The cost to build a one-stop subway extension in Scarborough is now estimated at $3.35 billion, according to a new city staff report released Tuesday after months of delay.
The updated cost is a $150-million increase over the earlier $3.2 billion estimate. Staff continue to recommend the subway be aligned with McCowan Ave. with changes to improve a connected bus terminal.
It brings the price of six kilometres of tunnel ending in a single subway stop addition at the Scarborough Town Centre closer to the $3.56 billion committed from all three levels of government for Scarborough transit.
Council had agreed to reduce the number of planned stops on a subway, meant to replace the six-stop Scarborough RT, from three to just one in order to use the savings to pay for a proposed light rail line along Eglinton Ave. East — what some councillors said bought “peace in the land” on the still contentious subway project.
That proposed 17-stop LRT is estimated to cost $1.6 billion. It’s unclear how council will pay for it with $33 billion in approved but unfunded capital projects on the books.
The updated numbers and plan for building the subway will be heard at executive committee next week and debated at council later next month.
Mayor John Tory is scheduled to speak to reporters alongside TTC chair Councillor Josh Colle and Tory-appointed champion of the subway Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker at a news conference Tuesday morning.
On Monday, Tory told reporters that he had yet to see the report headed to his executive committee next week, but said it was time to move on with the project.
“The Scarborough subway has been voted on quite a few times at city council,” he said. “This is a project we must proceed with. We’ve got to stop debating it. We’ve got to stop studying it. We’ve got to do it carefully, but we have to move forward with it.”
The subway has long been controversial at city hall. A flip-flop vote under former mayor Rob Ford cancelled plans for a seven-stop light rail line that would have been fully funded by the province.
When he ran in the 2014 mayoral election against Ford, whose voter support was strongest in outer suburbs like those in Scarborough, Tory promised to build the three-stop subway Ford had planned. As the estimated cost has continued to rise under his watch, Tory has remained committed to the project, calling it “the right thing to do.”
Councillors, advocates and academics critical of that plan have said residents would be better served by a network of LRT lines that would reach low-income neighbourhoods, both the Centennial College and University of Toronto Scarborough campuses, and provide local transit for which city staff has outlined demand.
Tory has been criticized for his push of capital projects he promised during the campaign despite evidence presented by staff about cheaper alternatives, including the rebuilding of the eastern section of the Gardiner instead of tearing it down for less than half the cost at a time when the city is facing a cash crisis while keeping property tax increases below the rate of inflation.
The city continues to collect a Scarborough subway tax on from all Toronto residents in order to raise the majority of the city’s $910 million share. The federal government has committed $660 million with the province promising $1.48 billion originally meant for the seven-stop LRT.
The auditor general is currently investigating the flawed process that led to the approval of the subway after a public complaint.
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