wrong. GO never promised to build St.Clair, Liberty Village, Gerrard, Lawerence, Unilever, Finch stations.
GO's been talking about some of those for years - and they were talking about Cherry as well. Lawrence doesn't look like it's a go.
Still, we are talking about 5 or 6 stations at most beyond what RER was going to deliver (and probably less, given there are more stations being added to the non-SmartTrack lines at the same time. Tory sold us on subway-frequency SmartTrack service at TTC fares. Instead we have some new stations. A new GO platform on existing track, without a parking structure isn't that expensive.
If you look at the, for example, Metrolinx's cost of building St. Clair station is $27.4 million, assuming there's no property to purchase, and another $2 million for design.
So say 6 stations at $30 million apiece. So at best SmartTrack would cost city only $180 million. Tory however bid against himself, and put the price tag at $8 billion, offering to pay for a share. Most of it was for existing RER promises.
What was the last city offer? $800 million plus the Eglinton West LRT to Renforth - which the province had already previously committed to fund? Another $billion?
So we are in for about $2 billion instead of about $200 million.
Show me a single document prior to Smarttrack that showed any interest in this by Metrolinx. This is misinformation spread to discredit Tory by the left.
There's many, many documents discussing most of those stations over the years.
But hang on, what about the other stations that Metrolinx is recommending on the other 3 RER lines? On the Barrie line there's Spadina, Bloor and 3 north of the city - in addition to the Eglinton and Sheppard stations they'd already committed to - 7 new stations. On Lakeshore East there's new stations at Gerrard and Unilever - which yes are SmartTrack, but have a lot more to do with the DRL than SmartTrack (and were in Metrolinx DRL reports before Tory was mayor). On the Kitchener corridor they'd already announced Mount Dennis and Breslau. I'm not sure we'd have had all 6 of the new Smarttrack stations, but it seems unlikely we wouldn't have had some of them.
And don't give me the "oh they would have done it anyways". The real world isn't made up of what if's.
And yet they are doing Mount Dennis, Sheppard (Downsview Park), Eglinton (Caledonia), Bloor (Lansdowne), and Spadina (Bathurst Yard) - That's 5 new stations we are getting anyways, no related to SmartTrack, even ignoring that one transfer point between the Lakeshore East and DRL was going to give us a station.
Just like York Region had to pay for their part of the Line 1 Spadina Extension, it is only FAIR that Toronto pays for added stations that they want.
Which are worth about $30 million each, before GO builds parking the city doesn't need, and overbuilds the station completely. And why isn't York Region paying part of all the proposed new stations in York Region? (Kirby, Mulock, Innisfil, Gormley, Bloomington, and longer term plans for Concord (407 Transitway).
