John Tory might be gone as Mayor, but SmartTrack clings on like grim death even in his absence. A report before an upcoming meeting of Toronto’s Executive Committee shows that the total cost of the five remaining stations is estimated by Metrolinx at $1.697 billion, yes that’s with a “b”, or $234 million higher than the City’s $1.463 billion budget for this work.
Federal funding of $585 million has already been committed, but the remaining $1.112 billion is on the City’s dime. The City’s share will come from “development charges, tax increment financing and the City Building Fund” [CBF] according to the report. The CBF is an extra levy on the City Property Tax (recently extended to compensate for increased borrowing costs) that will help to pay for one of John Tory’s legacies.
Metrolinx seeks full reimbursement for this amount, but the City in March directed “the City Manager to negotiate with the Province of Ontario for the Province to commit to paying all amounts above the original Program Budget”. Negotiations are ongoing and a supplementary report will follow at an unspecified date.
The station locations are shown below, and they include a key station a East Harbour that will be the interchange between GO Transit, the Ontario Line and a possible future Broadview Avenue streetcar extension into the Port Lands. Why the City is paying for a major regional interchange is something of a mystery, but even worse is the fact that we now face a per-station cost of about $340 million for surface rail stations. The exact numbers are shrouded in the usual Metrolinx secrecy.
This is a sad story where too much political capital has been expended for anyone to ask just why we are building these stations, and especially why the SmartTrack moniker survives. With all of the hand-wringing over City budgets, the survival of at least some of these stations as City-funded projects should be reconsidered.
Steve Munro 
Quick question: I live close by and was looking over the fence closely today at the ‘Bloor-Lansdowne Station’ site. Doubling the Bloor overpass and track alignment is an obvious work at this time.
But where does the status of the station lay?
I see conflicting references, such as on Marit Stiles’ site.
Many thanks in advance, the more I Google, the more the confusion increases.
Steve: Until the City agrees to the program, Metrolinx won’t launch it.
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So Metrolinx would have us believe that above ground concrete pads cost as much as large underground subway stations? That sounds pretty fraudulent to me. They’re likely trying to squeeze more money from other stakeholders to shore up their own budgets.
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Huh… Bill 109 retroactively reduced development charges around transit stations, cut DC-eligible services and required that any increases be phased in over many years.
The province has promised that cities “will be made whole” for any losses, but one might question their credibility.
So this GO station project is running over budget and Metrolinx doesn’t want to chip in, but is a chunk of the already committed funding also being shifted onto the city’s tax base?
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I can understand a regional hub getting out of cost control and shooting up into the $300M range.
However, the designs for Finch-Kennedy, St. Clair-Old Weston and Bloor-Lansdowne are not elaborate designs. So some peripheral costs are getting slid into the scope of King-Liberty and East Harbour.
In the more recent transit expansion projects around the province, the cities are on the hook for up to 33%. The same should apply to Toronto. It would be preferable to have each level of government assigned to particular stations, because it can help with cost containment and accountability – if each government is each actually solely responsible for the projects. (i.e. not having Metrolinx gold brick the projects and simply hand the City a bill).
I don’t know the total cost of stations outside Union, but I’d be surprised if the province was building $3B of stations in the GTA, much less Toronto alone.
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How can five above ground stations cost 1.6 billion? How big are these station buildings that it would cost 800 homes to build these 5 stations?
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For an idea of comparative British Rail costs here is there newest station:
British rail opened a new station at Reading Green Park on May 27, 2023, for a cost of 20 million £. It has two 150 m (490 foot) long platforms, an overpass with two elevators and runs with diesel multiple unit stock. I cannot determine if this is the cost for the part just opened or if it includes the future 200 car parking structure. This is a pretty minimalist station by any standards. Here are two links to it.
Wikipedia
New Civil Engineer
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I would be very interested to see breakdown of cost per station. $300 million for simple stations like Finch-Kennedy or Bloor-Lansdowne is obvious bonkers, and even for the King-Liberty station which is in a constrained area is a ton.
I’m suspecting that the majority of this $1.7 billion quote is for work at East Harbour, and Metrolinx is trying to take City for a ride by having us pay for barely-related work on their regional rail project there.
Thank you John Tory! (/s)
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As a comparison, the Rutherford GO expansion project (existing station, no other rail transfers) cost $239 million and was completed in 2022. If 5 brand new stations are costing close to 1.7B (which I assume includes land acquisition and accounts for inflation), it doesn’t seem so off.
The scope of work is linked here.
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That Rutherford GO project page says the cost included the new underpass of Rutherford Road itself in addition to station building, parking building, and track and platform work.
St. Clair-Weston, Bloor-Lansdowne, and King-Liberty will not have a parking building or new road grade separation so the cost should be lower. I seem to recall Finch-Kennedy will have a new grade separation, though why exactly the City is paying for that has always been somewhat of a mystery.
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The plans for St. Clair-Weston are elaborate. Three major road works appear to be bundled into the project?
In this presentation, David Hopper (Technical Advisor? an Engineer for Delcan, involved in the planning, I guess?) says:
And
And
For the cycling folk (myself included!)..
The 50 foot concrete wall they plan to put behind Brickworks Lane is going to pretty horrible!
(yes, I have an interest in those townhouses..)
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$340 million does seem to be a stretch, but the surface stations GO are installing do have a lot of amenities, such as
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The plans for the St. Clair-Weston area do seem extensive and probably mostly useful for development of the area. But why is building several new car roads, widening an existing car road, and building a multi-use trail part of “transit” spending? That only hands arguments to people who want to claim we can’t afford transit.
How many heated waiting areas does a million dollars buy?
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Too bad they didn’t include the steps. The steps end with snow needing shovelling, which means a lower priority before the parking lots or roadways get cleared first.
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