Updated October 2, 2013 at 10:30 am:
Metrolinx has sent
a letter to Toronto’s City Manager regarding the proposed Scarborough subway. Unlike some pronouncements from Queen’s Park, this takes a more conciliatory tone for discussions between Ontario and the City of Toronto. Notable points include:
- Metrolinx continues to believe that LRT “would provide an effective rapid transit solution to the transportation challenges in this area” within the available funding, but bows to the desire by all three levels of government to build a subway.
- Metrolinx is not dictating that a specific route be chosen, but wants a proper alternatives analysis as part of the Environmental Assessment. This contradicts earlier statements by the government implying that only one route was to be funded. It also implies that the shorter “Transit Project Assessment” process (which does not include the potentially embarrassing need to review alternatives) will not be used.
- The Province is sticking with a figure of $1.48-billion in available funding, from which must be deducted the $85m in sunk costs for the Scarborough LRT project and unspecified costs of scaling down the LRT car order from Bombardier.
- Although the $320m reserved for the Kennedy Station reconstruction with both the Eglinton and Scarborough LRT lines may not all be required, additional costs are expected at the Yonge-Eglinton interchange beyond the current project budget. Savings from Kennedy may be redirected to Yonge-Eglinton. If there is anything left of the $320m between the two projects, then it could be directed to the Scarborough subway.
- The Scarborough subway will be entirely a City/TTC project contrary to previous schemes for the LRT that would have seen provincial ownership and a PPP arrangement similar to that proposed for the Eglinton line. This begs a question regarding the accounting for the provincial funding contribution: if you don’t own the line, you can’t book the asset as an offset to the money spent on it. Does this mark a shift away from the creative accounting used to justify taking Toronto’s transit projects away from the TTC in the first place?
- Provincial funding will begin to flow in the 2018/19 fiscal year implying that no serious construction will be underway until then. The City and/or Federal government will have to front end the project with funding for the EA and preliminary engineering. All risk for project cost overruns will be to the City’s account.
- Infrastructure Ontario remains available to participate in this project, but this is no longer a requirement of the Province for funding. The decision on whether to use IO or to proceed with a conventional procurement (as on the Spadina extension) is up to the City of Toronto.
Not included in the letter, but reported through Twitter by John Michael McGrath, is a comment from Metrolinx that they are reviewing the timing of the Sheppard and Finch LRT projects.
This letter provides a more balanced response to Scarborough subway issue than some recent statements by Ontario Transportation Minister Glen Murray, and it is good to see Metrolinx acting as a reasonable broker rather than simply as a rubber stamp for ministerial musings. The next major step will be Council’s discussion of the matter at the October 8-9 meeting.
Updated September 25, 2013 at 10:30 pm:
Today’s TTC Board meeting was a procedural shambles when the time came to discuss the Scarborough Subway. The contentious name-calling and parochialism of some past debates lives on for at least one Commissioner, Glenn De Baeremaeker, who is so busy puffing up the importance of his own subway that he overstates his case. At one point, Councillor Josh Matlow spoke of the subway proposal as vote buying. De Baeremaeker did not take umbrage but Chair Karen Stintz did and asked Matlow to withdraw the remark. He refused and left the meeting as did another visitor, Councillor Carroll. Smug and over-confident do not begin to describe De Baeremaeker’s attitude which focuses on getting “what Scarborough deserves” above all other considerations.
Three sets of motions were proposed:
- The original recommendations of the staff report which asks that the Commission endorse the McCowan alignment for a subway extension from Kennedy Station to Sheppard.
- A set of motions by Chair Stintz:
- that the Commission continues to support LRT implementation on Eglinton, Sheppard East and Finch as per the master agreement with Metrolinx,
- asking that Metrolinx confirm their support for these projects, and
- asking that Metrolinx confirm that the Downtown Relief Line is the next priority for a subway project after the Scarborough extension.
- A motion by Commission Alan Heisey seeking a meeting between the TTC and Metrolinx boards to arrive at a mutually agreeable plan for future transit in Toronto.
- Commissioner Parker proposed an amendment that would have supported the original LRT proposal.
Some members of the Commission were uneasy with the large exposure for the City in future debt and the tax increases needed to finance the City share for the project. The “citizen” (non-Council) members of the Commission appear uneasy about the fact that they have never been asked to vote on the subway alternative until now, and as articulated by Commissioner Heisey, it would appear that their counterparts at Metrolinx have similarly been excluded from the debate.
When it came time for the vote the Stintz and Heisey motions passed easily, but Parker’s motion failed on a 2-9 vote. However, things came unglued on the main motion. Five Commissioners voted in favour, five against, and one, Nick Di Donato, wanted to abstain because he did not feel he had enough information to make a commitment to the subway line at this time. In this situation, the motion would have lost on a tie vote. Di Donato had not left the table, and so technically abstaining was not an option.
At this point, realizing what might happen, Chair Stintz called the vote again and Commissioner John Parker, who had voted in the negative, left the room to ensure that the motion supporting the McCowan alignment would pass unless Di Donato voted “no”. In the end, the vote was 6-4 in favour with Parker abstaining. This shows how divided the Commission is and how poorly support for the McCowan option was organized by the Chair before the meeting started.
In related news, some members of Council are swallowing hard to accept the level of taxation that may be required to finance the City’s share of the project. Some money will come from Development Charges, but the lion’s share, about 80%, will have to come from general tax revenue.
Meanwhile a
Forum Research Poll shows general support for the subway, but splits along regional lines and relative to past mayoral support. There is some support for the LRT option, but the poll question specified a level of tax support for the subway considerably lower than what is actually required to finance it. Support for the subway is higher among non-transit users than transit riders.
The whole matter will be debated at Council’s October 8 meeting.
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