Pols have botched Scarborough subway
By
Sue-Ann Levy, Toronto Sun
First posted: Tuesday, February 28, 2017 07:02 PM EST | Updated: Tuesday, February 28, 2017 07:14 PM EST
The road to (fiscal) hell is paved with good intentions.
Or is it really when it comes to the now $3.3 billion, one-stop Scarborough subway?
In all my years (18 at last count) monitoring the misfortunes of City Hall, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a file botched so badly.
That’s not saying much.
According to a report headed to next week’s meeting of Mayor John Tory’s executive committee, the cost of the one-stop subway has now escalated to more than $3.3 billion — an increase of $187 million — courtesy of a newly-proposed, below-grade bus terminal to “support the development of Scarborough (civic) centre into a dynamic urban mode.” Or so says the report, along with a proposal that the TTC engage in “holistic scoping” before the project gets to the design stage.
Yikes! Who writes this stuff?
This is not to be confused with the last bright idea from Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat and Deputy City Manager John Livey to align the subway with McCowan Rd. instead of Brimley Rd. (as suggested by the TTC), which upped the cost by $214 million.
I might also mention that hidden in plain sight in the same report is the fact that Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government has only committed about $1.5 billion to date to the project but the city has factored into the plan a cash infusion of nearly $2 billion from the province.
Still with me?
The bottom line is that the would-be subway — the construction of which will not start until at least 2020 — has been subject to political vote-buying (when Education Minister Mitzie Hunter suddenly discovered subways to win her Scarborough-Guildwood seat in 2013), endless flip-flopping and a clash of political egos.
It’s safe to say the project has been a political football since former mayor Rob Ford first ran and won on the idea in 2010 — a sound idea in theory but without a clearly articulated funding plan.
Of course, as politicians have played their little games, the costs escalated, and escalated. If the residents of Scarborough are lucky, they might see that one subway stop in Scarborough in 2026.
I still remember that night in March 2012 when former TTC chair Karen Stintz — who had been happy to go along with Ford’s subway plan when appointed to head the TTC in early 2011 — was jeered at a meeting at the Scarborough Civic Centre for deciding that LRTs were a much better option for Scarborough.
We really can’t blame Tory for the delays, although one has to seriously question the judgement of continuing with a one-stop subway at the outrageous cost of $3.3 billion (and counting).
I would also question why the city’s planning team has been allowed to engage in its own, shall we say, “holistic scoping” of the project — causing the cost to escalate by $401 million in less than seven months.
Tory spokesman Don Peat said the mayor will be listening to councillors and the community to understand what option they want for the bus terminal.
“Ultimately council will have to decide if it wants to spend $187 million on this stacked bus terminal,” he said.
Peat also suggested the mayor is confident he will get the extra $500 million not yet committed by the province.
“Given the Wynne government’s strong support for the Scarborough subway, we would expect it will match the city’s financial assumptions reflected in the report,” he said.
Maybe so.
But it’s little wonder our subway system is so pathetic compared to other world-class cities.
The fumbling, foot-dragging and flip-flopping make the politicians and bureaucrats who run our city look like bunch of rank amateurs.
