I'll digress from the the topic as well for the moment.
Here's a couple of speculative options:
1) Metrolinx hoped these projects would happen and made the RER budget larger than it needed to be with the hopes deals with CP and CN would be struck.
Quite possible, maybe not by padding the books. The mixed freight-GO plan needed some big ticket items eg flyovers. The cost of the bypass plus the simpler enhancements to the Mount Pleasant line (much less required assuming it's freight-free) may be close to cost-neutral to what ML was budgeting pre-bypass.
I doubt that any of enhanced KW, Bowmanville or Niagara were ever in the envelope, because they were omitted from study under the RER BCS. Those parts seem to have been added at the political level. The ML presentation takes pains to point out that these are new projects. That's the kind of position that the bureaucracy makes when they are changing the budget numbers and don't want new deliverables attached to previously allocated funding.
The RER envelope is still notional - nobody really knows yet what the RER equipment, electrification and related signalling, and station costs may be. I'm sure the numbers contain a healthy amount of float. I doubt, however, that ML would give up that float so early in the RER program - they need the contingency funding. Hence the emphasis on needing an added budget line. That leaves the Province as the bad guy if something in RER has to be cut or deferred.
2) The Province will simply increase the budget.
Ulp. One man's simple spending increase is another man's drunken sailor in action. I suspect someone in MOT or Finance has an ugly looking spreadsheet that documents this point.
The reality is, this is all spending that won't kick in for a few years and the statement (per the Capital report to the upcoming Board meeting) it will all conclude concurrently in 2025 is a bit fanciful. There will be lots of juggling. The government that has to declare that it won't all fit may not be the party that made this plan.
3) Del Duca will re-allocate funding from other Big Move projects, like the money Brampton said no to for the HMLRT. I realize that money wouldn't be enough for the bypass/Bowmanville/Niagara but it's a start.
I will bet that the Richmond Hill GO of 2025 looks a lot like today's service.
4) The Federal government will make up the difference in Phase II of their infrastructure spending.
Some of the recent Phase I announcements effectively returned money to the Province on items that the Province previously expected to fund themselves. I would bet we see more of this. For instance - The RER fleet procurement might be partly funded if the right Canadian builder won the bid. I bet VIA is asked to fund improvements for the longer-distance services.
As per # 2, it may be a matter of recovering a little here, a little there, as Ottawa kicks in funding for various things, and proceeding as funds permit.
- Paul
