election.

According to Metrolinx, the agency has already spent $228 million on the LRT.

In an emailed statement, Ford did not respond directly to a question about whether he will nix the project if he is elected on June 7.

“I am 100 per cent committed to supporting transit on the Finch corridor; I want to see transit built here,” he said.

Ford stated he was “extremely concerned about the significant delays and the fact that $228 million has been spent without a single shovel in the ground yet: “I want to look into the books and see where this money has gone, but I can assure the people that we will get transit built on this corridor.”

In fact, according to Metrolinx, shovels are already in the ground in order to perform early utility work for the LRT. The rest of the $228 million has gone to studies, engineering, planning, design, land acquisition and legal costs.

A spokesperson for the ministry of transportation said cancelling Finch, which has received the support of city council, would be “reckless.”

“It’s absolutely clear that Doug Ford would be willing to waste over $200 million that has already been spent on this project to date in favour of his own plan. Unlike Doug, we are committed to delivering this project for the people living along Finch Ave.,” said Celso Pereira.

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7 York West), an ally of Ford, is vehemently opposed to the LRT, part of which would run through his ward, and has argued a subway should be built there, instead.

The councillor couldn’t be reached Thursday, but a spokesperson reacted to the new delay by saying Mammoliti has “always had strong feelings against the LRT, and doesn’t feel it should proceed …. He would do anything in his power to stop it.”

Councillor Anthony Perruzza (Ward 8 York West), whose ward would also be served by the LRT, called the latest delay “very disappointing.”

“The Finch line should have been up and running today or a couple of years ago,” he said, adding that the TTC Finch bus is overcrowded and communities in his ward are “perpetually waiting” for better transit.

He said cancelling the project would “be a real, real disservice to this part of the city.”

If the province pulled the plug on the project, Metrolinx would suffer financial penalties for breaking its deal with Alstom. Last May, the company was awarded a $528-million contract to build vehicles for Finch and other LRT lines after delays to the Bombardier order.

Mosaic has yet to sign a contract to build the project, but Aikins said it’s expected to do so “in the coming weeks.” The province would be on the hook for breaking that contract as well.

To cancel or significantly reduce contracts with Alstom and Mosaic could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, on top of the $228 million already sunk into the project.

The Finch project had already suffered many setbacks. When the province announced in 2009 that it would fund the line, it predicted that construction could be completed by about 2013.