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Lost in the underground

As NOW goes to press, city council has approved a Scarborough subway – but the city won’t know until next year whether there will be enough money to build it.

At the end of a two-day debate, councillors voted 28-16 to replace the worn-out Scarborough RT by extending the Bloor-Danforth subway to Sheppard, finally giving Mayor Rob Ford the go-ahead for the suburban underground line he promised voters in his 2010 campaign.

The council meeting is ongoing.

In green-lighting the subway, council effectively reversed its decision of last February to replace the RT with a surface rail line fully funded by the province.

The expensive underground route could cost up to $1.6 billion more than the LRT, according to a report released by the city manager last week. To fund it, the city is trying to hold the province to contributing the $1.8 billion it budgeted for the LRT, as well as seeking at least $418 million from the federal government.

The city’s portion of the cost would come from a 1.1 to 2.4 per cent property tax increase and new development charges.

With no firm commitments from higher levels of government, council passed a series of motions aimed at limiting the city’s risk of backing an as-yet unfunded transit plan.

A motion moved successfully by Councillor Joe Mihevc stipulated that the subway approval was contingent on the feds providing 50 per cent of the net capital cost, the province contributing $1.8 billion and no money being diverted from the Transit City rail lines approved last year.

Council also asked that the province and Ottawa provide a funding commitment by September 30.

Before the vote, TTC chair Karen Stintz, who backed the subway proposal, said that if the money doesn’t materialize by January of 2014, the city could revert to the Scarborough LRT.

“We need to know by January whether or not we have a federal partner,” said Stintz. “If we don’t have a federal partner and we don’t have a provincial partner, then the LRT is still on the books.”

But whether work on the LRT could be restarted if the subway plan falls apart isn’t clear. The provincial transit agency, Metrolinx, has told the city it will halt work on the LRT unless council recommits to it by August 2.

A spokesperson for the agency couldn’t say if the light rail line could be revived at a later date. “We’d rather not speculate, as there are quite a variety of scenarios,” the rep wrote in an email.

There are also questions about whether building the Scarborough subway would jeopardize the Sheppard LRT, which council approved last year as part of the revived Transit City. Ottawa committed $333 million to that project in 2009, but during Tuesday’s debate Mayor Ford suggested the money could be reallocated to help fund his subway, a move that would likely sink the Sheppard LRT.

“It is for a Toronto transit project. They don’t tell us what project to spend the money on,” said Ford, who met with federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty over the weekend to discuss transit plans.

The mayor later modified his position, however. In a hastily prepared statement distributed by his staff, Ford said, “I am not looking to reallocate funding from Sheppard to this project, we need new money.”

But reached by phone Wednesday, a spokesperson for the finance minister’s office tells NOW the $333 million is not bound to any particular project.

Even with substantial federal and provincial funding, city taxpayers would be on the hook for the subway extension for decades to come.

On top of the estimated $1.6 billion premium for the subway, $450 million would also have to be found to institute automatic train control on the Bloor-Danforth line, which the Scarborough extension would bring to capacity. Renegotiating the LRT contract with Bombardier would also cost an unknown amount. According to the city manager, $85 million has already been spent on the Scarborough LRT.

Wednesday’s vote is only the latest twist in this term’s careening transit debate, which has seen rail lines cancelled, resurrected and then scuttled again. This round has made for some strange political bedfellows, with Mayor Ford and Stintz, a former LRT proponent, teaming up with conservatives, centrists and even leftists like Councillor Joe Mihevc to support the subway.

On the other side, Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, a conservative and member of the mayor’s executive, has emerged as the most vocal opponent of the subway extension along with Councillor Josh Matlow and city planner Jennifer Keesmaat.

At points during the debate, it’s unclear if Ford fully understands the LRT option he’s intent on torpedoing. In an explosive exchange with Matlow, he insists that the proposed surface rail line would disrupt car traffic despite the fact that it would run on its own right-of-way, not in the middle of any street.


Flip-flops across the great divide

“To go forward with this [subway] is wrong on so many different levels.”

Ford backer Denzil Minnan-Wong on why the subway plan should be defeated

“It’s possible to ask the good residents of Etobicoke and North York – to say, ‘You know what, [Scarborough] funded our [subway]. Now it’s time for us to fund theirs.'”

Lefty Joe Mihevc justifies his support for a subway

bens@nowtoronto.com | @bens

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